Sir Eddie Kulukundis, impresario and generous patron of the arts and athletics – obituary

Sir Eddie Kulukundis, who has died aged 88, was a scion of five generations of Greek shipping brokers and used his inheritance to become a noted theatrical impresario and generous patron of the arts and sport, giving away millions of pounds – in lump sums, allowances and thoughtful gifts – to hundreds of young hopefuls.

As a theatre producer Kulukundis brought more than 100 productions to the West End including successes ranging from What the Butler Saw to A Little Night Music and Carmen Jones.

In 1992 he was founder chairman of the Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), which took over the Duke of York’s Theatre on St Martin’s Lane, and was a key figure in ATG’s early rise. It is now the world’s leading live theatre company, with almost 50 venues across Britain, the US and Germany. He remained ATG’s life president and a major shareholder.

Weighing around 20 stone and with a bushy silvery beard “to cover my double chins”, Kulukundis, affectionately known to friends as “the Bear”, was often relegated to the small print of profiles of his wife, the actress Susan Hampshire. In line with his kindly, self-deprecating personality, his patronage, especially when it came to sport, was mostly intensely personal.

He preferred to give his money to individuals and, starting at the 1972 Munich Olympics, gave more than £2 million to help British athletes and coaches, generally in small donations, expecting nothing but politeness in return. Air fares were paid, cars provided, donations made towards mortgages and grants given for training.

Nearly all of Britain’s top athletes benefited from his generosity, including Steve Ovett, Linford Christie, Fatima Whitbread, Sally Gunnell, Roger Black and Denise Lewis. It was Kulukundis who spotted the talent of the young Mo Farah and paid the legal costs of his naturalisation as a British citizen to ensure he could pursue an international career. The Olympic high-jumper Brendan Reilly said of Kulukundis that he had “opened my eyes to more than sport. Through his generosity and kindness I experienced theatre, travel and developed lifelong friendships.”

Before the National Lottery became involved in sport, Kulukundis also contributed through his work with the Sports Aid Foundation (now SportsAid) , raising and distributing funds to athletes in need. He chaired the charity from 1988 to 1993 and remained a guiding light as a vice-president, trustee and governor. If a worthy cause went unanswered, Kulukundis would often put his hand into his own pocket.

Elias George Kulukundis was born in London on April 20 1932 into an wealthy Greek shipping family which had made its home in the UK, the son of George Kulukundis and Eugénie, née Diacakis. In 1940 his mother took him to America for the duration of the war and he would recall how, on the liner to New York, Aristotle Onassis sought him out, trying to curry favour with the eight-year-old to impress his relations.

His interest in sport arose out of the discovery that his English accent was making him unpopular in the US school playground: “They talked baseball, which I knew nothing about, so I made myself an expert.” Though he himself was “hopelessly uncoordinated” he made himself the school’s “best all-round sports supporter”, statistician and score-keeper.

After education at Salisbury School, Connecticut, and Yale University, where he read Psychology, Kulukundis returned to London in 1952 and joined Rethymnis & Kulukundis, the family shipbroking business, of which he soon became a board member. For many years he was also a board member of the related family business London & Overseas Freighters (LOF), resigning after its 1997 sale to a swedish company, though he continued to hold positions with Rethymnis and Kulukundis.

He started producing plays while resident in the United States. Back in London he co-founded Knightsbridge Theatrical Productions with Jack Lynn, producing West End shows as Pygmalion, with Diana Rigg and Bob Hoskins, Candida, with Deborah Kerr, Hamlet, with Ian McKellen, and Lord Quex, with Judi Dench and John Gielgud.

In 1972 Kulukundis was staying in the same hotel for the Munich Olympics as the parents of David Hemery, Britain’s defending Olympic 400m hurdles champion. He wished Hemery well, and after Hemery was beaten in the final by the Ugandan John Akii Bua, the British favourite came to apologise for letting him down. Hemery’s modesty so touched Kulukundis that he asked him how he could help him and his sport. Hemery suggested that he sponsor a group of Britain’s best athletes, including Steve Ovett, Alan Pascoe, Brendan Foster and David Jenkins.

By the end of the 1980s Kulukundis was helping some 70 per cent of all Britain’s international athletes.

In 1992, however, Kulukundis and his wife suffered heavy losses at Lloyds, where he had been a member since 1964 and on the ruling council from 1983 to 1989, causing him to scale back his involvement in sport. When the news broke that he was also closing his magazine Athletics Today, on which he had lost a reported £1 million, he was touched when Sir Geoffrey Cass, chairman of the Royal Shakespeare Company, of which Kulukundis had been a governor for many years, “took the trouble to phone to ask if I was OK”.

But the financial doldrums did not last long and he was soon ploughing more money into athletics than ever. Actors and athletes were not the only ones to benefit. When fighting broke out in Croatia Kulukundis remembered a chauffeur who had been helpful on a visit to Yugoslavia and, to give him a break from the war, invited the man to London for three months at his expense. “I have always found it difficult to say no to people,” he confessed.

He was happy to admit that he had not inherited the family business gene. “I wouldn’t say I’ve made a lot of money in my life. I’ve lost rather a lot,” he confessed in 1992. “My luck is that my parents were very wealthy.” He was amused by the attitude of the British establishment to his philanthropic endeavours: “I probably lost about £2 million in the theatre, but ... people didn’t consider it charity, they considered it bad business,” he said in 1999. “When I came into athletics I lost horribly, but everyone considered me a great benefactor.”

Kulukundis, who changed his name by deed poll to Eddie in 1993, was appointed OBE for services to British sport in 1993, and knighted for services to British theatre and sport in 1998.

In January 1981 he attended a performance of a play starring Susan Hampshire, whom he had known since the 1970s, and took her out to dinner afterwards. They married three months later. It was her second marriage, his first, and it turned out to be an extremely happy one. In 1991 he told an interviewer that his only regret since his wedding was that he had put on five stones.

“Where food is concerned,” Susan Hampshire explained, “[Eddie is] a law unto himself.” When he treated a group of friends to lunch at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, near Oxford, one of his regular haunts, they were reportedly fascinated as he ordered foie gras for his first course followed by a larger portion of foie gras for his main course.

In 2007 Kulukundis was diagnosed with dementia and subsequently Susan Hampshire mostly retired from acting to care for him. They had no children together but Kulukundis enjoyed a good relationship with his stepson, his wife’s son by her first marriage.

Sir Eddie Kulukundis, born April 20 1932, died February 17 2021