Sir Jeremy Israel Isaacs was born on 28 September 1932 and is a Scottish television producer and executive, and an opera manager.
16 Facts About Jeremy Isaacs
1.
2.
Jeremy Isaacs won the BAFTA Fellowship in 1985, the British Film Institute Fellowship in 1986, and the International Emmy Directorate Award in 1987.
3.
Jeremy Isaacs was the General Director of the Royal Opera House from 1987 to 1996.
4.
Jeremy Isaacs was born in Glasgow from what were described as "Scottish Jewish roots".
5.
Jeremy Isaacs grew up in Hillhead, the son of a jeweller and a GP, and is a cousin to virologist Alick Isaacs.
6.
Jeremy Isaacs was educated at the independent Glasgow Academy and Merton College, Oxford, where he read Classics.
7.
Jeremy Isaacs began his career in television when he joined Granada Television in Manchester as a producer in 1958.
8.
Jeremy Isaacs worked for the BBC's Panorama in the 1960s and was the overall producer for the 26-episode series The World at War for Thames Television.
9.
Jeremy Isaacs was Director of Programmes for Thames between 1974 and 1978.
10.
Jeremy Isaacs produced Ireland: A Television History for the BBC and co-produced the twenty-four episode television documentary series Cold War and the ten-part series Millennium.
11.
Jeremy Isaacs was the founding chief executive of Channel 4 between 1981 and 1987, overseeing its launch period and setting the channel's original cultural approach with opera and foreign language film, although programmes with popular appeal such as the game show Countdown, the pop music series The Tube, and soap opera Brookside had a place in the schedule from the beginning.
12.
The channel commissioned Michael Elliott's production of King Lear with Laurence Olivier in the title role and Jeremy Isaacs recommissioned a number of programmes from his time at Granada including What the Papers Say.
13.
When handing over responsibility for running the channel to Michael Grade, Jeremy Isaacs threatened to throttle him if he betrayed the trust placed in him to respect the channel's remit.
14.
Jeremy Isaacs served on the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute in the 1980s.
15.
Between 1997 and 2000, Jeremy Isaacs was president of the Royal Television Society.
16.
Jeremy Isaacs was chairman of Artsworld before it was sold to Sky.