Don Arden - Estrangement From Sharon Osbourne

Estrangement From Sharon Osbourne

In 1979, one of Arden's successes, Black Sabbath, sacked their vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. Arden's daughter Sharon began to date Osbourne, and took over his management from her father. Arden was livid. Reportedly, the next time Sharon visited Don, his vicious pet dogs savaged her. She was pregnant, and lost the child.

Sharon eventually married Osbourne and had no contact with her father for 20 years. In 2001 she told The Guardian newspaper: "The best lesson I ever had was watching him fuck his business up. He taught me everything not to do. My father's never even seen any of my three kids and, as far as I'm concerned, he never will." Later the same year, under Ozzy's insistence, Sharon and Arden finally reconciled, with Arden making a walk-on role in the successful reality TV show The Osbournes in 2002. He also met his grandchildren Jack and Kelly for the first time.

In 1979 investigative reporter Roger Cook used the dispute with De Paul to probe into Arden's controversial management style on BBC Radio 4's Checkpoint programme. This proved to be a colourful encounter. 'When you fight the champion you go 15 rounds, you've got to be prepared to go the whole way,' Arden tells Cook. 'I'll take you with one hand strapped up my arse. You're not a man, you're a creep.' Arden threatened to break the neck of anyone who talked to Cook in his on-air interview.

From the late 1970s into the early 1980s, Arden enjoyed the high-rolling lifestyle of a top music mogul. He started his own record label, Jet Records. He brought his son David and daughter Sharon Osbourne into the business, planning to build an Arden showbiz dynasty. With albums like Out of the Blue and Discovery, ELO became one of the world's biggest acts. Arden bought Howard Hughes' former house in Beverly Hills.

In the mid 1980s Don Arden bought Portland Recording Studios (formerly IBC Studios) from Chas Chandler, and installed his son David as manager. The studios were by this time very out dated and much of the income was being generated by another company who ran half the facility known as RadioTracks, and by George Peckham (Porky Prime Cuts), a well known cutting engineer whose cutting rooms were on the ground floor at the back of the building. Don Arden had acquired shares in RadioTracks through buying out Chas Chandler without the knowledge of the other directors.

Don's son, known legally as David Levy, appeared at the Old Bailey in 1986 for his role in an alleged assault on an accountant working for Jet records. The incident occurred at the offices in Portland Place. Convicted, David Levy spent several months in an open prison. Don, tried separately on related charges, was acquitted.

The drawn-out legal problems meant Don was unable to attend to business, and legal bills proved a fatal strain on Jet Records, which collapsed. Portland Recording Studios were considerably in arrears with rent to the Prudential, who owned the building in 35 Portland Place in London, close to BBC Broadcasting House. Eventually, the Prudential evicted Jet Records. Don had already fallen out with his daughter Sharon, who embarked on her own successful management career with her husband and major client, Ozzy Osbourne.

From 1986 to the mid-1990s, Arden shuttled between his homes in Beverly Hills and Parkside in Wimbledon, London. In August 2004 Sharon Osbourne stated her father had Alzheimer's disease. A "tell all" bio about Arden's life, entitled Mr. Big, was published in 2007 shortly before Arden's death in Los Angeles on 21 July 2007. Sharon Osbourne paid for her father's care in the last years of his life. He was buried in Agecroft Jewish Cemetery, Manchester on 25 July 2007.

On 29 October 2007, a memorial headstone was unveiled at Agecroft Jewish Cemetery Manchester by his sister Eileen (Somers) and daughter Sharon Osbourne with her son Jack Osbourne, along with nephew and niece Danny Somers and Cathy Cowan. A line of inscription on the stone reads "His beautiful voice will sing in our hearts forever. Shalom". Later in the morning a plaque was unveiled at Higher Crumpsall Synagogue, Cheetham Hill, Manchester with the addition of the words "It all started here" with a line of musical notes. This refers to the time when Don (then Harry Levy) sang in the synagogue choir as a very young man.