Home Show Host George Colouris Dies

NEWPORT BEACH — George Colouris, who for 40 years produced award-winning home shows in Orange County known for their fields of stunning flower displays, died Tuesday. He was 79.

Colouris hosted the first event at the Anaheim Convention Center when it opened in 1967, beginning a 35-year tradition for his Southern California Home and Garden Show. City officials still credit the Convention Center’s success to early advice from Colouris, who encouraged city planners to make it at least 100,000 square feet in size.

Colouris had been producing home shows at the Orange County Fairgrounds since 1955 and was consulted often about plans for the new center in Anaheim. “He knew the business and he told them anything smaller would fail,” said Greg Smith, general manager of the Convention Center. “Thankfully, they listened.”

Smith said Colouris, who had been blind since birth, built lavish floral displays that became a trademark at his shows. Displays included waterfalls and towers of flowers at the entrances. His wife of 46 years, Kae Colouris, was his decorating partner.

“He took pains to make it beautiful,” Smith said. “Him being blind made it even more special, because it was such a magnificent sight.”

Colouris was admitted to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian last week, just a few days after the conclusion of his last home show in Anaheim. He rarely spoke of his five-year-long battle with prostate cancer and never complained about his illness, friends said Tuesday.

“He fought it and he toughed it out, and through it all he never said a cross word about any of it,” said Ed Strotereau, who managed the Convention Center for its first 20 years. “Anyone who knew him is richer because of it.”

*

Besides the home shows, Colouris devoted himself to civic and philanthropic organizations, becoming the City of Hope’s first Man of the Year and holding offices with the State Junior Chamber of Commerce, Junior Rose Bowl, California State Builders Exchange and World Farm Center.

In 1995 he received the first-ever Chairman’s Award from the International Assn. of Exhibition Management, which recognized lifetime achievement in the consumer show industry.

“He was the epitome of a great showman,” Strotereau said. “He was greatly respected, loved by everybody.”

Health problems unrelated to cancer prompted Colouris in 1991 to sell the Southern California Home and Garden Show. He agreed not to put on a competing show for the next five years, a condition that expired last year and freed Colouris to launch the International Home and Flower Show, which debuted May 10 in Anaheim.

Just as he kept private his illness, Colouris made little of his blindness, friends said. He was the first visually impaired student to graduate from UCLA, and went on to become president and general manager of the Foundation for the Blind.

“He used to say he wanted to play a round of golf with me sometime,” Smith recalled Tuesday. “And just to make things even, he said he’d make the tee time for midnight.”

Colouris is survived by his wife of Newport Beach, two children and five nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held June 16 at 10 a.m. at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, 2046 Mar Vista in Newport Beach.