Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.

TV reporter and presenter Bill Grundy died of a heart attack in Stockport, near Manchester, on February 9, 1993. He was 69 years old.

Bill Grundy was a tough, uncompromising TV man who made his name in the early ’60s.  Grundy was famously belligerent and got results. Mostly he was a current affairs man, but on a couple of notable occasions he crossed over into rock and roll history, first with the Beatles in 1962 and then with the Sex Pistols and one of TV most controversial interviews. It was an explosive interview that launched the punk band and pretty much finished Grundy’s career.

In the more innocent musical days of the early ’60s, Grundy was presenter of Granada TV’s People and Places TV show. Leslie Woodhead was a researcher on the show and, in the book Granada Television: The First Generation, she recalls the day that Grundy made history by introducing a young Liverpool band for their first-ever television appearance.

“They arrived for their first TV appearance in little waistcoats like tacky Spanish waiters to sing ‘A Taste of Honey,’” she remembered. “Paul [McCartney] had told me that he was upset that nobody would allow them to sing any of their own songs so we allowed them a second number; a thing he’d written with John [Lennon] called ‘Love Me Do.’ They said they’d done it on a record that was due to be released. As they were leaving, Ringo [Starr] sought me out to say, ‘Thanks for the gig.’”

And so Grundy continued as one of British TV’s top reporters and presenters until what would become a very fateful day at the end of 1976. On December 1, with “Anarchy in the U.K.” just released, the Sex Pistols were interviewed on an evening news program in London by Grundy.

He intended the piece to look at the social implications of punk and its supposed anti-establishment stance, but his confrontational interview technique woefully backfired on the already media savvy Pistols, especially when he seemed overtly flirtatious with a member of the band’s entourage, and soon-to-be-punk star, Siouxsie Sioux.

What follows is a partial transcript of the program:

Grundy: I’m told that the group have received £40,000 from a record company. Doesn't that seem, er, slightly opposed to their anti-materialistic view of life?

Glen Matlock: No, the more the merrier.

Grundy: Really?

Matlock: Oh yeah.

Grundy: Well, tell me more then.

Steve Jones: We’ve [expletive] spent it, ain’t we?

Grundy: I don’t know. Have you?

Matlock: Yeah. It’s all gone.

Grundy: Really? Good Lord? Now I want to know one thing...

Matlock: What?

Grundy: Are you serious or are you just making me… trying to make me laugh?

Matlock: No, it's gone. Gone.

Grundy: Really?

Matlock: Yeah.

Grundy: No, but I mean about what you’re doing…

Matlock: Oh yeah.

Grundy: Are you serious?

Matlock: Mmm.

Grundy: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms have all died ...

Johnny Rotten: They’re all heroes of ours, ain’t they?

Grundy: Really? What? What are you saying, sir?

Rotten: They’re wonderful people.

Grundy: Are they?

Rotten: Oh yes! They reaIly turn us on.

Grundy: Suppose they turn other people on?

Rotten: [mumbling] Well that’s just their tough [expletive].

Grundy: It’s what?

Rotten: Nothing. A rude word. Next question!

Grundy: No, no. What was the rude word?

Johnny Rotten: [Expletive]

Grundy: Was it really? God, you frighten me to death.

Rotten: Oh alright, Siegfried…

Grundy: What about you girls behind?

Matlock: He’s like your dad ain’t he, this geezer? Or your Grandad.

Grundy: Are you worried or just enjoying yourself?

Siouxsie Sioux: Enjoying myself.

Grundy: Are you?

Sioux: Yeah.

Bill Grundy: Ah! That’s what I thought you were doing.

Sioux: I’ve always wanted to meet you.

Grundy: Did you really?

Sioux: Yeah.

Grundy: We’ll meet afterwards, shall we?

Jones: You dirty sod. You dirty old man.

Grundy: Well keep going, chief. Keep going. Go on, you've got another 10 seconds. Say something outrageous.

Jones: You dirty bastard.

Grundy: Go on, again.

Jones: You dirty [expletive]!

Grundy: What a clever boy.

Jones: You [expletive] rotter!

Grundy: Well that’s it for tonight. I’ll be seeing you soon. I hope I’ll not be seeing you again. From me though, goodnight.

The Sex Pistols were front-page news the next day. Prompting the daily Mirror to run the notorious headline “The Filth and the Fury” and their record company to fire them. The move allowed manager Malcolm McLaren to thrust the band all over the media and make an impact that not even he could have hoped for.

Grundy’s career on mainstream, prime-time TV was over. He’d surface with a book review show and a newspaper round-up show but never worked at the same level as he had before the Pistols incident.