Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: bankley
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 08:09 AM

sounds like "la joie de vivre" .... Quebec has had her share of pioneering 'entertainment' personalities over the years...
Mr. Cossette is high up on the list

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: GUEST,Matt L.
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 02:06 AM

He was a great man, a special personality, and as full of good energy as a person could ever be.

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: Beer
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 06:33 PM

Thanks for that Ron. I have sent information to the local paper which only comes out once a week and that is on Wednesday. So maybe they do have an article prepared.   If not I'm sure they will follow up .
Adrien

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: bankley
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 04:49 PM

I just checked that article again... here's the last 2 paragraphs

" Cossette's wife Mary and son John are planning memorial services for him in Los Angeles and St. Anicet. Details will be announced shortly. The family wishes that any donations to be made in Pierre Cossette's memory go to the Barrie Memorial Hospital Ladies' Auxiliary in Ormstown."

'Pierre was the ultimate producer to the very end' Mary Cossette said yesterday. 'He wanted to return to his roots here to die, and somehow he managed to do it. He was so proud of his French-Canadian heritage and loved this country with all his heart'

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: bankley
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 04:31 PM

There was an obit in the Sat. Mtl. Gazette... That's how I found out, plus the Ormstown connection and his summer home in St.Anicet was mentioned...   he died close to where he was born (Valleyfield)

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 03:58 PM

Thanks for posting this, gnu, and Joe.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: Beer
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 03:05 PM

AAAAAAhhhhh!!! Beer! Hell if I know.
Wow!
I'm going to inform the local newspaper about this. Maybe they will do a follow up .
Thanks Gnu for this.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: bankley
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 09:08 AM

yep... but 'beer' didn't have anything to do with it, I'm sure...

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: gnu
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 03:03 PM

Beer?

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: bankley
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 02:54 PM

another Quebec native who heavily influenced the music business...
a real pioneer

interestingly, he died in Ormstown PQ

RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: gnu
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 02:10 PM

Sorry, Joe... I suppose I could have provided a small blurb type excerpt, but I try to follow policy and use links instead of cut and paste.

Yes... that does sound rather silly... gnu trying to follow policy... hahahahahaa!

Subject: RE: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 01:28 PM

Probably worth posting the text of that one.

Canadian producer Pierre Cossette, father of Grammy Awards, dies at 85

By Nick Patch, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Pierre Cossette, the Canadian father of the modern Grammy Awards show, has died at a Montreal hospital. He was 85.

His death was announced in Santa Monica, Calif., late Friday by the Recording Academy. Academy president and CEO Neil Portnow paid glowing tribute to Cossette.

"It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our dear friend and father of the Grammy Awards, Pierre Cossette," he said.

The Valleyfield, Que., native was an accomplished television and theatre producer who also managed some of American pop music's most influential early bands.

But he's best known as the visionary who guided the Grammy Awards from its early days as a stuffy, unsuccessful production to the widescreen industry institution it's become.

In its early years, the Grammy show was an hour-long compilation of recorded performances, and it was not a commercial success.

When the production rights became available in 1971, Cossette already had a successful career in the music business as a producer and manager.

He had the ambitious idea to turn the show into a grand musical showcase, full of live performances. He had no end of trouble trying to sell networks on his vision for the show.

Executives were particularly skeptical that there was an audience for a performance-based TV show.

But Cossette - nicknamed "Showbiz" - persevered.

The Grammy Museum, which opened in December 2008, is called the Pierre Cossette Center and contains a corner exhibit dedicated to the feisty Canadian.

In an interview before the 2009 Grammy Awards, Cossette said the acknowledgment served as validation of his life's work.

"I was thrilled," he said. "I could only think back to when we first started it, in ballrooms and dance halls and hotel rooms, and (then it) finally growing up to this monster thing. And all the trials, tribulations of getting there. Booking the places then having to cancel because either the Academy or the record industry wouldn't support it. My part of it, proving them wrong, was exciting for me".

"I was crying like a baby when I saw that sign." Prior to working on the Grammys, Cossette served as personal manager for Ann Margret, Vic Damone, Dick Shawn, and Rowan & Martin. He is credited with pioneering the Las Vegas lounge act format.

Soon, Cossette struck out on his own by founding Dunhill Records, where the roster included the Mamas and the Papas, Steppenwolf, Johnny Rivers and Three Dog Night.

Yet Cossette would take another left turn not long after, selling the label to plunge into the next phase of his career as a television producer.

He began by producing Johnny Mann's "Stand Up and Cheer" and soon expanded his roster of shows to include "The Glen Campbell Show," Sammy Davis's "Sammy and Company," "Salute," "ShaNaNa," and "The Andy Williams Show." Cossette's relationship with Williams would prove vital.

Even after Cossette's diligent campaigning, a network would only consent to broadcast his live Grammy Awards show after Williams signed on as host.

But that wasn't the only early hurdle Cossette had to clear. In his first year, he was worried that he wouldn't have a full audience. So he went out on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles and persuaded strangers on the street to come into the Hollywood Palladium for the show.

For Cossette, who produced the show until 2005, the struggles he initially endured only made the ultimate success of the show more rewarding.

"Starting with an idea you couldn't sell to anybody," he once said. "Failure, failure, failure. And then success, success, success. Just climbing that mountain".

"Put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel?"

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Subject: Obit: Canadian producer Pierre Cossette
From: gnu
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 12:09 PM

Pierre.