Robert Colin Stigwood(Founder of the RSO Group of Companies)Born in Adelaide, Australia in 1934 and educated at Sacred Heart College, Robert Stigwood began his career as a copywriter for a local advertising agency and then, at 21, departed Australia on a ship bound for England. 

Opening a London theatrical agency, after trying his hand at various occupations, he began casting commercials for television and was soon producing records for many of his clients; becoming the first independent record producer in the United Kingdom with the John Leyton hit, "Johnny Remember Me", which topped the UK chart for fifteen weeks.

During the mid 1960's Stigwood joined forces with Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles, to become co-manager of NEMS Enterprises. After Epstein's untimely death, Stigwood decided to form his own company, the Robert Stigwood Organisation (RSO), and promoted artists such as Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, David Bowie and ultimately managed and forged the careers of, amongst others, the Bee Gees, Andy Gibb, Blind Faith, Cream and Eric Clapton; and under the RSO Records label recorded the music of Yvonne Elliman, Paul Nicholas, Player and Soundtrack Albums for the motion pictures "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Fame", along with those of all RSO Films productions (see below). 

Moving into the world of theatre production in 1968, Robert chose for his first venture the American rock musical, "Hair," a great success, which ran for more than five years in London's West End . He followed this with highly successful productions of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita" (Which were successfully reproduced on New York's Broadway - the latter picking up the Tony Award for best Musical 1980), along with productions of "Oh Calcutta !", "The Dirtiest Show in Town", "Pippin", "Sweeney Todd", "Sing a Rude Song", "John, Paul, Ringo and Burt" (Evening Standard Drama Award best Musical 1974) and more recently "Grease" (The first production of which to include all of the film songs) and a brand new musical "Saturday Night Fever" based on the film of the same name.

Falling back on his marketing instincts Robert entered into film production and reproduced "Jesus Christ Superstar"as a motion picture, in association with the film's director, Norman Jewison. He went on to produce "Tommy", directed by Ken Russell and starring Ann Margret and Roger Daltrey, with supporting and cameo roles from the likes of Elton John, Robert Powell, Jack Nicholson, Tina Turner, Oliver Reed, Paul Nicholas, Eric Clapton and the Who; it became one of 1975's most popular films and marked the first truly successful merger of rock music and film to tell a story.

 With a good start in this medium of entertainment the newly formed RSO Films went on to produce the hugely successful "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease", which launched the then little known John Travolta to super-stardom. These two blockbusters were followed by "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (based around the Beatles album of the same name and starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees), "Moment by Moment", "The Fan", "Times Square", "Grease 2", "Staying Alive", "Gallipoli" (under the R&R Films banner) and the 1997 Golden Globe Awards best film "Evita". 

Robert is continually active in Theatrical Musical production and resides at his Barton Manor Estate on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.