Max Cryer

John Maxwell "Max" Cryer MBE is a New Zealand television producer and presenter, radio broadcaster, entertainment producer, singer, cabaret performer and writer.

Cryer studied singing in Italy.

His professional career began onstage at Sadler's Wells Opera, London, with appearances on BBC and at Wigmore Hall. His performing activity then widened to include musical theatre, recording, television and cabaret. In 1969 a Hollywood agency contracted him for ten years as an entertainer, leading to 15 tours of the United States, appearing in San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

In New Zealand, Max Cryer was the country’s first television quizmaster and subsequently made over 300 appearances on television as entertainer, and hosted 12 different television series including New Zealand's first live talk-variety show, Town Cryer. As a singer he recorded LPs with his "singing children" and his stage roles include Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, the king in The King and I, Count Danilo in The Merry Widow and Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus.

Cryer was chairman for the Oxford Union debates in 1975. He joined TVNZ in 1977 as producer and for the next ten years produced the New Zealand versions of University Challenge and Mastermind, as well as Mastermind International for the BBC. For ten years he was columnist in the New Zealand Herald and the New Zealand Woman's Weekly, and was drama reviewer for The Sunday Star-Times. In 1981, he was a judge of the Wattie Book Awards, now known as the New Zealand Post Book Awards.

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