Lorn Alastair Stewart was a British television producer who worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation, noted mostly for his role in creating the long-running music programme Top of the Pops.
Background
Born in Tonbridge, Kent, Stewart was the son of Doctor 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, Kent, and also notable as a cricketer at Kent County Cricket Club.
Career
She performed with the Menges Quartet, the London Bach Orchestra and the English Baroque Soloists. Stewart"s grandfather, John Stewart, was the sixth Baron Appin, and a barrister of Lincoln"s Inn. Stewart started off his entertainment career in the British Broadcasting Corporation radio sound effects department in the late 1930s.
During the Second World War he worked in the Middle East as a wireless operator and later worked in intelligence.
He returned to the British Broadcasting Corporation and produced a number of radio music programmes, which included Sing lieutenant Again and British Broadcasting Corporation 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 for British Broadcasting Corporation Television. Continuing the popular musical theme, in 1963 the British Broadcasting Corporation recorded a pilot chart show, which Stewart produced.
Originally called The Teen and Twenty Record Club, it emerged onto the United Kingdom screens as Top of the Pops, which continued on the air until 2006.
Its initial presenters, on a rotational basis, were Jimmy Savile, David Jacobs, Alan Freeman and Pete Murray. Samantha Juste, 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.
In 1970, he produced the British Broadcasting Corporation/ZDF television show People’s Go The Sixties, broadcast across Europe on 1 January 1970.
Stewart finally retired to Ibiza but returned to the United Kingdom when his health deteriorated. He died in East Dereham, Norfolk, aged 87.