Vancouver entertainment legend dies

The Vancouver impresario who booked everyone from Frank Sinatra to Elvis to the Rolling Stones has died at the age of 92.

Hugh Pickett was also close friends with many Hollywood celebrities including Katharine Hepburn, Lawrence Olivier and Marlene Dietrich.

He went on to manage Dietrich's business affairs for 12 years.

"I got along with famous people. I don't know why. Mainly because I knew what they had done. I knew what made them tick," he told CBC in an interview three years ago.

Art Jones, president of the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame, remembers Pickett as a long-time friend who got to know many greats of the entertainment field.

"He had a sparkling wit and a wicked tongue and I think that made him a favourite, particularly with the great ladies of the theatre Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn," he said.

Pickett also led the campaign in the 1970s to save the landmark Orpheum Theatre.

The native Vancouverite had been one of the driving forces in the city's entertainment industry since the late 1940s.

Pickett told CBC he got his start when his friend Gordon Hilker offered him a job with his talent-booking agency.

"He went bankrupt the next week and had to leave. And Holly Maxwell was his assistant, and she said, 'Look, you know as much about the business as I do, so why don't you just stick around?' And that's how it all got started, and it's been going every since."

• INTERVIEW: The Early Edition's Rick Cluff speaks with Art Jones, the president of the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame.

Vancouver big band leader Dal Richards, who was a close friend, says Pickett put Vancouver on the map in the world of entertainment.

"He took chances for one thing. He was an impresario, and Vancouver needed him when he was operating in full flower."

Richards says his friend died in his sleep on Monday afternoon.

He is survived by by his longtime companion Gordon Boyd