Terry Jervis (born 1962) is a British media producer, entrepreneur and business executive, working for more than three decades across the entertainment industry in film, music and television, having begun his career as a broadcast journalist. Jervis has worked with many high-profile musicians, including

Diana Ross Diana Ross (born Diane Ernestine Earle Ross March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. Known as the "Queen of Motown Records", she was the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown#Major divisions, Motown's most suc ...

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris (; Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th c ...

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

and

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...

. After being employed by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

for 20 years, he set up his independent venture Jervis Media Entertainment.

Biography

Jervis was born in Hackney, east London, England, where he grew up in a single-parent family on an estate. In a 1996 interview with Sarita Malik, he spoke about his start in television, saying: "I actually used to make films on 16mm and Super-8mm back in the late 1970s when I had aspirations of starting my own movie company. I'd made a film called From Gospel To Soul about the life of

Sam Cooke Samuel Cooke (; January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964) was an American singer and songwriter. Considered one of the most influential soul music, soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred to as the "King of Soul" for his distin ...

and I put it on at a local cinema and a lot of people turned up to see it including people from

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, the

, Sam Cooke's daughter and

Bobby Womack Robert Dwayne Womack ( ; March 4, 1944 – June 27, 2014) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Starting in the early 1950s as the lead singer of his family musical group the Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's ...

, totally uninvited. Then Channel 4 gave me a call and said we're launching this new station..., 'Would you like to come on board with a couple of productions we have at the moment?' So I did." Before long, Jervis joined the

, where he worked for 15 years, running his own department at the age of 27, and counting among his successes as producer/director the comedy show ''

The Real McCoy "The real McCoy" is an idiom and metaphor used in much of the English-speaking world to mean "the real thing" or "the genuine article", e.g. "he's the real McCoy". The phrase has been the subject of numerous false etymologies. History The p ...

''. Among other widely viewed BBC programmes he created are the Black music magazine programme ''Behind the Beat'' (1987–91) and ''Our Common Future''. In 1999, Jervis set up his own production company, Jervis Entertainment Media (JEM), continuing to provide programming that won critical acclaim. Documentary shows he directed include ''Raising Tennis Aces: The Williams Story'', about the relationship of tennis stars

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

and

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WT ...

with their father

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...

. Other initiatives by Jervis included his

Motown Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. Founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, it was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau ...

-linked record label, Down To Jam, and animation projects such as the calypso-based Tropical Island. Jervis has also been concerned to commemorate the contributions of Africans, West Indians and other people of colour in the Second World War, including former RAF officer

Cy Grant Cyril Ewart Lionel Grant (8 November 1919 – 13 February 2010) was a Guyanese actor, musician, writer, poet and World War II veteran. In the 1950s, he became the first black person to be featured regularly on television in Britain, Gus Joh ...

. A photograph of Jervis was one of those featured in the 2019

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

exhibition ''Black is the New Black: Portraits by Simon Frederick''.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jervis, Terry 1962 births 20th-century British businesspeople 21st-century British businesspeople Black British businesspeople British mass media company founders British media executives Businesspeople from the London Borough of Hackney Living people