Don Arden
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Don Arden (born Harry Levy, January 4, 1926) is an English music manager, agent and businessman, best known for overseeing the careers of rock groups Small Faces, Electric Light Orchestra and Black Sabbath. He is also notorious for his aggressive and unflinching business methods. He is the father of Sharon Osbourne (and therefore father-in-law of Ozzy Osbourne), and David Levy, by his late wife, Hope.
Arden's success story turned sour when his violent 'negotiating' methods and questionable accounting caught up with him, and he became estranged from his own family.
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[edit] History
Born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England (though in an interview with Katie Melua, his daughter Sharon Osbourne said that he was born in Georgia, in Eastern Europe[1]), Arden began his showbusiness career when he was just 13 years old as a singer and stand-up comic. After being demobilised from the British army at the end of World War II, Don returned to carve out his showbiz career from 1946 to 1953.
Arden worked as an entertainer on the British variety circuit. He impersonated famous tenors, like Enrico Caruso, and movie gangsters such as Edward G. Robinson and George Raft. At weekends, Yiddish-speaking Don wowed Jewish audiences with his Al Jolson routine. He gave up performing in 1954 to become a showbiz agent. He cut his teeth by organising Hebrew folk song contests, then started putting together his own shows.
Arden signed up American rock'n'roller, Gene Vincent, in 1960 and launched his career as a manager. After several years of bringing American rock'n'rollers including Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Vincent to tour Britain, Arden became Vincent's manager. To this day, Arden swears Vincent is the best singer he ever worked with, though not even Arden's firm managerial hand could control Vincent's compulsive alcoholism. For a short period of time in the early 1960's he managed up and coming UK singer Elkie Brooks who went on to become a household name some years later.
In 1965, Don met aspiring rock band Small Faces in his office in Carnaby Street. Half an hour later he had signed them up. Don Arden was immediately struck by the potential of Small Faces: 'I thought at that time, on the first hearing, I thought it was the best band in the world.' Kenney Jones, Small Faces' drummer, recalls: 'He was kind of a Jewish teddy bear I suppose. You liked him immediately because he was enthusiastic and he talked about what he could do and what he couldn't do and whenever he said - "I'll do this, I'll do that" - he did and it came true.'
[edit] The Robert Stigwood incident
In 1966, Don and a squad of 'minders' turned up at impresario Robert Stigwood's office to 'teach him a lesson' for daring to discuss a change of management with Small Faces. This became one of the most notorious incidents from the 1960s British pop business. Don wanted it to be like a scene from a gangster movie with Stigwood threatened with being thrown out of the window if he ever interfered with Don's business again.
In 1967 Don sold the Small Faces' contract to Andrew Oldham, the former manager of The Rolling Stones. Oldham paid Arden £25,000 in cash, and delivered it at Don's request in a brown paper bag.
The band were never entirely convinced that Don had paid them everything he owed them. Kenney Jones has mixed memories of the band's stormy relationship with Don: 'Without Don, The Small Faces may not have existed, without his sort of vision at that time, be it short-lived or what. The fact is we became known and we got a break through Don. So if you think of it like that and I think all of us are prepared to swallow what went on, leave it, fine, it's history. We all learned from each other, he gave us our first break, fine, fair enough, you know, leave it. I've got good and bad memories but mainly I think of Don with affection, surprisingly enough.'
Arden tried to rekindle his former glories as a family entertainer by releasing a single of his own in 1967: Sunrise Sunset, from the musical Fiddler On The Roof. It failed to chart, but at least bears out his sister Eileen's assertion that 'he had a lovely voice'.
Don returned to management in 1968 when he signed The Move. Don struck gold in 1972 and 1973 when two groups formed by ex-Move members, ELO and Wizzard, started having international hits. Wizzard scored back-to-back number ones with 'See My Baby Jive' and 'Angel Fingers' in 1973, while ELO's '10538 Overture' (1972) and 'Roll Over Beethoven' (1973) were merely the start of a string of international hits that would stretch into the Eighties.
Don took over management of petite singer-songwriter Lynsey De Paul in 1973. By 1976, Arden was embroiled in a lawsuit with the distraught singer over what she claimed was late payment of monies owed to her. She eventually reached a settlement with Arden in 1978.
[edit] Estrangement from Sharon Osbourne
In 1979, one of Arden's successes Black Sabbath sacked their vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. Arden's daughter Sharon began to date Ozzy, and took over his management from her father. Don Arden was livid. Reportedly, the next time Sharon visited Don, his vicious pet dogs savaged her. She was pregnant, and lost the child. Sharon eventually married Ozzy and had no contact with her father for 20 years. In 2001 she told The Guardian newspaper "The best lesson I ever had was watching him f*** his business up. He taught me everything not to do. My father's never even seen any of my three kids and, as far as I'm concerned, he never will." However, the following year, under Ozzy's insistence, Sharon and the now-widowed Don finally reconciled, shown on the successful reality TV show The Osbournes. He also met his grandchildren Jack, Kelly, and likely the camera-shy Aimee.
Also in 1979, burly investigative reporter Roger Cook used the dispute with De Paul to probe into Arden's controversial management style on BBC Radio 4's Checkpoint programme. This proved to be a colourful encounter. 'When you fight the champion you go 15 rounds, you've got to be prepared to go the whole way,' Arden tells Cook. 'I'll take you with one hand strapped up my arse. You're not a man, you're a creep.'
From the late '70s into the early '80s, Arden enjoyed the high-rolling lifestyle of a top music mogul. He started his own record label, Jet. He brought his son David and daughter Sharon Osbourne into the business, planning to build an Arden showbiz dynasty. With albums like Out of the Blue and Discovery, ELO became one of the world's biggest acts. Arden bought Howard Hughes' former house in Beverly Hills.
Don's son, known legally as David Levy, appeared at the Old Bailey in 1986 for his role in an alleged assault on an accountant working for Jet records. Convicted, David spent several months in jail. Don, tried separately on related charges, was acquitted.
The drawn-out legal problems meant Don was unable to attend to business, and legal bills proved a fatal strain on Jet Records, which collapsed. Don had already fallen out with his daughter Sharon, who embarked on her own successful management career with her husband and major client, Ozzy Osbourne. The court case and David's prison sentence put paid to Don's dreams of a family empire.
A longtime widower, from 1986 to the mid-90s, Arden retreated from the hurly-burly of showbusiness, shuttling between his homes in Beverly Hills and Surrey, England. Currently Don is reported to be in poor health (on an October 26, 2006 broadcast of the Opie and Anthony radio show, Sharon stated he has Alzheimer's Disease), but, nevertheless, in August 2004, he published a "tell all" autobiography entitled Mr. Big.
[edit] Further reading
- Mr. Big: Ozzy, Sharon and my life as the godfather of rock - Don Arden & Mick Wall, 2004, ISBN 1-86105-607-9
[edit] External links
- Don Arden's official site (archive link, was dead; history)
- The Osbourne's FAQ
