Peter Gormley
Peter Gormley was an Australian born artist manager who guided the early careers of many recording artists, including Frank Ifield, Cliff Richard, The Shadows, Marvin Welch & Farrar, Labi Siffre and Olivia Newton-John.
During the early 1970s the British Music press sarcastically coined the phrase "The Gum Leaf Mafia" to describe Australian clients of Peter Gormley who arrived en masse in London in the late 1960s e.g. Olivia Newton-John, The Seekers, The New Seekers, Kevin Peek, Terry Britten, Alan Tarney, Trevor Spencer, John Farrar, Barrie Guard, etc.
In Australia Gormley founded the Festival record label on which Olivia Newton-John released all her original studio albums in that country from 1971 onwards until her last album produced by John Farrar called Warm and Tender in 1989.
In 1980 Brian Goode of Outrider Management took over management for The Shadows and Labbi Siffre. Cliff Richard set up his own management company The Cliff Richard Organisation. Lee Kramer took over management for Olivia Newton-John in 1975 in the USA.
Gormley died on 8 May 1998, having been in retirement for some five years when he died of colon cancer, two years after the death of his wife, Audrey. He was survived by a daughter, Robyn, and by nieces Miriam and Clare Gormley, both of whom are opera singers.
Billboard, an American music industry newspaper, printed a tribute to Gormley in its edition dated May 30, 1998.
