Roc Kirby

Roc Kirby

Roscoe "Roc" Kirby AM (14 March 1918 – 25 January 2008) was an Australian businessman who founded the Village Roadshow cinema chain and film production company.

Roc Kirby was born in Leongatha, Victoria in 1918. He entered the cinema business at the bottom end, selling ice creams and sweeping floors at his father's cinemas on the Mornington Peninsula, then graduating to managing the small chain of Kirby Cinemas. In 1954, Kirby took the financially risky step of constructing a drive-in theatre called "The Village Drive-in" at Croydon, and soon afterwards the company owned around 40 drive-in theatres. With cinema attendances dropping due to the introduction of television, Village made a move into the metropolitan "hard-top" cinemas, and then into twin cinemas and multiplexes.

In 1989, Village Roadshow went public, making an aggressive move into other markets, such as film production, theme parks and radio. After the public float, the Kirby family remained the majority shareholders, owning 51.5% of the shares in Village Roadshow. Roc Kirby retired as CEO in 1988, leaving the running of Village Roadshow to his sons, Robert and John, as chairman and deputy chairman, and "surrogate son", Graham Burke, as managing director.

At his death Village Roadshow comprised "a production division, an extensive cinema exhibition business, three theme parks on the Gold Coast and a stake in the listed radio company Austereo".

Kirby died at the age of 89 on 25 January 2008, after suffering an illness.