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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.
Jan 31, 2008 · Village Roadshow founder Roc (Roscoe) Kirby died after an illness Jan. 25 in his home state of Victoria. He was 89. After taking-over his parents’ humble cinema business, Kirby founded Village...
Feb 1, 2008 · Roc (Roscoe) Kirby, who founded Village Roadshow in 1954 with a single drive-in theatre, died on January 25, aged 89. Mr Kirby oversaw the company's expansion into...
Jan 18, 2019 · The 71-year-old had stood back as his younger brother and executive chairman Robert Kirby and chief executive Graham Burke, a family friend, called the shots over that time. But now he’d had enough. In the email John outlined his frustrations.
THE ghost of legendary Village Roadshow founder Roc Kirby still strolls the corridors of the group's corporate headquarters deep in the bowels of Melbourne's historic South Yarra Jam Factory. The founder's darkened office remains much the way he left it, more than four years since his death at 89.
Village Roadshow originally started operations as Village Drive-Ins (later known as "Village Drive-ins and Cinemas" before becoming today's "Village Cinemas" brand), in 1954, when founder Roc Kirby began running one of Australia's first drive-in cinemas in the Melbourne suburb of Croydon.
Dec 7, 2020 · Feuding John and Robert Kirby can act independently at last after Village Roadshow fell into the hands of private equity, largely because COVID-19 killed the cinema.
Oct 23, 2023 · Media & Marketing. ‘It was great newspaper fodder’: Village Roadshow CEO on family bust-up. The Kirbys were masters of movies, until their family feud became the story. But they’ve held on for...
The business grew from founder Roc Kirby setting up one of the first drive-ins in Melbourne’s Croydon in 1954. This was quickly followed by cinemas and film distribution and the more glamorous world of film production in the 1970s, before the company became part of 1980s boom in multiplex cinemas.
Jan 23, 1995 · Roc Kirby first helped build a cinema with his bare hands, working alongside contractors to prepare ground for Australia's first drive-in at Croydon, an outer Melbourne suburb. 'That was in 1954.
