Lorn Alastair "Johnnie" Stewart (7 November 1917 – 29 April 2005) was a British television producer who worked for the BBC, noted mostly for his role in creating the long-running music programme ''

Top of the Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most o ...

''.

Early life and career

Born as Lorn Alastair Stewart, in

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populat ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, Stewart was the son of Dr Haldane Campbell Stewart, who was also musical but in a different sphere – he was organist and choirmaster at Magdalen College, Oxford, the director of music at the

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

, Kent, and also notable as a cricketer at Kent County Cricket Club. As a child, Stewart's family played as a string quartet, with Stewart and his sister Jean playing violin, his father playing viola, and his mother playing cello. His sister Jean went on to become a noted performer on viola, performing as a soloist, and in chamber music and orchestras. She performed with the Menges Quartet, the London Bach Orchestra and the

English Baroque Soloists The English Baroque Soloists is a chamber orchestra playing on period instruments, formed in 1978 by English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Its repertoire comprises music from the early Baroque to the Classical period. History The English B ...

. Stewart's grandfather, John Stewart, was the sixth Baron Appin, and a barrister of Lincoln's Inn. Stewart started off his

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

career in the

BBC radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...

s department in the late 1930s. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

he worked in the Middle East as a wireless operator and later worked in intelligence. After the war, in 1946, he married Sheila Williamson. He returned to the BBC and produced a number of radio music programmes, which included ''Sing It Again'' and ''BBC Jazz Club''. He was able to sign up Frank Sinatra for a fee of only fifty pounds as a guest for Cyril Stapleton's ''Show Band Show''. In 1958 he produced ''

Juke Box Jury ''Juke Box Jury'' was a music panel show which ran on BBC Television between 1 June 1959 and 27 December 1967. The programme was based on the American show '' Jukebox Jury'', itself an offshoot of a long-running radio series. The American serie ...

'' for BBC Television. Continuing the

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...

al theme, in 1963 the BBC recorded a pilot chart show, which Stewart produced. Originally called ''The Teen and Twenty Record Club'', it emerged onto the UK screens as ''

'', which continued on the air until 2006. Its initial presenters, on a rotational basis, were Jimmy Savile, David Jacobs,

Alan Freeman Alan Leslie Freeman, MBE (6 July 1927 – 27 November 2006), nicknamed "Fluff", was an Australian-born British disc jockey and radio personality in the United Kingdom for 40 years, best known for presenting '' Pick of the Pops'' from 1961 to ...

and Pete Murray.

Samantha Juste Samantha Juste (born Sandra Slater; 31 May 1944 – 5 February 2014) was a British model and television presenter who appeared in the mid-1960s as the "disc girl" on the BBC television programme ''Top of the Pops''. In 1968, she married Micky ...

, one of the programme's assistants, sat alongside them and placed the records on a turntable. Stewart remained as producer of the programme until 1973, when he was succeeded by

Robin Nash Robert Henry Douglas Drane (10 March 1927 – 18 June 2011), known professionally as Robin Nash, was a British television producer and executive, who was probably best known as producer of ''Top of the Pops'' from 1973 to 1980. At the BBC, he beca ...

. In 1970, he produced the BBC/

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

TV show '' Pop Go The Sixties'', broadcast across Europe on 1 January 1970.

After work

Stewart finally retired to Ibiza but returned to the UK when his health deteriorated. He died in East Dereham,

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, aged 87.

References

External links

*
Johnnie Stewart – The Independent
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stewart, Johnnie 1917 births 2005 deaths British television producers People from Dereham People from Tonbridge