MaxCryer
- Presenter
- Producer
Max Cryer’s career as an entertainer encompassed singing on stage and screen, time in the United States, and pioneering live talk shows on television (Town Cryer). After a busy decade of TV presenting which began in the late 1960s, Cryer went behind the scenes to produce a clutch of quiz shows — before a late flowering as a prolific, bestselling author, exploring his love of words and Kiwi culture. He died on 25 August 2021.
Screenography
Biography
Max Cryer, MBE, once argued that New Zealanders like to put their performers in pigeonholes. "You’re supposed to be a pop singer or an opera singer or an actor or something equally neat and defined."
Cryer’s career illustrated the advantages of being hard to define. He did extended runs as talk show host, television producer, musical performer and author. For more than a decade, he juggled gigs in New Zealand and the United States, and claimed to have sung "just about every type of music there is, except rock and jazz" — despite a "mediocre" singing voice, "an erratic piano style, and only the ability to think fast enough to overcome them all".
Awards
1995 Member of the Order of the British Empire
For services to entertainment
1990 Commemoration Medal
For services to New Zealand
1977 Variety Artists
Benny Award for services to New Zealand entertainment
“The trouble with Max is that he can turn his hand to so many things, and accomplish them with flair and polish. And people tend to become confused by a man who moves with easy self-assurance through such a wide spectrum of entertainment.”