Lord Tim Hudson obit

‘Lord’ Tim Hudson obituary

 Colorful chancer, disc jockey and agent who almost persuaded his client Ian Botham to give up cricket and become the next 007

He was not on the list.


Lord' Tim Hudson, Sir Ian Botham's flamboyant ex-manager from the 1980s, has died at the age of 79. A huge cricket fan, DJ and voice-over artist, Hudson was close to the Beatles and in 2004 published his memoirs, From The Beatles to Botham.

He and Botham eventually fell out over failed plans to turn the England cricketer into a Hollywood actor in the mid-80s. It is understood that Hudson's US-based daughter, River, tried to contact Botham after her father's passing but has so far been unable to do so.

Hudson, who hosted celebrity matches at the cricket ground at his former Cheshire home, Birtles Old Hall, passed away last month

Hudson was born in Prestbury, Cheshire, and was educated at Strathallan School, Perthshire. His father owned a cotton business. He lived in London in the early 1960s, became a member of the fashionable "Chelsea Set", and claimed responsibility for introducing The Moody Blues to Decca Records. He then moved to Montreal, Canada, where, as "Lord Tim of Liverpool", he became a successful DJ on station CKGM.

When The Beatles embarked on their 1965 North American concert tour, radio station KCBQ in San Diego employed Hudson. He described himself as a record producer who claimed to know The Beatles personally, and to have helped discover the Moody Blues. Hudson made broadcasts publicising the "Fab Four"'s appearances in the San Diego area. Using his contacts in England, Hudson managed to get permission to travel with the group prior to their concert in San Diego, and to file reports to be aired exclusively on KCBQ. However, it was said of him that:


He used his suave British accent to promote himself and became particularly popular among women. His problems surfaced, despite his claims to the contrary, when he could not do the simplest of tasks such as working the controls, playing records, or punching in ads. Having never before been on the radio, all he could do was sit in the studio and talk on the microphone. His brief stint at KCBQ, in terms of radio work, was one of the station’s worst staffing disasters.

In March 1966, Hudson presented Nancy Sinatra in Hollywood, California, with a gold disc to mark her million seller, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". However, as the actual gold record had failed to arrive in time from New York, Hudson had to present Sinatra with the similarly earned disc of Dean Martin's "Everybody Loves Somebody"; at one point, Hudson was engaged to Martin's daughter. In 1967, he became the manager of The Seeds, promoting the band and writing liner notes for their record releases. At the time, he claimed to have invented the term "flower power". He later managed another band, The Lollipop Shoppe, but left the music industry, disillusioned, in 1969.

Hudson was also a voice actor during the 1960s and 1970s, and appeared in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967) as Dizzy the Vulture, and The Aristocats (1970) as 'Hip Cat' the English cat. In the early 1970s, he invested in property in Hollywood, remarried, and set up what he claimed was the first organic food restaurant in Hollywood. :Later in the decade he had a radio show, Hudson's Theater of the Mind, on station KXLU

Returning to England, he bought Birtles Old Hall near Macclesfield in Cheshire, with an attached cricket ground, in 1984. A keen cricket fan, he invited the professional cricketer, and one-time England captain, Ian Botham to play in a match in at his ground. After Botham had been convicted on drugs charges, Hudson offered to become his manager, and promoted Botham in Hollywood as a potential film star, suggesting to film producer Menahem Golan that Botham could be the next James Bond. However, Botham became disillusioned with Hudson's plans, and eventually fired him. Hudson hosted celebrity cricket matches at the ground, known as the "Birtles Bowl", throughout the 1980s; he later sold both the house and the cricket ground.

In 1990, Hudson moved back to the U.S., and lived in Palm Springs. Some of his paintings have been exhibited, and he continued to work as a radio DJ. The latest edition of his autobiography From the Beatles to Botham was published in 2014.

He died after heart surgery on 14 December 2019. Hudson was married four times. He was married to Maxi Gordon Silver from the late 1970s until her death, and had a daughter from his second marriage.