Neither record made much impact, but Leyton's third single, "Johnny Remember Me", produced by Meek and released in the UK on 28 July 1961,[6] became a UK No.1 hit after Stigwood arranged for Leyton to perform it while playing the role of a fictional pop singer called Johnny St. Cyr, performing the song on the new Associated Television drama Harpers West One.
[9] Some of the acts he promoted in the mid-60s lost Stigwood money, including UK tours by Chuck Berry and P. J. Proby, and he came close to bankruptcy during this period.
[8][10] In 1966 he began managing Cream, formed from two other bands that Stigwood had under contract – Eric Clapton from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker from the Graham Bond Organisation.
Within weeks of joining NEMS he started managing the Bee Gees, a vocal group who, after many years in Australia, had just returned to their native UK with hopes of a British career.
[8][11] Also during 1967, Stigwood purchased a controlling interest in Associated London Scripts, a writers' agency co-founded by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes in 1954, in which many of Britain's best comedy and television scriptwriters had been involved.
In 1971, he produced the first theatrical production of Jesus Christ Superstar - initially in the USA - beginning a successful working relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice which continued later in the decade with Evita.
His next project, the highly-touted super-band Blind Faith, which united Clapton and Ginger Baker with Steve Winwood (ex-Traffic) and Ric Grech (ex-Family) fizzled out after just one LP.
In addition, the album he made as Derek & the Dominos, Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs (1970), though now recognised as a masterpiece, was met with a relatively poor critical and commercial reception, and was overshadowed by the tragic deaths of close friends Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman.
Clapton eventually kicked his habit, and Stigwood took him back to Miami, where he recorded his successful comeback album 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), which included his US #1 hit version of Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff".
[citation needed] Soon afterwards, Clapton suggested the Bee Gees might also benefit from a change of scene, and so they moved with their band into the same house on Ocean Boulevard to record their album Main Course.
His first feature film was a hit screen adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), made in association with its director, Norman Jewison.
Stigwood followed this with a hugely successful film adaptation of the stage rock'n'roll musical Grease (1978), which co-starred Travolta and Australian singer Olivia Newton-John.
[16] On the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 25 March 1978, five songs written by the Gibbs were in the US top 10 at the same time: "Night Fever", "Stayin' Alive", "If I Can't Have You", "Emotion" and "Love Is Thicker Than Water".
[10] It was during this period that writer Steven Gaines , in his New York Sunday News column "Top of the Pop", coined the phrase "velvet mafia" to refer to the Robert Stigwood Organization — the term soon began to be used to describe the influential gay crowd who supposedly ran Hollywood and the fashion industry.
[19] Stigwood remained active during his later years, primarily in musical theatre, taking a role in stage revivals of Grease and a theatrical adaptation of Saturday Night Fever.