Fred O’Donovan

Showbusiness impresario Fred O’Donovan was born in Dublin on May 27, 1927, the son of John and Kathleen O’Donovan. He attended St Joseph’s CBS, Fairview, and later studied electronics at Kevin Street technical college.
In 1944 he joined the RAF with his friend Cathal O’Shannon. While stationed at Long Kesh, the American singer Paul Robeson visited to entertain army personnel and Fred O’Donovan got his first taste of showbiz when he helped to stage the performance.
He later served with an intelligence unit, searching for both missing allied soldiers and Nazis in hiding. The unit located more than 11,000 of those they were looking for; many were dead, and most of the survivors were ill or shell-shocked.
There followed a year in a Swiss sanatorium, where he received treatment for tuberculosis. The illness ended his hopes of becoming a professional footballer, and the RAF paid for him to be trained by the BBC as a radio producer.
Having worked with a touring repertory company in Britain, he returned to Ireland in the early 1950s for a holiday but decided to stay and became an assistant stage manager at the Gaiety Theatre, working with Cyril Cusack and Tyrone Guthrie.
He produced sponsored programmes for Radio Eireann, and later produced numerous Christmas pantomimes as well as the long-running variety shows Gaels of Laughter , starring Maureen Potter, and Jurys’ Irish Cabaret.
Other productions included Juno and the Paycock and Man and Superman with actor Peter O’Toole at the Gaiety, a television special, The Bing Crosby Show, and a film profile of Brendan Behan, Meet the Quare Fella. His variety show Ireland on Parade toured the US. In the course of his career he had dealings with writers including Seán O’Casey and George Bernard Shaw.
He turned his attention to producing radio shows and became managing director of Eamonn Andrews Studios in 1957, beginning a working relationship that lasted 24 years. The company’s interests included the Portmarnock Country Club, the Gaiety Theatre, Television Club, a share in the Dolphin Hotel and a recording studio. The association with Andrews ended abruptly, with a substantial financial settlement in O’Donovan’s favour.
He was chairman of the board of the National Concert Hall from 1981 to 1986.
In 1981, he was appointed chairman of the RTÉ Authority. He was close to Fianna Fail Taoiseach Charlie Haughey (they went to the same school) and at the time of the 1983 abortion referendum was opposed to a special RTE Late Late Show dealing with the issue. He was already known to be opposed to abortion and was accused of abusing his position.
In 1988 he was appointed a member of the Independent Radio and Television Commission, established to award Ireland’s first commercial broadcasting licences. When, in 1989, Radio 2000 was licensed to broadcast in Dublin, it emerged that Fred O’Donovan was a former director of E-Sat TV, a major shareholder in Radio 2000. The award of the licence was unsuccessfully challenged in the courts.
Fred O’Donovan served as a governor of Dublin’s Harcourt Street Children’s Hospital and, with Dr Austin Darragh, was a founder of the Conquer Cancer Campaign.
His role in saving the Gaiety from extinction by having the building listed was acknowledged at a ceremony in November 2009,  followed a few months later by a one-off production of Gaels of Laughter in his honour.
Fred O’Donavan died on May 14, 2010. He was survived by his wife Sally Tennent, whom he married in 1956, their daughters Fiona, Sally Ann and Penny and son Freddie, and his brother Bill, former head of RTÉ 2fm.