Liverpool-born Bill Kenwright, a successful theatre producer and Everton FC chairman for the past 19 years, has died aged 78. Kenwright was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and recently underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his liver. His death is a great loss to the football club as he had long been regarded as “a chairman, a leader, a friend, and an inspiration”.
Kenwright’s career began as an actor and musician, but he later moved into producing, staging musicals such as Blood Brothers and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. During his six-decade career, he produced more than 500 West End, Broadway, UK touring and international theatre productions, films and music albums. He was responsible for some of the largest and most-watched stage shows in the last 50 years of UK theatre.
In 2001, Kenwright was awarded a CBE in the new year honours list for services to film and theatre; he also received four Tony Awards. As an actor, he starred as Gordon Clegg in Coronation Street, and also appeared in shows including Dream Team and England, My England. Everton FC, of which he was a boyhood fan, said that he was their longest-serving chairman for over a century and had “led the club through a period of unprecedented change in English football”.
Despite being bestowed with a CBE in 2001 and being well regarded for his contributions to the arts, Kenwright’s time as Chairman had its fair share of controversies. The club endured the longest trophy drought in its history and several stadium projects collapsing on his watch. In 2016, after a lengthy search for new investment, Kenwright sold the majority of his stake to Farhad Moshiri, who allowed him to remain as chairman
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