Reg Grundy

Reginald Roy Grundy was born on 4 August 1923 in Sydney, New South Wales, to Roy Grundy and Lillian Lees. Grundy served in the Australian Army during World War II as a Sergeant stationed in Sydney in the 1 Motor Division Signals. He enlisted in December 1941 and was discharged in August 1946.

Grundy started his media career as a boxing and general sports commentator for the Sydney radio station 2SM in 1947. While he was working at 2CH Sydney in 1957, Grundy conceived and hosted the Wheel of Fortune game show on radio, which moved to Channel Nine two years later. He founded his own production company Reg Grundy Enterprises in 1960, and began producing game shows for the Australian and overseas market, before eventually branching out into drama in 1973. In 1977, he co-produced ABBA: The Movie.

The company produced several successful television soap operas and drama series, including Class of '74, The Restless Years, The Young Doctors, Prisoner, Glenview High, Sons and Daughters and Neighbours. Grundy was the first person to sell an Australian drama to America (Prisoner) and the first to sell an Australian quiz show to the UK (Going for Gold). He subsequently started the US-based company Reg Grundy Productions, which produced the 1980s NBC daytime game shows Sale of the Century and Scrabble, as well as Time Machine for NBC, Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak for ABC, and Scattergories (also for NBC).

The Grundy Organisation was ultimately owned by Grundy Worldwide Ltd, based in the tax haven of Bermuda. In 1995, he sold the Grundy Organisation to the media and publishing company Pearson PLC, now Fremantle, for $386 million. Grundy owned the private media investment company RG Capital, which had shares in several FM radio stations. Grundy also had shares in WAM Capital, Austereo, Argus Solutions and Photon Group.

Grundy married Patricia Lola Powell in 1954 and they had a daughter, Kim. After Grundy and Powell divorced, he married the actress and author Joy Chambers in 1971. The couple met at a television audition in the 1960s. Chambers was 18 and Grundy was in his forties. They renewed their vows several times. Grundy and Chambers moved to Bermuda in 1982. They remained married until his death; Chambers died on 17 September 2023, aged 76.

In 2015, the Australian Financial Review listed Grundy as Australia's 59th-richest individual, with an estimated wealth of $809 million. Grundy published an eponymous autobiography in 2010. He was the owner of a yacht named Boadicea, which was sold in 2009.