Steve O'Rourke
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Steve O'Rourke (1 October 1940 - 30 October 2003) in London, England. He was well known for being manager of rock band Pink Floyd after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968 until his death. He also had to weather the band's falling-out with member Roger Waters.
He first managed Pink Floyd while working at the Bryan Morrison Agency, then NEMS Enterprises. Later, he founded his own company, EMKA Productions, named after his first daughter Emma and Katheryne (he had another daughter and three sons).
O'Rourke also built a highly successful parallel career as an enthusiastic gentleman racing driver - a lifelong passion which he shared with the Floyd's drummer Nick Mason and, to a lesser extent, with David Gilmour. He adored Historic racing with cars of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
His ambition to compete in the greatest sports car race of all - the Le Mans 24 Hours - was realised in 1979 when he finished a creditable 12th, driving a 190mph Ferrari 512 BB. Having bought the car, he returned to Le Mans in 1980; but after a tyre exploded at nearly 200mph on the Mulsanne Straight, O'Rourke bought the spare tail of a retired sister Ferrari in the pit lane in order to finish. His car completed the race wearing green forward bodywork and a red tail.
In 1981 his EMKA Racing team ran a BMW M1 Coupe at Le Mans, with O'Rourke co-driving with David Hobbs and Eddie Jordan - later the head of Jordan F1. O'Rourke left the circuit on the night of the race to oversee a Pink Floyd concert in London, flew back the next morning and jumped straight into the car for another two-hour driving stint.
After coming second in the Silverstone 6-Hours and winning his class in the Brands Hatch 6-Hours, O'Rourke had his own EMKA Aston Martin built specially for Le Mans in 1983; the next year this exceptionally attractive car briefly led the 24-Hours in the hands of co-driver Tiff Needell, and finished ahead of the works-backed Jaguars, to O'Rourke's great amusement. In 1991 he and David Gilmour co-drove a Jaguar C-Type in the PanAmerican retro race through Mexico, surviving a dramatic crash.
In 1998 O'Rourke had his greatest racing success, co-driving a second-hand McLaren F1 GTR at Le Mans with Tim Sugden and Bill Auberlen to finish fourth overall. Having saved money by refusing the costly update pack for the McLaren, O'Rourke typically spent as much again on a huge party for all concerned in the EMKA team's success.
From 2000 O'Rourke campaigned Porsche cars in the FIA and British GT Championships until he was forced to retire from driving for health reasons; he had presided over the drivers Tim Sugden and Emmanuel Collard as they won in 2003 in Sicily and Sweden. Porsche responded by offering racing assistance to the EMKA factory for 2004 - a decision which delighted O'Rourke.
He was a trustee of The Music Sound Foundation and of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy.
O'Rourke suffered a stroke and died in Miami, Florida, USA, in 2003. His funeral service was held on 14 November 2003 at Chichester Cathedral in Sussex, England, where as a tribute, Pink Floyd members David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason performed together in public for the first time since October 1994. They played "Fat Old Sun" and "The Great Gig in the Sky", with Dick Parry playing the saxophone as he followed the coffin.
[edit] Other artists
Other artists managed by O'Rourke include
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