Harry Elton

Harry Elton
Harry Elton, sixth from right, with the cast of Coronation Street in 1963
Born	Henry John Elton (1930-01-05)5 January 1930 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	16 May 2004(2004-05-16) (aged 74) Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Television producer, News presenter, Radio announcer

Harry Elton (5 January 1930 – 16 May 2004) was a Canadian broadcaster, primarily known as the television producer who championed the development of the British television programme Coronation Street in 1960, currently the world's longest-running television soap opera in production. Elton is also known for his work in Canada as a radio and television presenter.

Henry John Elton was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1930. When his father died in 1935, Elton's mother moved the family to Detroit, Michigan in the United States. Elton attended Wayne State University, and in 1951 he travelled to London where he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for one year. Despite being offered a scholarship at RADA, he returned to Detroit where he obtained his first job in television at WXYZ-TV.

The fledgling ITV television franchises in the United Kingdom recruited a number of Canadians in the late 1950s, and Elton was hired as a drama producer for Granada in Manchester in 1957. At Granada, Elton produced series such as Shadow Squad, Biggles, The Verdict Is Yours and In Court Today. By 1960, he was executive producer for drama series and serials.

While at Granada, Elton worked with a young writer named Tony Warren, who had become frustrated writing crime and adventure shows. Elton pointed outdoors through the window of his office and asked Warren to write about "a street out there", giving Warren 24 hours to generate an idea that would "take Britain by storm". Having already written about working class life in a Salford backstreet, Warren quickly turned in a script which prompted Elton to commission a second one, and ultimately a pilot episode. The reaction of Granada executives to the pilot was universally hostile, with one telling Elton: "Harry, you've made a horrible mistake." Elton claimed that he knew that the drama, then called "Florizel Street", would be a success when a cleaning lady at Granada named Agnes was transfixed by the pilot airing on a closed-circuit television set in Elton's office. The show was renamed Coronation Street when Agnes contended that "Florizel" sounded like the name of a disinfectant. Elton finally persuaded sceptical network managers to proceed with the blue-collar drama, and they grudgingly gave the go-ahead for 13 episodes.