Shipping heir who gave away millions
Sir Eddie Kulukundis 1932-2021
Sir Eddie Kulukundis, who has died aged 88, “inherited a large shipping fortune”, and spent a “long and happy life turning it into a small one”, said The Times. He was not, by his own admission, a gifted businessman; he was also extremely generous. A large, self-deprecating man with a passion for sport, he supported hundreds of amateur athletes – many of whom achieved greatness: Daley Thompson, Steve Ovett and Fatima Whitbread were among those he funded. He gave them grants for training, paid their air fares, and even underwrote their mortgages. His kindness sometimes embraced their families, too: when Denise Lewis’s mother could not afford the travel expenses to see her daughter compete, Kulukundis stepped in.
He’d started supporting athletes around the time of the Munich Olympics in 1972 and, by the 1992 Barcelona Games, it was estimated that he was funding 60% of the British squad. His contributions, which amounted to around £2m, were ostensibly loans, but he never asked to be repaid, expecting only courtesy in return. “His greatest reward was when one of ‘his’ athletes achieved a personal best.”
Elias Kulukundis was born in London in 1932, into a Greek family that had been in shipping for five generations, said The Daily Telegraph. During the War, he was sent to school in the US, where his English accent made him unpopular. All the boys talked about was baseball. As an ill-coordinated child, he knew he wouldn’t be a good player, so he resolved to make himself the “best all-round sports supporter” instead. It was the beginning of a lifelong interest in sport that was matched only by his love for the theatre. He started producing plays while in the US, and continued after his return to London in the 1950s. He backed countless West End productions (making some money, but losing more) and was a governor of the RSC. For the past 40 years, he had been married to the actress Susan Hampshire, who survives him.