BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 56
ENTREPRENEURS
PETER
BOIZOT
By Michael Gelardi
Impresario Michael Gelardi
has worked with countless
legends of the music business,
from Sammy Davis Jr. and Bob
Hope to Mica Paris and Take
That. Here, to mark the 60th
anniversary of Pizza Express,
he remembers his old friend
Peter Boizot.
Pizza Express founder Peter Boizot, often referred to as Mr. Pizza
“
Mr Pizza and All That Jazz”
is the light-hearted title of his
autobiography, but somehow
I never thought it entirely
did justice to my dear friend
Peter Boizot. Of course, he introduced
pizza, as well as Italian beer, to the
British people, and he did a lot for jazz
music and musicians – but he also did
a good deal more.
jazz artistes, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar
Peterson.
I was 昀椀rst introduced to Peter by a
mutual good friend, Lord Charles
Spencer Churchill. That was around
40 years ago when, looking as elegant
as ever, Peter attended the opening
gala night of a show I was presenting
at the Grosvenor House Hotel in
London, starring two of his favourite
Of course, Peter will forever be feted
as the legendary founder of Pizza
Express, which he proudly claimed
was founded “without a business plan”
in 1965, at a time when even such
cognoscenti as the Chairman of the
Royal Automobile Club had to ask
him “What is a pizza?”.
I remember that evening well, and
from that night on, I am privileged
to say that Peter and I remained 昀椀rm
friends for some four decades to come
– largely, I have to say, through our
mutual love of music, women, and
Peter’s favourite tipple, champagne.
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BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
In 1993, he eventually (and very
successfully) sold the company to city
entrepreneur Luke Johnson, assisted
in no small measure, it must be said,
by his loyal and 昀椀nancially astute
nephew, Matthew Allen: by his own
admission, Peter was a visionary, but
not a natural businessman.
Indeed, until his death in 2018 at
the age of 89, Peter remained the
revered president of the Pizza Express
company. The present Chinese
owners, who later bought in at a
reported 昀椀gure of some £900m, still
insist that his portrait is displayed in
every Pizza Express, of which there
are now some 600 worldwide – but,
in his remarkable life, Peter had many
