‘Lord’ Tim Hudson
DJ, pop impresario, voice-over artist, cricket fan, chancer and one-time agent of Ian Botham
‘LORD” TIM HUDSON, who has died aged 79, rode the coat-tails of the “British Invasion” of the 1960s to become a successful radio DJ in Los Angeles, but later became known for a brief, hapless stint as Ian Botham’s agent.
Having made a fortune in property development in California in the 1970s, in 1984 he bought Birtles Old Hall, a Georgian mansion in Cheshire with its own cricket ground, and set out to bring glamour to the English game.
Installing the former England captain Brian Close as his cricket manager, Hudson hoped that the “Birtles Bowl” would become the venue for a celebrity league: “Start the day with a brass band, have Pink Floyd playing throughout the match and then a calypso band from close of play until the early hours” was his vision.
The scheme foundered after Mick Jagger did not respond to Hudson’s invitation to form an XI. He did, however, persuade England players to take part in benefit matches, with a memorable encounter between teams skippered by Botham and Geoffrey Boycott in 1984.
Hudson, realising that nobody in the cricket establishment seemed willing to exploit Botham’s tabloidfriendly charisma, offered to take him under his wing. Botham, at a low ebb after the press had turned on him following his arrest for possessing cannabis, later admitted that he had been “ripe for the plucking” when Hudson laid on the flattery, calling him “the greatest British hero since Wellington or Nelson”.
Despite the misgivings of his wife, Kathy, Botham was inveigled into substituting Hudson for his longstanding agent, Reg Hayter. He later ruefully admitted that he had been impressed by Hudson’s obvious wealth: “He also had a certain hippiemeets-great-gatsby sort of style with his trademark panama hat, rainbowstriped blazer and ponytail.”
The first move in Hudson’s starmaking campaign was to have Botham model his Hudson’s Hardware line of traditional cricket blazers, sweaters and flannel trousers in garish colours; Botham liked the clothes but the expected offers of further modelling work did not materialise.
In what was intended to be a publicity masterstroke, Hudson persuaded Botham to join him on a trip to Hollywood to discuss the possibility of a film career. In the event, only one producer, Menahem Golan, agreed to meet them; and although Golan told the press beforehand that Botham had the potential to succeed Roger Moore as James Bond, the best he could manage when they met face to face was to pronounce: “He is better looking than Tom Selleck.”
Golan suggested that Botham stay in Los Angeles to take acting lessons, but England were due to tour the West Indies in three weeks’ time and Botham abandoned his Hollywood career. He later discovered that
Hudson had been planning to pay Kathy off and introduce him into Hollywood as a glamorous bachelor.
The final straw came when Hudson spoke unguardedly to a group of journalists at a late-night party, resulting in the Daily Star headline: “BOTHAM DRUGS SHOCK – ‘I know he smokes dope but doesn’t everybody?’ says his manager.” As Botham was in the process of suing the Mail on Sunday over allegations that he had taken drugs, he severed all ties with Hudson.
He was born George Timothy Brumwell in Prestbury, Cheshire, on February 11 1940. His father, Thomas, a former policeman and keen cricketer, served in Bomber Command and was killed during a raid over Belgium shortly before D-day.
Tim was sent briefly to a school in Harrogate for children who had lost parents in the war, before returning to live with his mother, Maeve, in a council flat reserved for war widows. When he was eight his mother married an old friend, a cotton manufacturer called Henry Hudson.
Already flamboyant – he wore pyjama tops as shirts because they were more colourful – Tim boarded at Seascale Preparatory School in
Cumberland and, aged 13 and clad in his maroon school blazer, was treated to his first sexual experience by a fellow passenger on a train: “She rewarded me with a sandwich for lunch.”
He went on to Strathallan School near Perth, where he excelled at cricket and secured two O-levels before going on to work at his stepfather’s firm.
Tim’s penchant for holding large parties at the family home – the guest list usually comprised “hookers, strippers, debutantes, equestrian ladies” – did not endear him to his stepfather (who left Tim nothing in his will) and he eventually moved to London: “In the summer of 1962 I was the beatnik cricketer of the coffee house in the King’s Road.”
He met everybody from Burton and Taylor to the Krays, bedded Mandy Rice Davies (“I discovered that she wore knickers that cost £50. I had never seen anybody in silk knickers”) and played for Surrey 2nd XI.
He got a job with the Prestige kitchenware company, but while on a training course in Birmingham he saw the Moody Blues perform at the Moat House Club, and decided to become their manager. Their first London gig, at the Ad-lib Club, was a success, but he was soon replaced and was reduced to working as a cleaner and contraceptive machine replenisher.
At a party he met James Coburn, who told him: “You sound like the Beatles, man … You should be a disc jockey in America. We haven’t got a British DJ there.” The American embassy did not regard this as sufficient reason to grant him a visa, so he went to Canada instead.
He wangled a job as a DJ at CKGM Radio in Montreal, where he played up his English background, broadcasting under his old schoolboy nickname of “Lord Tim”.
Securing interviews with every major British artist from the Beatles down, and persuading the station to pay to bring the Rolling Stones to Montreal, he quickly made his reputation, and went on to take broadcasting jobs in San Diego and then Los Angeles. He accompanied the Beatles on their 1965 US tour, introducing their gig at Balboa Stadium, where he gave Ringo an “upper” and overheard Mick Jagger complain, “We’ll never be as big as that.”
Established in LA, he dated Geraldine Chaplin, became briefly engaged to Dean Martin’s daughter Claudia, and was picked up one evening by Jayne Mansfield, but was chased from her house by her gunwielding boyfriend. Screen tests for the major film studios came to nothing, although he did provide voices for the Disney animations The Jungle Book (as one of the Beatle-esque vultures) and The Aristocats.
Giddy with his success on the radio, Hudson took to ignoring the station’s playlist and insulting the advertisers; his contract was not renewed. He took up promotion, managing the psychedelic rock group The Seeds, and claimed to have invented the phrase “Flower Power” to promote their ethos. He also founded LA’S first organic restaurant in Errol Flynn’s old house.
Returning to Cheshire in the early 1980s, he flew the Californian flag from Birtles Old Hall, and had the house painted in “my colours” – black, yellow, red and green – while men’s neckties in the same colours adorned his dogs.
He broadcast on local radio and embarked on a new career as an artist (one exhibition prompted the Macclesfield Times to complain that his paintings were excessively erotic) and embarked on a bitter and unsuccessful campaign to become chairman of Lancashire CCC.
In 1990 he declared he was “skint”, sold Birtles Old Hall and settled in Palm Springs. The same year he published his autobiography, From the Beatles to Botham. He returned to live in Cheshire again in 2014.
Tim Hudson was thrice divorced; his relationship with his fourth wife, Maxi, endured for 40 years. With his second wife, he had a daughter.
Tim Hudson, born February 11 1940, died December 14 2019