Whirligig TV News Archive
Anthony Valentine, actor,
has died aged 76 (3 December 2015)
Anthony Valentine was one of Britain’s best known television
baddies, the suave villain of numerous drama series from the
1960s to the 1990s.
He made his acting debut as a 10-year-old as a “little
boy” in the film No Way Back (1949), and aged 12 was a
youthful sleuth in The Girl on the Pier (1953). Children's TV
kept Valentine busy, casting him as Humphrey Beverley in The
Children of the New Forest (1955), JO Stagg in Rex Milligan
(1956) and Lord Mauleverer (1955), then Harry Wharton (1956-57),
in Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. He also sang in the
children's magazine show Whirligig – accompanied by Steve
Race on the piano – and for two seasons in operas at
Sadler's Wells Theatre.
But he came into his own as Edward Woodward’s fellow Secret
Service agent and rival Toby Meres in the first two series of
Callan (ITV, 1967-69), a character he brought to life as a
supercilious upper-class thug whose urbane demeanour somehow
fails to conceal his total lack of moral compass.
He became a household name as the sadistic German Luftwaffe
officer Major Horst Mohn in the BBC series Colditz (1972-74) and
was the gentleman jewel thief and ladies’ man in the
Yorkshire Television hit series Raffles (1977).
Valentine’s other television credits included Dr
Finlay’s Casebook, Softly Softly, Lovejoy, The Detectives,
Tales of the Unexpected and Robin of Sherwood (ITV 1984-86). more....
Redvers Kyle, television
announcer, has died aged 85 (27
November 2015)
Redvers Kyle arrived in England in 1952 from his native South
Africa, and spent a year teaching in a south London school before
becoming a freelance radio and television broadcaster for the
BBC.
With the arrival of Independent Television in 1955 he switched to
ATV London as a presenter and also joined ITN News. The following
year he moved to Associated-Rediffusion (until 1968). In addition
to Looking and Seeing, he worked on several other programmes
including the children’s show Tuesday Rendezvous.
In 1968 he moved as chief announcer to the new Yorkshire
Television in Leeds, becoming one of the best-known voices on the
station, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. more....
Hazel Adair, writer of
Crossroads and other television and radio soap operas, has died
aged 95 (23 November 2015)
Hazel Adair was a pioneer of soap opera on British television.
She was the co-creator of Sixpenny Corner, Britain’s first
daily soap; Compact, the first serial to feature a regular black
character; and, most famously, Crossroads.
Adair wrote scripts for two series, At Your Service, Ltd (1951),
with Robert Tronson, and Stranger from Space (1951-53), with her
husband Ronald Marriott.
She also became a scriptwriter on the weekday radio serial Mrs
Dale’s Diary, alongside others such as Peter Ling and its
lead writer, Jonquil Antony. This led her to create, with Antony,
ITV’s first soap opera, Sixpenny Corner (1955-56): the first
on British television to run five days a week.
From 1957, when the hugely popular Emergency – Ward 10 was
launched, Adair wrote episodes of the hospital serial. She also
co-wrote the spin-off film, Life in Emergency Ward 10 (1959), and
the 1961 comedy Dentist on the Job.
Also a writer for magazines, Adair was sitting in the offices of
Woman’s Own waiting to deliver a feature when she had the
idea for Compact (1962-65), a serial based in the world of
magazine publishing.
In 1967, Adair and Peter Ling devised Champion House (1967-68), a
BBC drama series about a family-run textile firm. more....
Peter Dimmock, TV
broadcaster and producer, has died aged 94 (22 November 2015)
Peter Dimmock became the face of BBC Sport in the 1950s, having
already made his reputation as a gifted television producer by
organising coverage of the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, the
moment the fledgling medium came of age. Dimmock had spent a year
planning coverage of the day and, with technical skill and
stylish aplomb, had succeeded in capturing the majestic drama as
it unfolded live in front of a watching audience of more than 20
million in Britain — nearly half the population — and
many millions more worldwide.
No television broadcast had been so prepared and so polished, and
for this Dimmock deserved a large share of the credit. As the
director as well as the producer, he displayed an intuitive eye
for delivering pictures that he knew the public wanted to see.
In 1948 Dimmock had helped to organise the BBCBBC record. After
’s coverage of the London Olympics. In the course of 15 days
he oversaw 70 hours of television coverage, a commentating on the
1949 Boat Race, he produced the BBCpictures to Britain ’s
first televised Test match from Trent Bridge in 1950, and
organised the first relay of live television from Calais in the
same year.
In February 1952 Dimmock arranged television coverage of the
funeral of King George VI. The sombre images of Queens at the
door of Westminster Hall were three black-veiled more eloquent of
the passing of an era than any spoken commentary.
Dimmock began to carve out a parallel on-screen career as the
anchorman of the BBCprogramme switched from Thursday to a peak
slot on Wednesday nights in August 1955, 21 per cent of the adult
population regularly tuned in. In the lahost of Grandstand,
before handing over the reins to David Coleman. Sportsview ran
until 1964. s first ’the first regular sports magazine
programme Sportsview, launched in April 1954.
In the meantime Dimmock had produced and directed the State
Opening of Parliament in 1958 and, two years later, the first
televised Grand National. In the same year Dimmock supervised
television coverage of the wedding of Princess Margaret to
Anthony Armstrong-Jones, later Lord Snowdon. From 1963 until the
Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977, he was the BBC’s
liaison executive with the Royal family.
More than any other individual, he could be said to have
single-handedly created the corporation’s outside broadcast
department, having produced, directed and commentated on
virtually every important event in the 1940s and early 1950s .
Dimmock was also a great discoverer of television talent, and
launched the broadcasting careers of Harry Carpenter, Peter
O’Sullevan and Eddie Waring, among others.
In 1972 he was appointed general manager of BBC Enterprises, the
corporation’s commercial arm.
He was wounded and disappointed when the BBC failed to invite him
to the service at Westminster Abbey in June 2013, attended by the
Queen, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Coronation.
He was appointed OBE in 1961 and CVO in 1968. In 1977 he was made
a Freeman of the City of London, and the following year was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Television Society. more....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/peter-dimmock-pioneering-broadcaster-and-producer-who-played-a-pivotal-role-in-the-growth-of-a6744231.html
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/22/peter-dimmock
Joy Beverley, singer, has
died aged 91 (1 September 2015)
Joy Beverley was the eldest of the Beverley Sisters, the
close-harmony trio whose novelty songs became hits in the 1950s
who found fame in the pre-rock and roll era with novelty songs
such as I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus and Little Drummer Boy.
During the war, the girls were evacuated together to
Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, where they amused themselves
by singing close harmony. Spotted by a man recruiting for the
“Ovaltinies”, the harmony-singing advert for Ovaltine
on Radio Luxembourg, they soon caught the eye of Glenn Miller and
went on to record with his orchestra. Having signed their first
contract, with Columbia Records, in 1951, by 1952 they were
starring at the London Palladium. The following year they had
their first Top 10 hit with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,
which reached No 6 in the charts.
As well as pop hits, for seven years during the 1940s and 1950s
they had their own BBC television series , and they frequently
topped the bill at the London Palladium, alongside such stars as
Danny Kaye, Bob Hope and Max Bygraves, taking part in several
Royal Command performances. more....
George Cole, actor, has
died aged 90 (6 August 2015)
George Cole was a comic actor who excelled at playing shifty
'spivs’ such as the roguish Arthur Daley in Minder.
He appeared in a couple of films before joining the RAF in 1943.
After the war Cole returned to acting, appearing in a variety of
mediocre films including My Brother’s Keeper (1948), The
Spider and the Fly (1949) and Gone to Earth (1950). He had
greater success with Alastair Sim in the classic comedies
Laughter in Paradise (1951) and Scrooge (1952).
Over the next decade, Cole and Sim repeated their screen
partnership in a string of films, the most successful of which
were the St Trinian’s series, directed by Frank Launder. In
the first, The Belles of St Trinian’s (1954), Cole (as the
spiv Flash Harry) received third billing after Sim and Joyce
Grenfell. The film was extremely successful and was followed by
five more, including Blue Murder at St Trinian’s (1958) and
Cole’s only film in the series without Sim, The Pure Hell of
St Trinian’s (1961).
Between films, Cole starred as the bumbling bachelor David Bliss
in the long-running BBC radio series A Life of Bliss (118
episodes, 1952-67). The show was broadcast on Sunday afternoons.
Cole recalled it as “wholesome to the point of nausea”,
and insisted that the best part of the show had been Percy
Edwards’s performance as Psyche the dog. more....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11710589/George-Cole-actor-obituary.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/george-cole-treasured-comic-actor-who-starred-as-the-lovable-rogue-arthur-daley-in-minder-10444193.html
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/aug/06/george-cole
Val Doonican, singer, has
died aged 88 (3 July 2015)
Val Doonican, the Irish singer who has died aged 88, rose to fame
in the early 1960s when he appeared in Sunday Night at the London
Palladium; his relaxed manner and easy charm made him extremely
popular with family audiences, who appreciated his whimsical
renditions of folk songs such as Paddy McGinty’s Goat,
O’Rafferty’s Motor Car and Delaney’s Donkey.
Doonican distinguished himself from other performers at that time
by sporting a range of knitwear more usually seen in Lapland and
by performing many of his songs while sitting in a rocking chair.
In 1951 Val Doonican moved to London and made his radio debut as
a member of the Four Ramblers on Riders of the Range. He played
one of a number of bunk-house boys who were heard crooning cowboy
songs in the gaps between the action. At the same time he was
supplementing his income by writing musical accompaniments for
Tex Ritter.
When not performing as cowboys, the group toured Britain,
appearing at various variety venues. By 1953 they were working
regularly in cabaret, performing at American Air Bases.
In 1959 Val Doonican auditioned as a solo performer with BBC
radio and was offered a spot on Dreamy Afternoon which led to his
own show, Your Date with Val. Doonicans’s mix of songs and
stories proved popular and the following year he was touring the
country with his own show. In 1964 Val Doonican was offered a
spot on ITV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium and was
acclaimed as an “overnight star”. Within a year he was
appearing on BBC television in The Val Doonican Music Show and
was voted BBC Personality of the Year (an award he won three
times altogether). more....
Marguerite Patten, food
writer and broadcaster, has died aged 99 (10 June 2015)
Marguerite Patten helped the nation to feed itself through the
war years and for the next half century taught the British how to
cook "sensible food in an appetising manner".
As a home economist with the Ministry of Food during the war,
Marguerite Patten showed housewives how to get by with a tin of
Spam and a ration book. She rose to prominence in the post-war
years, becoming one of the BBC’s first food broadcasters, on
Kitchen Front and then on Woman’s Hour.
Marguerite Patten predated Philip Harben, the Cradocks and
Elizabeth David and endured for decades longer. She was the most
prolific cookery writer ever, the author of more than 165 cookery
books, which sold over 17 million copies worldwide. She was also
one of the few people ever to have been decorated for their
services to cookery.
From 1947 Marguerite Patten was the BBC’s first regular
television cook, on Kitchen Front. She gave recipes on
Woman’s Hour from its second day, and even starred in
cookery shows at the Palladium. In 1952, she wrote a regular
column for The Daily Telegraph called “Merry-go-round of
Meals”.
Over the next 40 years, as Britain moved from being the nation
with the reputation for the worst cooking in Europe to the most
cosmopolitan food culture on earth, Marguerite Patten played a
full part in showing the amateur cook how to get to grips with
the huge new range of ingredients and fashions. more....
Peter Howell, stage and
screen actor, has died aged 95 (11
May 2015)
Peter Howell found himself catapulted into the spotlight –
and up to 24 million viewers’ homes – when he played Dr
Peter Harrison in British television’s first medical soap,
Emergency – Ward 10. Howell joined the twice-weekly serial
in 1958, a year after it began, and appeared in 111 episodes
through most of its 10-year history. Although he left in 1964,
when audience figures were starting to slip, he returned for a
short run two years later and a special appearance in the final
episode, in 1967.
His West End stage plays included The Affair (Strand theatre,
1961), The Doctor’s Dilemma (Theatre Royal, Haymarket,
1963), Little Boxes (Duchess theatre, 1968) and Conduct
Unbecoming (Queen’s theatre, 1969).
Among Howell’s dozens of television roles were Lord Howard
in Elizabeth R (1971), Julius Caesar in Heil Caesar! (1973),
Francis Knollys in Edward the King (1975), Uncle Glegg in The
Mill on the Floss (1979) and Sir William Lucas in Pride and
Prejudice (1980), as well as various priests, detectives,
lawyers, judges, headmasters and army officers. more....
Pamela Cundell, actress,
singer and comedian, has died aged 95 (8 May 2015)
She was best known on television for her regular appearances as
the spoony, matronly-built Mrs Fox in Dad's Army, smothering
American soldiers with her affections and flirting her way into
getting an extra sausage off the ration from the meek butcher
Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn).
Full of life, and habitually bursting into rehearsals with a
flourishing "hello darlings!", Pamela Cundell's
music-hall sense of showmanship cast her first and foremost as a
comedy player.
In the final days of music hall she appeared as a singer and
comedian alongside such stars as Jimmy Jewel, Terry Scott and Sid
Millward and His Nitwits. Throughout the 1950s, alongside Dick
Emery, she was a regular on BBC Radio's Workers' Playtime.
She appeared regularly in seaside revues such as Between
Ourselves, which toured the east coast in 1955, and began her
association with the gloriously bovine Bill Fraser, through whom
she made her first television appearances in 1961 in the sitcom
Bootsie and Snudge, a civvy street spin-off from The Army Game
that starred Fraser and Alfie Bass. more....
Ronnie Carroll, Eurovision
singer, has died aged 80 (14
April 2015)
After Carroll appeared in a BBC television talent show, Camera
One in 1956, positive reaction to his warm baritone led to a
recording contract with Philips and to frequent radio appearances
on the Light Programme and Radio Luxembourg. Carroll was also a
guest on the television shows of Morecambe and Wise, Bruce
Forsyth, Kathy Kirby and others.
Also in 1956 his first hit record, Walk Hand in Hand, reached No
13 and the following year The Wisdom of a Fool entered the top
20. Further records were less successful, until in 1962 Carroll
had a top 10 hit with Roses Are Red (My Love).
In 1962 Carroll was also chosen as the national standard bearer
for that year’s Eurovision song contest. His song,
Ring-a-Ding Girl, came a creditable fourth, a good enough
position to ensure that Carroll became the first vocalist to
represent Britain in the contest for two years running. His 1963
entry, Say Wonderful Things, composed by Norman Newell, also
achieved fourth place. more....
Shaw Taylor, television
presenter, has died aged 90 (18
March 2015)
After the War, a London County Council grant afforded him two
years at Rada, where a heavy Cockney accent was ironed out of
him. Work on stage in the West End and small parts in films and
television dramas followed throughout the 1950s.
After standing in for six weeks as a relief announcer at ATV in
the summer of 1957 Taylor was offered a staff job at the station.
Tired of the thespian life and describing himself as an actor
“of no consequence”, he decided on a change of
direction and began his career in broadcasting.
He quickly became one of the station’s best-known faces, and
was in demand as a quizmaster on shows like Tell the Truth,
Pencil and Paper and Password and Dotto. He also commented on
royal occasions and on ITV’s coverage of the Cenotaph
ceremony, and worked as a sports commentator for the channel.
But it was as the host of Police 5 that Taylor found sustained
success. The show was the brainchild of Steve Wade, the head of
outside broadcasts at ATV. It was commissioned by the ATV boss
Lew Grade in June 1962 and devised to fill a gap left by an
American import that ran for 55 minutes instead of the required
60 minutes. more....
Gerry Wells, radio
enthusiast, has died aged 85 (December
2014)
Gerry Wells was a self-confessed obsessive whose life was
dominated by his fascination with radio apparatus.
By the time of his death he had amassed a collection of more than
1,300 radio and television sets and associated equipment,
covering the entire pre-transistor history of broadcasting. This
had become the British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum,
and today it occupies his lifelong home, a substantial Edwardian
house in Dulwich, south-east London. The collection contains many
working examples, most of them found and brought back to life by
Wells himself. Visitors can have the unique and somewhat
unsettling experience of watching live television programmes in
the old 405-line, black-and-white format, abandoned in 1984.
more....
http://bvwm.org.uk/
Pauline Yates, stage and
screen actor, has died aged 85 (21
January 2015)
Pauline Yates was a spirit of domestic calm when she played his
wife in the mayhem led by Leonard Rossiter as the erratic Reggie
Perrin, whose bizarre behaviour she treated as normal and in need
of no explanation.
Yates’s looks and ability to learn lines quickly, a trick
perfected during her years in rep, made her a popular choice for
TV casting directors. In 1957 she appeared in one of the first
hospital soap operas, ITV’s Emergency Ward 10, and she
appeared in the BBC police series Z Cars and Softly Softly, and,
on a number of occasions, in ITV’s Armchair Theatre, for
which her husband Donald Churchill wrote several plays.
Yates’s career path was almost like a route map through
British TV comedy in the 70s and 80s. She was a consummate comic
foil, appearing in The Ronnie Barker Playhouse on ITV in 1968,
but also taking on central roles as the Tory MP in the BBC’s
My Honourable Mrs (1975), opposite Derek Nimmo, and the divorcee
finding a new life after marriage in Thames TV’s
Harriet’s Back in Town (1972). more....
Lotte Hass, model and
undersea film-maker, has died aged 86 (14 January 2015)
Lotte Hass was an underwater photographer and model who, with her
husband Hans, produced pioneering films of the sea depths during
the 1950s.
Shot on early watertight cameras, the Hasses’ footage
offered viewers a glimpse of an underwater world unparalleled in
its intimacy – at considerable personal risk to Lotte, who
dived using a lightweight rebreather and a fashionable swimsuit
that afforded her little protection from aquatic predators.
The couple’s commercial success allowed Hass to purchase a
170-foot hull, the Xarifa, and Lotte accompanied him on
expeditions to the Caribbean and Galapagos islands, where they
shot Under the Caribbean (1953).
Diving To Adventure, the couple’s 1956 BBC series, was the
first of its kind for British television, proving a great hit
with critics and viewers alike. more....
Ronnie Ronalde, artiste
famous for his whistling and yodelling, had died aged 91 (13 January 2015)
In 1950 the EMI record producer Norman Newell was in a pub on the
Edgware Road when Ronalde performed "If I Were A
Blackbird" on the radio. As the customers were silent as he
performed, Newell realised that this could be a hit record. That
and "In A Monastery Garden" became best-selling records
and favourites on the BBC programme Housewives' Choice.
He recorded the songs of the day, singing and whistling his way
through "Hair Of Gold, Eyes Of Blue" and "Mocking
Bird Hill". He discussed bird song with the ornithologist
Percy Edwards and when he recorded "Ballad Of Davy
Crockett" he made sure that his choice of birds was right
for the area. He could mimic flutes and violins, while his
version of "I Believe" highlighted his commanding tenor
voice.
Ronalde was a major attraction and audiences marvelled at his
lightning-fast versions of "Tritsch Tratsch Polka" and
"Can-Can". He hosted variety series for the BBC and
ITV, but in the late 1950s there was a decline in variety acts
and he was seen as an anachronism. more....
Roberta Leigh, Children's
author and puppeteer, has died aged 87 (27 December 2014)
Roberta Leigh wrote romantic novels and children’s stories
under a variety of noms de plume and in the 1960s was successful
as a creator and producer of popular puppet series on ITV.
After the publication of her first romantic novel, In Name Only,
by Harlequin books in 1950, Roberta Leigh published more than 10
novels over the next decade and branched out into children’s
writing, magazines, newspaper columns and television.
Roberta Leigh began her television career with The Adventures of
Twizzle in 1957, which was turned into her first children’s
book in 1960. She created, produced, scripted, and wrote the
music and lyrics for the puppet series (and then for a further
seven puppet film series), all shown on ITV.
As well as Sara and Hoppity (1962-63), a 50-episode television
series about a little girl and her mischievous doll with one leg
shorter than the other and Space Patrol (1963, Planet Patrol in
America), a 39-episode science fiction series incorporating
elements of Gerry Anderson’s Supermarionation techniques,
these included Torchy the Battery Boy; Wonder Boy and Tiger; Send
for Dithers; and Picture the Word (52 animations for a “Fun
to Learn” series).
To make the films, she acquired the Soho-based National Interest
Pictures and a second film studio in Harlesden, becoming the
first woman producer in Britain to have her own film company. more....
John Freeman, Soldier, MP,
diplomat and broadcaster best known for his series of interviews,
Face to Face, has died aged 99 (20
December 2014)
John Freeman was offered work by the BBC, first as a freelance
current affairs reporter on Panorama, then on Press Conference, a
political discussion programme. On Panorama he conducted a
merciless interview with Frank Foulkes, the Communist President
of the Electrical Trades Union, who had been accused of rigging
the union ballot.
Cross-examination was his forte – a skill he may have
acquired from his father. It reached its flowering in Face to
Face, a series that began in 1959. Until then, there had been few
instances of the hard-hitting, confrontational TV interview.
Public figures were given a fairly easy ride by broadcasters,
with any hint of potential embarrassment scrupulously avoided.
Freeman recognised that provocation would generally draw out more
truth from interviewees than politeness. Sitting with the back of
his head towards the camera, and with the victim’s face in
close-up, he turned the programmes into gladiatorial contests. In
an unemotional, forensic style, he would nag away at any
weaknesses he perceived in his subjects’ defences. In one
notorious programme, the game show panellist Gilbert Harding was
reduced to tears during a relentless interrogation about his
family history. The series was immensely popular and in 1960
Freeman was named television personality of the year. more....
Rex Firkin, television
producer, has died aged 88 (7
December 2014)
The producer and director Rex Firkin described himself as being
"in the engine room of commercial television" at its
inception in Britain. Starting in 1955, when Lew Grade's ATV
opened, he spent more than 30 years at ITV, made some of its
biggest popular and critical successes and brought others to the
screen himself after becoming head of drama at LWT.
In 1953, Firkin looked for work in television, but a string of
job applications to the BBC were rejected. A meeting with Norman
Collins, who became a founder of ATV, led to his becoming a
trainee programme director in 1955 when the commercial channel
opened. His first work was directing The Adventures of Noddy,
Theatre Club, the live drama serial One Family and the
advertising magazine Home with Joy Shelton.
He directed (1957-60), then produced (1959-60), Emergency –
Ward 10, television's first occupational soap, following the
lives of doctors and nurses at the fictional Oxbridge General
Hospital. It was watched by up to 24 million viewers and won a
1957 Society of Film and Television Arts Merit Award.
While continuing to direct occasionally, he spent the next
quarter of a century as a producer. He began with the Ward 10
spin-off Call Oxbridge 2000 (1961-62), then made the second and
third series (1961) of the newspaper drama Deadline Midnight and
the final run (1962) of Probation Officer.
As a producer, Firkin then created, with Wilfred Greatorex,
another drama set in the workplace. Against the wishes of ATV's
casting department he hired Patrick Wymark to star in The Plane
Makers (1963-5) as the bullying aircraft factory boss John
Wilder, locked in battles with unions on the shop floor and
management in the boardroom. more....
Cherry Wainer, pianist
hailed as “the female Liberace”, has died aged 78 (14 November 2014)
Wainer first appeared on ITV’s Lunch Box, the lightest of
light entertainment shows.
It was through one such appearance that along with her future
husband, Don Storer a highly paid jobbing drummer, she came to
the attention of Jack Good, who had been commissioned to produce
the first series of Oh Boy!
During live broadcasts of Oh Boy! on ITV in the late 1950s,
screams became cheers for Cherry Wainer, seated at an upholstered
Hammond organ as part of the programme’s house band, Lord
Rockingham’s XI.
Jack Good also brokered a recording contract for Wainer. Her
output was to include Money (1960), historically the first
Tamla-Motown number to be covered in the UK.
While chart entries proved elusive for Wainer in her own right, a
maiden Rockingham single, Fried Onions, made the US Hot 100.
Hoots Mon, the follow-up, was a domestic No 1 – and was
heard on a section of Oh Boy! featured in the 1959 Royal Command
Performance. Wainer became the focal point of the band –
publicised as “the female Liberace” – with solo
spots as both a singer and instrumentalist.
After the final edition of Oh Boy! in 1959, Wainer went on to
star in another ITV series, Boy Meets Girls, which was aimed at a
wider audience. more....
Angus Lennie, actor, has
died aged 84 (14 September 2014)
On television, he was in Armchair Theatre, "The Mortimer
Touch" (ABC, 1957), during its earlier, less adventurous
period, in this case a stage play by Eric Linklater. By contrast,
Lennie appeared in Mario (BBC, 1959), for the experimental drama
movement the Langham Group, employing montages and still
photography in adapting a short story by Thomas Mann. More in
character was Para Handy – Master Mariner (BBC, 1959-60), as
Sunny Jim, deckhand on the Vital Spark, commandeered by lean,
craggy-faced Duncan Macrae in the title role.
After The Great Escape, Lennie stayed in RAF uniform for 633
Squadron (1964), chiefly remembered for Ron Goodwin's stirring
score, and was directed by Attenborough in the panoramic Oh! What
A Lovely War (1969). more....
Sir Donald Sinden, actor,
has died aged 90 (12 September 2014)
Donald Sinden joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at
Stratford-on-Avon for the 1946-47 season. In October 1947 he made
his West End debut as Aumerle in Richard II, and in 1948 joined
the Bristol Old Vic. He left Bristol to appear as Arthur Townsend
in The Heiress, an adaptation of Henry James’s Washington
Square. Sinden had nine lines and appeared in all 644
performances of the show.
During the 1950s, he immersed himself in cinema work, appearing
in more than 20 films, including The Cruel Sea (1953), in which
he shared top-billing with Jack Hawkins, and Mogambo (1954), a
huge safari epic in which Sinden received fourth billing after
Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly, as Kelly’s
cuckolded gorilla-hunting husband.
After playing Tony Benskin, a womanising medical student in
Doctor in the House (1954), Sinden began to find himself being
typecast in comic roles. He played Benskin and characters like
him for the next eight years.
When the British film industry began to falter in the early
Sixties, Sinden’s film career ended.
Sinden went on to make a name for himself as a comedian and
farceur. He appeared as Robert Danvers in There’s a Girl in
My Soup at the Aldwych in 1966, and won Best Actor awards for his
appearances in the Ray Cooney farces Not Now, Darling (1967), Two
into One (1984) and Out of Order (1990). In 1976 he was nominated
for a Best Actor Tony Award for his performance on Broadway as
Arthur Wicksteed in Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus. more....
Bill Kerr, Australian
actor, has died aged 92 (30 August 2014)
Bill Kerr made his name on the radio in Britain in the 1950s,
becoming particularly well-known for his role (alongside Sid
James and Hattie Jacques) as one of Tony Hancock’s three
cronies in Hancock’s Half Hour.
But Kerr was also a character actor of distinction, giving
memorable performances as a racketeer in My Death is a Mockery
(1952); as the bomber pilot Micky Martin in The Dam Busters
(1955); and as a mentally disturbed crook in Port of Escape
(1956), co-starring Googie Withers and Joan Hickson. His other
films of this period included Appointment in London (1952), You
Know What Sailors Are (1954) and The Night My Number Came Up
(1955).
In 1954 he joined Hancock’s Half Hour, which ran on the
radio for six series and later moved on to television. As
Hancock’s Australian lodger at the dilapidated 23 Railway
Cuttings, East Cheam, Kerr appeared as the gormless,
slow-on-the-uptake butt of his landlord’s humour. The role
made Kerr a household name in Britain, and he later resumed his
partnership with Sid James in the first series of the television
comedy Citizen James (1960). more....
Lord Attenborough, actor
and director, has died aged 90 (24
August 2014)
Richard Attenborough was one of the pillars of British cinema,
originally as an actor and subsequently as an Oscar-winning
director; his 1982 biopic, Gandhi, won best film of the year in
the annual Academy Awards, Attenborough himself being named best
director and Ben Kingsley best actor in the title role.
Having first made his name on screen in his student days, playing
a Navy stoker, terrified under fire, in the war film In Which We
Serve (1942), Richard Attenborough was just 24 years old at the
time of filming his standout role as Pinkie Brown, the adolescent
gangster of Brighton Rock.
In later years his own warmth of personality came to the fore,
and with Jurassic Park (1993) he endeared himself to a whole new
generation of fans, playing an avuncular professor whose naivety
almost proves fatal when things go awry at his dinosaur-filled
island theme park.
But it was Gandhi that was the apex of Richard
Attenborough’s career and displayed a facility, unsuspected
in his acting days, for handling large casts and epic, sweeping
narratives. more....
Juno Alexander, actress,
broadcaster and local politician, has died aged 88 (2 August 2014)
Juno Alexander was the older sister of the Conservative
politician Lord St John of Fawsley (Norman St John Stevas) and
the first wife of the actor Terence Alexander; she made a name in
her own right as an actress, broadcaster and local politician -
and as a woman of idiosyncrasy and verve.
During the war she joined the Free French and worked with the
Resistance; later she served as a Conservative councillor on
Richmond council, south-west London.
From the late 1940s to the 1960s, Juno Alexander made frequent
appearances on television, in programmes such as The Alfred Marks
Show, The Max Miller Show and The Eamonn Andrews Show. After the
births of her children, she did less work, but still had small
parts in films and in television series, among them Compact and
Garry Halliday (a precursor to Dr Who in which she appeared with
her husband as his air stewardess girlfriend), and also appeared
in series such as Harpers West One (1961) and Love Story (1963),
She also appeared on television and radio panel shows including
Petticoat Line, with Anona Wynn, Just A Minute and Going for a
Song. more....
Neal Arden, actor and one
of the voices behind Housewives’ Choice, has died aged 104 (1 August 2014)
Neal Arden was for more than 20 years one of Britain’s
favourite presenters on Housewives’ Choice, the popular
record request programme broadcast every morning, six days a
week, from 1946 to 1967 on the BBC Light Programme.
In a long and varied career in theatre, film, radio and
television, Arden worked with many of the leading stars of their
day, from Richard Tauber, Leslie Henson, Trevor Howard and Dulcie
Gray to Roger Moore, Harry Secombe, Prunella Scales, Donald
Sinden and Doris Day. He was an assiduous fundraiser for charity
and, as an actor, took numerous supporting roles both on stage
and in television series such as Maigret, Ivanhoe, Z Cars, Dixon
of Dock Green and I, Claudius. He also wrote songs, plays and
film and television scripts.
He made his screen debut in the 1934 film Princess Charming.
Other film credits over the years included the wartime anti-Nazi
thriller “Pimpernel” Smith (1941); John Wesley (1954);
and The Shakedown (1960). His most substantial role was in Norman
Walker’s Life of St Paul (1938), in which he played the
saint from beardless youth to bewhiskered old age.
His early theatrical credits included Toad of Toad Hall (Royalty,
1933); Blossom Time (1942, with Richard Tauber, Lyric); Night of
the Garter (Strand, 1942); and The Lilac Domino (His
Majesty’s, 1944).
In the 1950s Arden wrote many scripts for the new Independent
Television and record reviews for newspapers and magazines. more....
Dora Bryan, actress and
comedienne, has died aged 91 (23
July 2014)
Dora Bryan was one of Britain’s most versatile performers;
she was at home in revues, restoration comedies and musicals and
equally comfortable in dramatic roles, most notably in the film A
Taste of Honey (1961), in which she played Rita Tushingham’s
slatternly mother and for which she won a Bafta award for best
actress.
With her tiny frame, round, friendly and mobile face, her
warm-hearted grin and Lancashire gurgle, Dora Bryan had the gift
of appealing to every audience as soon as she appeared. To all
her work she was able to bring a breezily adaptable and engaging
personality.
She starred in several television series designed to showcase her
talents, including Our Dora (1968), According to Dora (1968) and
Dora (1972), in all of which she played various hapless,
apparently simple-minded characters.
Dora Bryan made her screen debut in the late Forties, appearing
in a variety of films, including Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen
Idol (1948) and in The Cure for Love (1949), in which she
co-starred with Robert Donat. Her versatility was demonstrated by
her taking roles in films as diverse as the old-fashioned police
thriller The Blue Lamp (1950) and the madcap comedy Mad About Men
(1954). more....
James Garner, actor and
producer, has died aged 86 (20
July 2014)
James Garner made his reputation in the late 1950s as the shrewd,
anti-heroic gambler Bret Maverick in the iconoclastic Western
series of the same name — and sealed it as the 1970s private
investigator Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files.
In 1955, Warner Brothers hired him for small roles in Cheyenne,
one of the western series infesting television, and advanced him
to Marlon Brando's buddy in the movie Sayonara (1957).
Then, after appearing in Towards the Unknown in 1957, Garner was
offered the lead in a new television Western series, Maverick. He
accepted because he was eager to play characters that upset
traditional models: “At that time all cowboys were tough and
spent their time shooting one another. Maverick was different
because he avoided trouble wherever possible. He hardly shot
anyone and he was always on the look-out for a fast buck.”
The series was an immediate success and prompted one critic to
claim that James Garner “defined 'cool’ for a whole
generation”.
"We nearly killed the cowboy shows," said Garner.
"It was hard after Maverick to see those guys go around
being brave without laughing." Maverick was the hottest show
from 1957 to 1959; it reinforced ABC when the network was
struggling, and won a 1959 Emmy. more ....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10978889/James-Garner-obituary.html
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jul/20/james-garner
Frank Mumford, master
marionettist, has died aged 95 (13
July 2014)
Frank Mumford, who has died aged 95, was a master of marionettes
whose career in variety spanned eight decades.
After the Second World War, he and his wife, Maisie, created a
speciality act featuring 2ft-tall puppets with large heads and
scaled-down bodies. Their line-up included hippos, skating cats,
skeletons, dancers , a matador and bull — and their most
famous creation, Mademoiselle Zizi, a diminutive chanteuse based
on Lana Turner and Gypsy Rose Lee.
The Mumfords played top London nightspots - including the Coconut
Grove, Grosvenor House, Ciro’s, the Embassy and the
Dorchester - and variety shows and cabarets around the world .
The Mumfords made many television appearances in Britain, working
at Alexandra Palace in the early days of children’s
television . Mumford carved the early versions of the Watch with
Mother puppet character Andy Pandy and also featured in Time for
Tich (1963-4) alongside the ventriloquist Ray Alan’s dummy
Tich and his pet duck Quackers.
Mumford’s last public appearance was in 2004 - 72 years
after he had first appeared on stage with his creations aged 14. more....
Dickie Jones, child star
of cowboy films and rodeos, has died aged 87 (9 July 2014)
Richard 'Dickie' Jones hit the big time - aged 13 - when he
voiced Pinocchio for Disney’s 1940 classic animated feature
film.
Jones excelled as the voice of the mischievous marionette whose
dreams of becoming a real boy are hampered by a propensity for
telling tall tales - until, that is, his nose points him in the
right direction.
Jones began working at rodeos at the age of six, billed as
“The World’s Youngest Trick rider and Roper”. He
was soon discovered by Hoot Gibson, an actor and rodeo champion.
Film work followed. He played opposite Al Jolson in Wonder Bar
(1934) and James Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington and
Destry Rides Again (both 1939).
In the Forties and Fifties he appeared in a series of film and
television westerns (including a number of Gene Autry features).
He had his own short-lived series, Buffalo Bill Jr, from 1955 to
1956. He also starred as sidekick Dick West in The Range Rider
western series alongside Jock Mahoney. more....
Francis Matthews,
glamorous star of the BBC's Paul Temple and voice of Captain
Scarlet, has died aged 86 (14
June 2014)
Francis Matthews' television debut, for the BBC in its
single-channel days, was in Prelude to Glory (1954). For
Durbridge, he first did My Friend Charles (1956), as a seemingly
affable fellow revealed in the last episode to be a drug-dealing
villain.
Tall, slender and with a quietly amused expression, Francis
Matthews was ideally suited to play Francis Durbridge's gentleman
sleuth Paul Temple, in the popular television adaptations of the
1960s and 70s. But his 60-year career also spanned horror films,
comedy and modern classics, and as the voice of Captain Scarlet
he reached a new generation of admirers.
Matthews's first film was the Raj tale Bhowani Junction (1956).
His clean-cut qualities were also at work in several horror
movies. He was an eager assistant to Peter Cushing in Hammer's
The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), then played Boris Karloff's
son in Corridors of Blood (1958), with Christopher Lee. Matthews
grappled with Lee, on the same sets, in Dracula: Prince of
Darkness (1965) and Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966).
Paul Temple, which started in 1969 and ran for 64 episodes, was
one of BBC1's first colour series. It enabled extensive film
sequences and overseas locations, the glamour of which
transferred to Matthews and his co-star Ros Drinkwater, playing
his wife, Steve. The couple appeared almost impossibly elegant to
television audiences of the day, George Sewell as their
down-at-heel sidekick helping to underline their suavity.
Overhearing an interview in which Matthews did a jokey impression
of Cary Grant, the producer Gerry Anderson cast him in his puppet
saga Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (ATV, 1967-68). more....
Joy Laurey, puppet maker
and puppeteer, has died aged 90 (2nd June 2014)
Joy Laurey was born the great grand daughter of the famous Drury
Lane clown Sam Laurey.
She started her professional career with E.N.S.A. during the
Second World War with her sister and mother making up the Laurey
Puppet Company. They entertained troops with puppet shows
up and down the country in a wide variety of locations from
Balloon sites on the mainland, to H.M.S. Bulldog at the time of
the official announcement that it had liberated Guernsey.
At the end of the war, Joy continued entertaining with puppets,
although concentrating the focus on children's entertainment,
performing regularly at such venues as the Lord Mayor's
Children's Party held at the Mansion House London, appearing with
the Laurey Puppet Company regularly for summer seasons at
seaside resorts, and representing Britain in puppet festivals in
countries such as Rumania.
During the early 50's Joy Laurey was offered an opportunity to
make a puppet character for a one-off television show called
"Whirligig". She made a puppet based on a
vegetable, and it was named "Mr Turnip".
The pilot show proved so successful that it went on to run for
over 6 years and Mr Turnip was one of the very first television
puppets ever to become a celebrity in his own right. Mr
Turnip was so popular in his day that there was great demand for
Mr Turnip toys, dolls, games and even toiletries such as Mr
Turnip soap. Cardboard cut outs were printed on the back of
cereal boxes and even fleecy material was printed with Mr Turnip
on it for making children's pyjamas. The programme
"Whirligig" was the first "magazine" type
children's programme ever to be produced by the
B.B.C. and featured appearances from many famous names such as:
Humphrey Lestocq, Steve Race, Peter Butterworth, Francis
Coudrill with his puppet "Hank", and Rolf Harris. more....
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jun/11/joy-laurey
http://www.gerryanderson.co.uk/joy-laurey-puppeteer-1924-2014/
http://bearalley.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/joy-laurey.html
http://www.essexcountystandard.co.uk/news/11262630.Creator_of_Whirligig_s_Mr_Turnip__Ardleigh_s_Joy_Laurey_died_aged_90/
Sir Jack Brabham, World
champion racing driver and constructor, has died aged 88 (19 May
2014)
Jack Brabham was three-time Formula One World Champion Driver and
two-time Formula One World Champion Constructor, becoming the
first driver to win the title in a car of his own making.
“Black Jack” Brabham, an Australian, proved that the
pre-requisites of the racing star — quick judgment,
lightning reflexes and exuberant dash — are not exclusive to
youth. He was past 30 when he started to race Formula One cars,
making his debut at the British Grand Prix in 1955 at Aintree,
driving a Cooper that he had built himself, before returning home
where he won the Australian Grand Prix. The next season, he was
signed by John Cooper for his Cooper Car Company team.
Over the next few years, Brabham shone in minor formula races
while gradually gaining experience in Formula One. He won his
first three World Championship points in 1958, and then at the
start of the 1959 season won the Monaco Grand Prix in a
“works” Cooper car, setting a new course record. He
followed this with a second place in Holland, a third in France
and Italy, and victory in the British Grand Prix.
He was in his 34th year when, in 1959, he first won the World
Championship. When, the next year, he won the World Championship
again, he told his family that he might give the sport a further
two years. However, he was still racing as hard as ever, and
successfully, after becoming World Champion for a third time in
1966, when he had turned 40. more....
Eli Woods, comedian who
was a stuttering stooge to the great Jimmy James, has died aged
91 (16 May 2014)
Eli Woods was one of the last links to the great era of
twice-nightly British variety theatre. A stooped and gangling
figure with a long, lugubrious face and permanently gaping mouth,
clad in flapping trousers, too-tight jacket and deerstalker hat,
he had a stammer which he exaggerated to tremendous comic effect.
Woods spent his early career as a stooge for his uncle, Jimmy
James, the innovative music-hall comedian who eschewed
traditional jokes in favour of elaborate and surreal flights of
fancy and was revered in the business as "the comedian's
comedian".
Jimmy James, a Northumberland comedian, was renowned for his
drunk routines – "The Spare Room", "His First
Night", "Sober as a Judge". The most enduring was
"In the Box": James was the vaguely inebriated gent who
falls into conversation with two idiots named Hutton Conyers and
Bretton Woods. The lanky Woods, inhabiting a suit that had long
ago parted company with sartorial logic, would stand next to
James as though in a stupor, jaw agape, struggling to follow a
bizarre exchange about the contents of a shoe box.
"In the Box" evolved through several changes of
personnel. Jimmy James' real surname was Casey, and it was his
nephew James (Jack) Casey who became the definitive Bretton
(later Eli) Woods. From 1948 the young Casey was employed as
James' driver, until they arrived in Preston to find that one of
the stooges would not be able to make the performance. Casey
became Woods, and was persuaded to stay.
Hutton Conyers was first played by James' brother-in-law Jack
Darby, later by Dick Carlton, and for three years (1956-59) by
Roy Castle, who had temporarily abandoned his own act to perfect
his comic timing under the acknowledged master. more....
Efrem Zimbalist, star of
77 Sunset Strip, has died aged 95 (2 May 2014)
Efrem Zimbalist played leading roles in two of American
television’s most celebrated crime dramas, 77 Sunset Strip
(1958-64) and The FBI (1965-74).
The first of these featured a pair of former government agents
(Zimbalist as Stu Bailey, Roger Smith as Jeff Spencer) who set up
as private detectives with an office on Sunset Boulevard in Los
Angeles. They were assisted in their investigations by
“Kookie” (played by Edd Byrnes), a hip car-parking
valet. Introduced by a catchy theme song, the series had a
breezy, light-hearted edge that prefigured similar television
dramas that would become popular throughout the Sixties.
During summer breaks between 77 Sunset Strip and The FBI, Warner
Bros cast Zimbalist in several feature films, including Too Much
Too Soon, Home Before Dark, The Crowded Sky, The Chapman Report
and Wait Until Dark (in which he appeared alongside Audrey
Hepburn). His other films included By Love Possessed and Airport
1975. In the 1990s he recorded the voice of Alfred, the butler,
in the cartoon Batman series. more....
Sir Christopher Chataway,
record-breaking athlete, broadcaster and government minister, has
died aged 82 (19 January 2014)
In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics he tripped going for the lead in
the 5,000 metres, recovering to finish fifth, 12 seconds behind
Emil Zatopek. In his last year at Oxford, in the Varsity match,
he cut his best for the mile to 4 mins 8.4 sec, then the third
fastest by a Briton. In May 1953 Bannister set his record of 4
mins 3.6 sec, paced by Chataway.
For Chataway, the bridge from athletics to politics was
television. Chataway joined ITN two months before ITV went live.
The reader of ITN’s first bulletin on October 11 1955, he
was one of a cluster of contemporaries who became household
names: Robin Day (with whom he shared ITN’s debut), Ludovic
Kennedy and Geoffrey Johnson Smith. He excelled, but wanted to do
more reporting — and in 1956 he moved to the BBC as an
interviewer with Panorama.
After winning the June 1970 election, Heath made Chataway, not
yet 40, Minister for Posts and Telecommunications. He came under
immediate pressure from Mary Whitehouse to "clean up"
programmes, and from colleagues to stop jamming pirate stations
such as Radio Caroline and to legalise commercial radio. Setting
up commercial radio as Minister for Posts and Telecommunications,
he spent 12 years with the medium as chairman of LBC. more....
Geoffrey Wheeler,
presenter of Songs of Praise and Top of the Form, has died aged
83 (2 January 2014)
Geoffrey Wheeler began making radio programmes for the BBC while
studying Law at Manchester University and in 1954 was appointed
the Corporation’s radio producer for the northern region.
He cut his teeth on variety shows, working with such entertainers
as Ken Dodd, Benny Hill and Morcambe and Wise.
As the smartly-blazered, avuncular question master on Top of the
Form from the early 1960s to 1975, Wheeler earned a place in the
cultural hinterland of a generation of vaguely bookish, mostly
middle-class, viewers of the sort who now do sterling service as
members of pub quiz teams.
The show began in 1948 on the BBC’s Light Programme and
Wheeler joined as co-question master with Paddy Feeny. Each would
present his half of the show from a different school hall, the
two being connected by a then state-of-the – art (for the
BBC) landline.
In 1962 the show transferred to television, slimmed down to a
single location and with Wheeler as its sole presenter.
Wheeler went freelance in 1963 and as well as presenting Top of
the Form, appeared as a panellist on Call my Bluff, as a story
teller on Jackanory, and spent 21 years as a regular presenter of
Songs of Praise, now the world’s longest-running television
religious programme. more....
David Coleman, Sports
|Commentator, has died aged 87 (21
December 2013)
David Coleman was the face and voice of BBC Television sport for
40 years, the anchorman for the flagship Grandstand programme on
Saturday afternoons and later the affable host of the popular
quiz A Question Of Sport.
In 1953 he started freelance radio work in Manchester and the
following year joined the BBC in Birmingham as a news assistant.
Having made his first television broadcast on Sportsview in May
1954 on the day Roger Bannister became the first runner to break
the four-minute mile, Coleman was appointed sports editor,
Midland Region, in November 1955. After the editor of Sportsview,
Paul Fox, had seen him interview the footballer Danny
Blanchflower on regional television, Coleman transferred to
London. In 1958 the BBC’s Head of Sport, Peter Dimmock,
offered Coleman the frontman’s job on the new sports
magazine programme, Grandstand.
He made his name on the programme where his ad libs and mastery
of football trivia standing alongside the teleprinter as the
football results came in revealed remarkably acute and detailed
research. But he became frustrated by being always studio-bound
and yearned for a new challenge. In 1967, however, after repeated
wooing by ITV, he signed a new seven-year BBC contract at
£10,000 a year, making him the highest-paid broadcaster in
television sport. more....
Jean Kent, actress, has
died aged 92 (1 December 2013)
Jean Kent adopted a variety of stage names. At different times
she was Peggy Summers and Jean Carr, finally adopting the name
Jean Kent in 1943 in It’s That Man Again, a film version of
the popular radio show ITMA, starring Tommy Handley.
Her big break came when she was hired as a dancer and understudy
in the Max Miller show Apple Sauce (1941) at the Palladium.
During rehearsals one of the leading ladies was sacked and Jean
was asked to replace her at short notice. She was then spotted by
Weston Drury, casting director at Shepherd’s Bush studios,
and signed to a contract with Gainsborough Pictures.
She landed her first leading role, in Caravan (1946). In the
interim, she had played supporting parts in such pictures as
Champagne Charlie (1944), a Tommy Trinder musical about the
heyday of music hall, Madonna of the Seven Moons (1944) and The
Wicked Lady (1945).
Through much of the Fifties, Jean Kent concentrated on the
theatre, appearing in plays and pantomimes (notably a Prince
Charming in Cinderella) for which she had hitherto had little
time.
In later years she was seen more frequently in television. She
played Good Queen Bess in a 1962 series based on the life of Sir
Francis Drake and subsequently appeared in such long-running
series as Emergency Ward 10, Up Pompeii, Crossroads, Lovejoy and
Shrinks. more....
Stan Stennett, comedian,
actor and pantomime veteran, has died aged 88 (26 November 2013)
With his doleful face, good-natured smile and ever-gleaming
teeth, the stalwart entertainer Stan Stennett was a favourite in
pantomimes and seaside shows around the UK for decades. After
starting out as a musician, he found success at the BBC, cracking
jokes on the radio series Welsh Rarebit and compering The Black
and White Minstrel Show on television in the 1960s.
Stennett's period with The Black and White Minstrel Show did not
endear him to the younger and more politically correct generation
of TV comedy producers who later took charge. Stennett argued
that when the clever satirists took over, audiences tended to
stay away. He revered comedians such as "Laurel and Hardy,
Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton – these were the gods … We
are trying feebly to imitate these people." more....
Jack Alexander, singer and
musician, has died aged 77 (13
November 2013)
Jack Alexander was the singer and pianist with the Alexander
Brothers, the duo he formed with his elder brother Tom. They were
two of Scotland’s best-loved entertainers, and during a
career lasting five decades they toured the world with their
versions of traditional Scottish songs, releasing more than 50
albums.
Their big break came in 1962, when the songwriter and producer
Tony Hatch saw them perform at the Metropolitan Theatre, Edgware,
and suggested that they record an album. Hatch, who had begun his
career working with Petula Clark, immediately understood the
potential for an act playing traditional Scottish tunes.
Their first album, Highland Fling, was recorded in London, and
included favourites such as “A Scottish Soldier” and
“Scotland the Brave”, becoming an enormous success.
They followed the success of Highland Fling with the single
“Nobody’s Child”, which topped the charts in
Scotland in 1964, outselling the Beatles that year.
The following year, inspired by the reception of the single, Andy
Stewart invited the brothers to tour with him in Canada and the
US. They performed alongside Shirley Bassey on the television
variety show Sunday Night at the London Palladium and by 1965 had
been given their own show on STV and had become a mainstay of The
White Heather Club, the yearly televised Hogmanay celebrations. more....
Graham Stark, actor who
was frequently cast in supporting roles in comedy films starring
his close friend Peter Sellers, has died aged 91 (31 October
2013)
After the war Stark joined the bohemian coterie frequenting the
ornate Grafton Arms pub in Victoria where up-and-coming
entertainers like Terry-Thomas, Jimmy Edwards, Tony Hancock, Dick
Emery and Alfred Marks held court. It was in the Grafton’s
back bar that Stark renewed an RAF friendship with Peter Sellers
while Sellers and Spike Milligan experimented with material that,
in 1951, would metamorphose into The Goon Show.
As well as providing madcap voices for The Goons, Stark also
appeared in other popular radio shows of the day, notably
Educating Archie, with the ventriloquist Peter Brough, and
Ray’s A Laugh, starring the Liverpool comedian Ted Ray.
Whenever Spike Milligan failed to turn up for a Goon Show
recording, Stark would stand in for him; and when Milligan and
Sellers moved into television with A Show Called Fred in 1956,
Stark joined the cast.
In 1964 Stark starred in his television comedy sketch series, The
Graham Stark Show, which — although written by Johnny
Speight, later to create Till Death Us Do Part — proved a
flop. more....
Singer Joan Regan, who had
chart success in the late 50s and early 60s, has died aged 85 (15 September 2013)
Joan Regan had a number of hit records, including Ricochet, May
You Always and If I Give My Heart to You.
Regan also had her own BBC television series, Be My Guest, for
several years.
The singer starred on both sides of the Atlantic with artists
such as Perry Como, Max Bygraves and Cliff Richard.
Regan, who was born in 1928 in Romford in Essex, was one of the
most popular British singers of her era and appeared regularly on
radio and TV.
Her career took off after theatrical impresario Bernard Delfont
heard her recordings and signed her up with his agency.
Regan soon won a recording contract with the British record
label, Decca Records, although only for a trial period of three
records, which by her own admission "didn't exactly set the
hit parade alight".
However, Decca released a recording she had made some months
earlier of a song called Ricochet.
The record paved the way for theatre, radio and television
engagements.
Regan was later to feature on American television with major
performers including Eddie Fisher, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Perry
Como.
She appeared at the London Palladium many times, with other
entertainers such as Max Bygraves, Cliff Richard, Russ Conway and
Edmund Hockridge.
In 1984, she hit her head in the shower causing a blood clot on
the brain which left her paralysed and without speech.
But after therapy she made a complete recovery, singing again in
Britain on radio and in concerts. more....
David Jacobs, actor and
radio and TV broadcaster, has died aged 87 (3 September 2013)
David Jacobs' first acting role was as Laurie in the BBC's first
TV adaptation of Little Women (1950-51). When Charles Chilton's
Journey into Space proved to be a great radio hit in the 1950s,
Jacobs introduced it and took 22 roles.
After a period on Radio Luxembourg he was offered the freelance
job of disc jockey on the radio programme Housewives' Choice, on
which Jacobs had to play record requests and punctuate them with
anodyne chat.
He was perfect for the job. It was a natural progression when he
took over Juke Box Jury on TV, chairing a celebrity panel as they
assessed likely chart hits – hailed with a
hotel-reception-counter bell – or misses – dismissed
with a hooter. At one time Jacobs seemed to be always on
television whenever the on-switch was turned, with appearances on
What's My Line, Top of the Pops, the Eurovision Song Contest,
Come Dancing, Miss World and many more.
When a senior BBC executive advised him that it was all too much,
he reinvented himself as a player with more gravitas, to succeed
Freddy Grisewood on Any Questions? Having conceded that he was
"too square for the pop scene", Jacobs became a
stalwart of Radio 2, presenting music programmes in a succession
of formats right up until a few weeks before his death. more....
Mike Winters, straight man
to his goofy-toothed brother Bernie, has died aged 82 (27 August 2013)
The brothers were pioneers of television comedy, first appearing
on Britain’s screens in 1955 on the BBC show Variety Parade
after which they moved to ITV’s Sunday Night at the London
Palladium, supporting Shirley Bassey.
In 1965 they won their own comedy show on ITV which ran for eight
years, regularly reaching the top three in the ratings and
attracting guest stars such as Tom Jones and The Beatles, who
appeared on the programme three times. They did pantomimes in
Cardiff, cabarets in Sheffield and summer seasons in Yarmouth
where, in 1967, despite the resort also boasting Rolf Harris,
Morecambe and Wise and Val Doonican, each in their own their
rival shows, Mike and Bernie broke all box-office records for the
season — an achievement that still stands. In 1962 the
brothers starred at a Royal Variety Performance and the following
year they starred with Frankie Howerd and Tommy Cooper in Michael
Winner’s film The Cool Mikado.
But in 1978 they fell out, and Mike abandoned showbusiness and
emigrated to Florida where he became a successful Miami nightclub
owner, did much work for charity and wrote several books
including a memoir, The Sunny Side Of Winters (2010). He
eventually retired to Gloucestershire. more....
Jeremy Geidt, presenter of
Childrens's TV Caravan in the 1950s, has died aged 83 (17 August 2013)
Jeremy Geidt acted in London, moving to the USA in 1961 where he
acted at Yale Repertory Theatre before helping to start the
American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also
taught at Harvard University.
The Children's Television Caravan was an Outside Broadcast unit
which traversed the British Isles during the summer for five
years starting in 1956. It utilised a very large vehicle which,
by letting down one of its sides, formed a miniature stage on
which a team made up of a compere and master of ceremonies, two
clowns, a pianist, and a drummer provided continually changing
entertainment. Local children, chosen for their talent, appeared
in this caravan theatre as a regular part of the programme.
It was compered by Jeremy Geidt with resident artists Clive Dunn
(as Mr. Crumpet) and Elton Hayes.
more....
Alan Whicker, interviewer
and documentary maker, has died aged 87 (13 July 2013)
Alan Whicker was the quintessence of the glory days of British
television, the time between the late 1950s and the late 1970s
when there were no more than two or three channels and any
notable programme would be seen by more than half the population.
He was doing odd jobs for BBC radio when Alasdair Milne, then
working for its flagship current affairs programme Tonight,
spotted his ability to ask "impertinent" questions
without giving offence.
In 1957 Whicker was invited to join the BBC’s early evening
magazine programme Tonight, presented by Cliff Michelmore. His
first story was about Ramsgate landladies. Nine reports from
Northern Ireland about the uneasy truce between Catholics and
Protestants went unused after vociferous complaints about his
deadpan, even-handed approach from the local BBC controller and
the Bishop of Derry. From then on Whicker insisted on seeing the
footage first, then writing his own commentary. The technique
served him well as he looked all over the world for kinks in
human character and behaviour for Whicker's World.
In the 1960s he got his own show, Whicker’s World, which
allowed him to travel continually around the globe from Alaska to
the Outback and turned him into a household name. By the 1970s
Whicker’s World was coming top in the ratings, beating
Coronation Street. He worked seven days a week, meeting
luminaries such as John Paul Getty, Papa Doc Duvalier, Peter
Sellers, Luciano Pavarotti, Sean Connery, Salvador Dali and the
Sultan of Brunei. It was a frenetic pace, belied by the smooth,
dapper and unruffled persona on screen.
In 1993 Whicker was the first to be named in the Royal Television
Society's Hall of Fame for an outstanding creative contribution
to British TV. A fanclub was formed, consisting of members who
dressed up as Whicker and discussed their hero once a month. His
singular style also gave rise in 1972 to Monty Python's
celebrated Whicker Island sketch, with all of the team doing
impressions.
Whicker remained active into old age, continuing to make TV and
radio series until recently, and publishing volumes of memoirs.
He had become wealthy, with a Nash flat in Regent's Park and a
handsome home in Jersey. In 2005 he was appointed CBE. more....
Hans Hass, marine
biologist, oceanographer and zoologist, has died aged 94 (25
June 2013)
Hans Hass was a pioneer - with
his wife Lotte - of spectacular films of the sea depths, and in
the mid-1950s shot the first underwater footage for the BBC.
The Hasses’ first BBC series, Diving To Adventure, largely
filmed in the Aegean, was screened in 1956. The programmes proved
hugely popular and the couple returned to the screen two years
later with another series, The Undersea World of Adventure, shot
in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
The couple’s exploits beneath the sea, filmed on
comparatively primitive cameras and broadcast in black and white,
thrilled television audiences throughout the late 1950s and 1960s
by opening a window on to a breathtaking and hitherto unseen
world. Rivalled only by Jacques Cousteau, Hass and his wife
managed - often in perilous circumstances - to capture the habits
and activities of a range of deep-sea creatures including
dangerous sharks, barracuda and giant manta rays.
The pictures he brought back also helped to inject the emerging
sport of scuba-diving with some much-needed glamour, as did the
television series Sea Hunt, launched in 1958 and starring the
actor Lloyd Bridges. more....
Frank Thornton, actor, has
died aged 92 (18 March 2013)
Frank Thornton was conscripted into the air force as a navigator
in 1943 and, after the end of the war, remained in the RAF
entertainment unit where, among his charges, were Dick Emery,
Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock.
He appeared in the Edgar Lustgarten-hosted series The Silent
Witness in 1954 and, a year later, was credited in the part of
Inspector Finch in the British film Radio Cab Murder.
The next 15 years saw him appearing in a wide range of small
character parts in films and TV series including The Avengers and
Danger Man.
He also appeared in various comedy programmes such as It's a
Square World, Hancock's Half-Hour, The Benny Hill Show, Sykes and
Steptoe And Son, as well as movie spin-off Steptoe And Son Ride
Again.
But it was in 1972 when he took the role of the officious Captain
Stephen Peacock in the comedy series, Are You Being Served? that
he became known to millions. Frank Thornton played the
lugubrious, disdainful and immaculately tailored Capt Peacock in
the long-running BBC Television sitcom for 12 years. more....
Dale Robertson, Western
film and TV actor, has died aged 89 (27 February 2013)
Dale Robertson was a skilled rider at the age of ten and training
polo ponies by the time he was a teenager. He often said that the
only reason he acted professionally was to save money to start
his own horse farm in Oklahoma, which he eventually did.
In the movies he was a ruggedly handsome counterpart to leading
ladies like Betty Grable, Mitzi Gaynor and Jeanne Crain. On
television he had starring roles in popular westerns like 'Tales
of Wells Fargo' which appeared from 1957 to 1961; 'Iron Horse'
from 1966 to 1968; and 'Death Valley Days' which he hosted from
1968 to 1972.
He developed, owned and starred in the “Wells Fargo”
series, playing Jim Hardie, a troubleshooter for the stagecoach
company. To make the character distinctive, he had the
right-handed Hardie draw his gun and shoot left-handed.
“Wells Fargo” was originally shown in black and white
and in half-hour episodes. In 1961, however, the producers wanted
to turn it into a full-hour show, broadcast it in color and
expand the ensemble of characters. Mr. Robertson refused and sold
the show to them.
In 1981 he played an oil wildcatter in early episodes of
'Dynasty'. The next year he had a recurring role in another
glitzy nighttime soap opera, 'Dallas'. more....
Reginald Turnill, the
BBC’s former air and aerospace correspondent, has died aged
97 (13 February 2013)
Turnill covered the golden age of post-war aviation from jet
power to the Space Shuttle; though he reported on the success of
the first Moon landing, his most celebrated story was the scoop
that Apollo 13 was in difficulties.
Turnill joined the BBC in 1956. There he became assistant
industry correspondent. After covering Sputnik in 1957, however,
he was so enthralled with space that, in 1958, he agreed to
become the corporation’s air and space correspondent, with a
brief to cover defence. As a result he covered bombing raids over
Vietnam – only to irritate the US Air Force by pointing out
their inaccuracy.
As the public enthusiasm for the Moon declined after the first
landing, the BBC grumbled about Turnill still wanting to go to
America. But he proved his value with the Apollo 13 trip in 1970.
After the astronauts’ safe return, there were no more
demands that he remain in London, and his wife received $75 for
being his editorial assistant.
On October 4 1957, Turnill was on hand to announce “the
starter’s pistol for the race to the Moon” – the
Soviet launch of Sputnik. He covered the space race in its
entirety, travelling first to Moscow to describe Yuri
Gagarin’s guarded press conference after the cosmonaut
became the first man in orbit in 1961, and then to Cape Canaveral
for Alan Shepherd’s account of his 15-minute sub-orbital
“lob”.
During the periods between launches Turnill found plenty to
occupy him, notably the joint development of Concorde by Britain
and France, with its mixture of scientific difficulties, national
pride and astronomic costs. But it was undoubtedly the pictures
beamed from the surface of the Moon in 1969 that proved the most
intoxicating story of all. more....
Peter Gilmore, actor and
star of The Onedin Line, has died aged 81 (9 February 2013)
Gilmore began his stage career as a vocalist, appearing with the
George Mitchell Singers in summer seasons with Harry Secombe and
the comedian Al Read. Between 1954 and 1956 he played in the
popular Crazy Gang revue Jokers Wild (Victoria Palace). From the
mid-1950s he also made television commercials in Germany, Ireland
and the United States.
After working in provincial stage productions, with occasional
London dates, stardom beckoned in 1958 when he was cast as Freddy
Eynsford Hill in the West End production of My Fair Lady (Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane). At the last minute, however, he was replaced
because he was a baritone and the score called for a tenor.
His big television break came the same year in the ITV series
Ivanhoe, in which he worked with the executive producer Peter
Rogers, later to develop the Carry On comedy canon. Gilmore made
several appearances in Carry On films, including Carry On Jack
(1963) and Carry On Cleo (1964), both of which afforded him
seaborne roles, as well as Carry On Up The Khyber (1968) and
Carry On Henry (1971). more....
Robert Kee, writer and
broadcaster, has died aged 93 (12 January 2013)
Robert Kee was well known as the presenter of such programmes as
Panorama, This Week, Yorkshire Television’s Various Faces of
Communism, and ITN’s lunchtime news programme, which he
launched in 1972; he was, however, probably most famous, both as
a presenter and writer, as a historian of Irish nationalism.
In 1958 Kee joined the BBC to report on the Algerian war for
Panorama, helping to set new standards for television reportage.
In a series of vivid on-location reports, he gave the viewers a
sense of being in the thick of the action.
In 1962 he left the BBC to become one of the founders of a
freelance agency, Television Reporters International. When that
did not get off the ground, he accepted Jeremy Isaacs’s
invitation to join Associated Rediffusion’s This Week. For
the next 14 years he worked on and off for various other
independent television companies, most notably, from 1972, as
presenter of First Report, ITN’s first lunchtime news
programme, for which he won the Bafta Richard Dimbleby Award. In
1978 he returned to the BBC to work on the Ireland series. Three
years later he replaced David Dimbleby as presenter of Panorama.
Kee specialised in strife. For television he reported on
conflicts in Algeria and the Congo, as well as the Prague Spring;
as a historian, he also chronicled the key years of the Second
World War. His interest in the troubled history of Ireland
developed in the 1950s, when he embarked on a three-volume study
which eventually saw the light of day in 1972 as The Green Flag:
A History of Irish Nationalism. more....
Alasdair Milne, the only
Director-General of the BBC to be dismissed from office, has died
aged 82 (9 January 2013)
Alasdair Milne joined the BBC as a general trainee in 1954, being
one of two selected from 1,110 applicants (the other was Patrick
Dromgoole, later managing director of HTV).
By February 1957 he was one of the architects (later he became
editor) of BBC Television’s nightly news and current affairs
flagship Tonight, in charge of a team which included such future
stars as Cliff Michelmore, Alan Whicker, Geoffrey Johnson Smith,
Macdonald Hastings, Fyfe Robertson, Derek Hart and Kenneth
Allsop. It went on air every weeknight at 6.05pm.
The vigorous, young Tonight team aimed for a new, more incisive
style of interviewing that, in Milne’s words, would test the
ability of politicians to think on their feet. When ITV presented
the Corporation with its first-ever competition, the BBC’s
overall audience share plunged to an all-time low of 28 per cent;
Tonight, however, succeeded in maintaining its nightly viewing
figure of between eight and 10 million.
When his boss, Donald Baverstock, was promoted to Assistant
Controller of Programmes, Milne took his place. Under his
editorship, the programme spawned Tonight Productions, a stable
which included Whicker Down Under and the memorable 26-part
documentary series The Great War. more....
Daphne Oxenford, Radio
presenter and actress, has died aged 93 (4 January 2013)
Known to millions as the voice of Listen With Mother, Daphne
Oxenford would open each programme by asking: "Are you
sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."
She was also one of the original cast members of Coronation
Street, playing Esther Hayes, and was a cast member of Midsomer
Murders until 2008.
Debuting in 1950, Listen With Mother consisted of stories, songs
and nursery rhymes for children under the age of five. It began
at 1:45pm every weekday, to coincide with the end of children's
lunchtime meal. At its peak, it had an audience of more than a
million.
Oxenford narrated the programme from 1950 to 1971, and her
meticulously modulated opening phrase was eventually included in
the Oxford dictionary of quotations.
But regular listeners will also recall the words that would
precede her arrival: "And when the music stops Daphne
Oxenford will be here to tell you a story". more....
Gerry
Anderson, pioneer of TV puppetry, has died aged 83 (26 December 2012)
Gerry Anderson entertained generations of British children with a
string of futuristic puppet series for television in the 1960s,
including Thunderbirds, Joe 90 and Fireball XL5.
Until his arrival, televised puppets ran the brief gamut from Andy Pandy to Bill and Ben. Anderson was struggling to find work until the
children’s writer and animator Roberta Leigh, who was
pitching ideas to ITV, asked him to make The
Adventures of Twizzle,
about a toy who gathers and befriends other unwanted toys.
In 1956, with his business partner Arthur Provis, he moved into
film production and formed AP Films in the hope of making a
classic epic — but the opportunities were not forthcoming.
So, after Twizzle, the company went on to make Torchy
The Battery Boy and Four
Feather Falls, a Western
series in which the puppets (unable to draw their guns) had to
swivel their holsters to fire.
These early efforts convinced Anderson of the potential of puppet
series as an entertainment form, and his 1960 series Supercar was the first successful science-fiction
format to reflect the growing interest among children in
futuristic technology. He followed it with the more sophisticated
Fireball XL5, 26 episodes featuring the hero Steve Zodiac, and
timing it to coincide with increased interest in the “space
race”. more....
Children's
television: Final broadcast on BBC One (21 December 2012)
Children's television will no longer be aired on BBC One after
today with programmes moving to the dedicated CBBC digital
channel.
The changes are part of BBC-wide cost cutting but investment in
children's programming will remain the same.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20815625
Kenneth
Kendall, the first BBC newsreader to appear on television, has
died aged 88 (14 December 2012)
Kenneth Kendall's long association with the BBC began in 1948,
when he became an announcer on the Home Service. He transferred
to Television News in 1954, presenting with Richard Baker.
At first the newsreader did not appear in vision, for fear that
facial expressions would suggest that he had opinions of his own.
Instead briefings were read over a series of still images and
maps. Only in 1955, with the imminent launch of ITN promising a
less formal news service, did the BBC decide to take a risk;
Kendall became the first "in-vision" newsreader,
broadcasting from Alexandra Palace on September 4.
He stayed with BBC News on and off for three decades, gaining a
reputation for his immaculate appearance, clear diction and
unflappability.
In the end, however, his firm adherence to Reithian values led to
clashes with his producers, and in 1981 he left the BBC, three
years before he was due to retire, complaining about the
“sloppily written and ungrammatical” stories he was
expected to broadcast. more....
Ronald Moody
who played 'Hurry Ramset Jam Singh' in the '50s TV series of
Billy Bunter has died aged 75 (13
December 2012)
Ronald Moody, was born on 27th May 1936, in Calcutta, India and
died in October 2011. He had a brief acting career, with the BBC
at Limegrove Studios, in the early 1950s. He played an asian
charactor called Puffin, in the BBC production of 'The Windmill
Family' and another asian charactor called Hurry Ramset Jam Singh
in the BBC production 'Billy Bunter' from 1954 to 1956. He had
been discovered by producer Joy Harrington while working at the
Great Eastern Hotel, London as a Bell Boy/Luggage Attendant in
his late teens.
Other famous people, who started their careers at Limegrove
Studios, at about the same time, were Anthony Valentine, Melvyn
Hayes and Cliff Richard. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1632065
Sir Patrick
Moore, amateur astonomer and TV presenter, has died aged 89 (9 December 2012)
Patrick Moore did more than anyone, with the possible exception
of Arthur C Clarke, to educate the British public about astronomy
and space travel. A genuine eccentric who never took himself too
seriously, Moore played up to his image as a “mad
professor”, and wrote more than 100 books - most of them
about astronomy for a popular audience. Meanwhile, his monthly
Sky at Night programme - launched on BBC Television in April 1957
- attracted millions of viewers. Moore’s extended tenure
made him the world’s longest-running presenter of a single
television show. He became celebrated for the thunderous fervour
with which he would utter the words: "We just don’t
know!" to emphasise that our comprehension of the universe
is incomplete. He was noted also for his piercing gaze, the
machine-gun pace of his speech, his wildly untidy hair and his
oversized suits.
Yet there were many other sides to Moore besides astronomy. He
was a connoisseur of music, and sometimes played a xylophone on
television. He also wrote the score for an opera about Theseus
and the Minotaur, and appeared in the chorus as a
“hairy-chested, armour-vested, double-breasted, great
red-crested man of the Cretan guard”. more....
Clive Dunn,
actor who specialised in playing dotty old gents, has died aged
92 (7 November 2012)
Clive Dunn, the actor, who has died aged 92, was best known as
Lance-Corporal Jones, the zealous old soldier in Dad’s Army
celebrated for the catchphrases “Don’t panic!” and
“They don’t like it up ’em!”.
Clive made his first screen appearance – as a schoolboy
extra in the film Boys Will Be Boys (1936), for the fee of a
guinea and a lunch box from Lyons’ Caterers. His first
professional stage booking came in the same year, at the Holborn
Empire, in Where the Rainbow Ends, a production in which he
excelled as a dancing frog.
Around 1951 Dunn appeared in Buckets and Spades, the first
children’s variety show on television. He sang The Galloping
Major while cavorting “fully padded and breeched”
around the Lime Grove studio to musical accompaniment.
He also appeared regularly on the live BBC show 'The Children's
Television Caravan' which was a travelling variety show.
As his career gathered pace during the 1950s, Dunn worked with
stars such as Peter Ustinov, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock. He
also appeared in a number of shows including Treasure Island, in
which he played Ben Gunn. But it was with the anarchic Michael
Bentine that Dunn was most successful, and he played in many
episodes of the madcap sketch show It’s a Square World,
which ran from 1960 to 1964.
Dunn was beginning to acquire national recognition, not only for
It’s a Square World, but also for the part of Old Johnson in
Granada Television’s Bootsie and Snudge, which starred Alfie
Bass. At that stage Johnson was the most famous of Dunn’s
repertoire of “old men”. more....
Daphne
Slater, actress who played the first television Jane Eyre has
died aged 84 (31 October 2012)
Slater's acting talents were transposed to BBC television as it
began to dramatise the English literary canon in serial form. In
1952 she played Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, with
Peter Cushing as Mr Darcy (he was then considered as good casting
for a dashing gentleman). Four years later, in another
serialisation, she became the small screen's first Jane Eyre, in
a performance brimming with passion, with Stanley Baker playing
Mr Rochester.
She played Prue Sarn in Precious Bane (1957), Portia in Julius
Caesar (1959) and Anne Elliot in Persuasion (1960). After
retreating to small character parts on television during the
1960s, she proved a commanding presence when she finally returned
to period drama as Mary Tudor in Elizabeth R (1971), well able to
stand up to Glenda Jackson as her sister. more....
Max Bygraves,
singer and comedian, has died aged 89 (1 September 2012)
Max Bygraves became famous for his stage performances, notably in
19 Royal Variety Performances, and went on to lead the market in
the kind of foot-tapping nostalgia which characterised his
“Singalongamax” recordings.
He had spent the war as a fitter in the RAF, and in 1945 went to
work as a carpenter in East Ham when a chance meeting with an RAF
contact — outside the London Palladium — secured an
appearance in the BBC variety show 'They’re Out'.
The bandleader Jack Payne heard the programme, and this led to a
spot in a new show, 'For the Fun of It', in which Bygraves
starred with Donald Peers and a young Frankie Howerd. In 1950
Jack Parnell and Cissie Williams hired him as a replacement for
Ted Ray at the Palladium, a role he filled so successfully that
he was back in Argyll Street a few weeks later, appearing with
Abbott and Costello at the theatre which was to become, for a
number of years, his second home.
He gave his first Royal Variety performance in November 1950, and
was invited to join the radio ventriloquist Peter Brough in
'Educating Archie', the show which "launched", among
others, Tony Hancock; Bygraves’ then scriptwriter, Eric
Sykes; and 14-year-old Julie Andrews, who was ousted from her
singing spot when Bygraves arrived.
During the 1950s there were numerous stage appearances in
Britain, notably in 'Wonderful Time', and in 'We’re Having a
Ball', which also starred the Kaye Sisters and Joan Regan.
Bygraves took some time off from having a ball to write You Need
Hands, a song which ran for several months in the Top 20. more....
Alf Pearson,
singer who moved successfully from music hall and variety to
radio and television, has died aged 102 (7 July 2012)
The brothers Bob and Alf Pearson were one of the most popular
music hall acts of the 1930s and 1940s and, after the war, they
found national fame as part of Ted Ray's radio series, Ray's a
Laugh. They would introduce themselves with the words, "We
bring you melodies from out of the sky, my brother and I"
and would harmonise popular songs to Bob's piano accompaniment.
Recording for a variety of labels, the brothers made an impact
with "Ro, Ro, Rollin' Along", "Great Day" and
"When You're Smiling". They worked with Sir Harry
Lauder and Gracie Fields and toured with both Duke Ellington and
Louis Armstrong. They were the first duo to appear on TV,
although as Alf said, "There were only about 400 sets in the
country and the picture was the size of a cigarette card."
In Ted Ray's series, Bob performed as a variety of characters.
Alf recalled: "Ted would say, 'Why, it's a little girl,
what's your name?' and Bob would say, 'Jennifer' and there would
be a comedy routine." The brothers toured on the strength of
Ray's a Laugh and had dolls made that they would give to girls
called Jennifer.
They toured in a stage show for another radio success, Take It
From Here, and had some of the biggest-selling records for
Parlophone, sometimes working with a young George Martin. Their
singles included "Red Roses For a Blue Lady",
"Careless Hands" and a song for the Coronation,
"In a Golden Coach". The work dried up with the advent
of rock'n'roll but during the 1970s they became involved in music
hall revivals. In 1985 they appeared on Highway with Harry
Secombe. more....
Ernest
Borgnine, actor who was one of Hollywood’s most popular
villains, has died aged 95 (9 July 2012)
Once described as having “an executioner’s grin”,
he specialised in playing sadistic bullies, and is best
remembered for performances such as the brutal sergeant Fatso
Judson in From Here to Eternity (1953), and as an ageing outlaw
in Sam Peckinpah’s bloodthirsty epic The Wild Bunch (1969).
In the early 1950s Borgnine moved to Hollywood where, after
several minor film roles, he gave an excellent performance as the
sadistic Fatso Judson in From Here to Eternity. He followed this
with another memorable appearance, as the snakelike villain in
Bad Day at Black Rock (1954), taunting the one-armed Spencer
Tracy.
His sensitive portrayal of a loveless butcher in Marty (1955)
brought him film star status. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and
directed by Delbert Mann, the film won Oscars for best actor
(Borgnine), best director (Mann) and best screenplay (Chayefsky).
Borgnine followed his first major success with two more leading
roles. He was perhaps ill-advised in his choice of scripts,
making little impact in The Best Things In Life Are Free (1956)
and Wedding Breakfast (1958). The former dealt with the
biographies of the songwriting trio De Sylva, Brown and
Henderson; the latter (co-starring Bette Davis) told the story of
a family preparing for a wedding. Later the same year he appeared
(opposite Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis) as the rotund warrior
Ragnar in The Vikings. more....
Eric Sykes,
comedian, actor and scriptwriter, has died aged 89 (4 July 2012)
Sykes became a national figure through his long-running
television partnership with Hattie Jacques. The series, entitled
either plain Sykes or Sykes and a [whatever was the theme of that
week’s episode], ran from 1960 to 1965 - at which point
Sykes announced that he was finished with it for ever - and then
from 1972 to 1979.
In 1941, four days before his 18th birthday, he joined the RAF.
Trained as a wireless officer, he served on the beaches of
Normandy (where the noise of the guns affected his hearing) and
at the siege of Caen, and was present at the German surrender on
Luneberg Heath.
Sykes also had the opportunity to join an entertainments section
run by the actor Bill Fraser, later Snudge in the television
series Bootsie and Snudge.
After the War, Frankie Howerd invited him to provide material for
the radio show Variety Bandbox. Sykes was soon working for Tony
Hancock and Hattie Jacques, both of whom he met on the Educating
Archie series. He was also occasionally called upon to emulate
Spike Milligan as scriptwriter for The Goon Show. Nevertheless,
he always longed to perform on his own account.
He directed a number of films with an emphasis on visual humour,
notably The Plank (1979), with Arthur Lowe and a cameo role for
Frankie Howerd, and Rhubarb (1969), which featured Harry Secombe,
Jimmy Edwards and Hattie Jacques.
Sykes had long acted in the cinema, and was especially good as a
gipsy in Heavens Above (1963) and as Terry-Thomas’s factotum
in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). His
other film credits included The Bargee (1963), One-Way Pendulum
(1964), Rotten to the Core (1965), Shalako (1968), Monte Carlo or
Bust (1969) and The Boys in Blue (1983). more.... tribute....
Jean Morton,
known as Auntie Jean to fans of the popular 1960s ITV
children’s programme Tingha and Tucker, has died aged 91 (26 May 2012)
Jean Morton was a British
television announcer. She served as continuity announcer from the
launch of the original Midlands regional independent television
station, ATV. She was one of four original announcers, the others
being Arthur Adair, Peter Cockburn and Shaw Taylor.
For a generation of children Jean Morton was simply ‘Auntie
Jean’ of the popular ITV children’s programme Tingha
and Tucker.
The launch of Tingha and Tucker, which brought her national fame,
happened by chance after a viewer sent in two toy koala bears
which appeared on screen as a time-filler between programmes.
The instant response saw Australian producer Reg Watson, who went
onto create soap opera Neighbours, suggest a short
children’s programme based around the koalas and Jean.
It hit the Midlands ITV schedules five days a week, later airing
across the whole of the network.
Jean also hosted many other programmes from ATV in Birmingham
before taking on an executive role behind the scenes in the
mid-1970s. more....
Ronan
O'Casey, actor and playwright, has died aged 89 (10 May 2012)
Ronan O'Casey found early success as a stylish character actor in
the postwar films such as The Mudlark (1950), Talk of a Million
(1951) and Norman Wisdom's Trouble in Store (1953), going on to
play the prisoner of Room 101 in 1984 (1956) and the sergeant in
Nicholas Ray's war film Bitter Victory (1957). While starring in
the West End in Detective Story he met my mother, the actor and
singer Louie Ramsay, whom he married in 1956.
Casey's comedy talents then brought him his best known role, as
Jeff Rogers, Canadian son-in-law of Peggy Mount, in the sitcom
The Larkins (1958-64). He also became host of ITV's charades
gameshow Don't Say a Word (1963), before being cast as Vanessa
Redgrave's lover, the "blow-up" of Antonioni's Blow-Up
(1966). more....
Bert Weedon,
guitarist, has died aged 91 (20
April 2012)
His big musical break came after the war, when he joined Stephane
Grapelli’s group as a replacement for Django Reinhardt, then
progressed through the rhythm sections of various popular dance
bands of the day, including those of Harry Leader, Lou Praeger
and Harry Gold. By the early Fifties, Weedon was resident
guitarist with the BBC Showband under Cyril Stapleton and worked
on regular radio sessions.
Signed to EMI’s Parlophone label as a solo artist,
Weedon’s first record, Stranger Than Fiction, was released
as a 78rpm single in 1956.
Weedon also became a prolific broadcaster, appearing regularly on
children’s television shows such as Tuesday Rendezvous and
Five O’Clock Club, as well as on radio and fronting his own
long-running ITV series.
Through his skimpy 'Play-in-a-Day' manual, which first appeared
in 1957, Weedon introduced aspiring musicians to the three basic
chords that underpinned most of the simple rock and roll hits of
the Elvis era, and explained what to do next. more....
Peter
Halliday, actor, has died aged 87 (16 March 2012)
As the young, idealistic scientist Dr John Fleming, he was the
star of A for Andromeda (1961), decoding radio signals from a
fictional galaxy in outer space and discovering them to be
instructions for building a super-computer that can generate
human life.
He made his screen debut in the 1954 B-film Fatal Journey, in the
Scotland Yard series of crime dramas, and was later seen on the
big screen in pictures such as The Battle of the River Plate
(1956), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and The Remains of the Day
(1993).
But Halliday found more rewarding roles on television –
almost 100 in all, in programmes ranging from The Count of Monte
Cristo (1956) and Danger Man (1965) to The Sweeney (1975) and
occasional sitcoms, including Goodnight Sweetheart (1997).
Whereas in his early days he was often cast as police officers,
in later years he frequently found himself playing priests.
Halliday appeared on the London stage in The Dark is Light Enough
(Aldwych Theatre, 1954), the musical Chorus Girls (Theatre Royal,
Stratford, 1981), Exclusive (Strand Theatre, 1989) and For
Services Rendered (Old Vic Theatre, 1992-93). He took over the
role of Roy Jenkins in the John Wells satire Anyone for Denis?
(Whitehall Theatre, 1982), in which the politician was cast as
butler to Margaret and Denis Thatcher. more....
Louise
Cochrane, the creator of Rag Tag and Bobtail has died aged 93 (8 March 2012)
Rag, Tag and Bobtail were three puppet characters (Rag was the
hedgehog, Tag the mouse, and Bobtail, the rabbit) whose innocent
woodland capers delighted children in that remote period when
only one-third of homes had a television and screens went blank
between 6 and 7pm so that small children could be put to bed . To
those brought up in the early 1950s, the Watch With Mother
line-up - Picture Book on Monday; Andy Pandy on Tuesday; The
Flowerpot Men on Wednesday; Rag, Tag and Bobtail on Thursday; and
The Woodentops on Friday, is probably more familiar than memories
of their first school.
In 1948 Louise Cochrane joined the BBC as a producer of current
affairs programmes for schools.
As well as Rag, Tag and Bobtail, for which Louise Cochrane wrote
her first episode in 1953, she published a series of career
advice books such as Sheila Goes Gardening (1957) and Social Work
for Jill (1959). more....
Robert
Easton, actor, has died aged 81 (26
January 2012)
After an appearance in the John Huston-directed Civil War drama
The Red Badge of Courage (1951), the 6ft 4in actor legally
changed his name, dropping his father's surname to become Robert
Easton – sometimes credited as Bob Easton. He was rarely out
of work and soon in demand on television, too, taking one-off
roles in series such as The Adventures of Superman (1953) and Gun
Law (1955) before a run as the college student Brian McAfee in
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1957-58).
To branch out from the country-bumpkin roles in which he was
becoming typecast, Easton decided he must learn other accents. He
studied phonetics at University College London, which enabled him
to add European dialects to his repertoire. While there, he acted
alongside Steve McQueen in the film The War Lover (1962), about
the effects of combat on young men at a USAF base in
Cambridgeshire, and appeared in the comedy Come Fly with Me
(1963). He also had a small role in the television series The
Saint (1962). more....
Harry Fowler,
'Cheeky cockney' character actor has died aged 85 (5 January 2012)
Harry Fowler never attained star status but created a gallery of
sparky characters, including minor villains, servicemen,
reporters and tradesmen enriched by an ever-present cheeky smile
and an authentic cockney accent. He was Smudge or Smiley, Nipper
or Knocker, Bert or 'Orace, as part of an essential background
– an everyman for every occasion.
Although he was called up and served in the RAF, he was given
leave to appear in eight films, including Alberto Cavalcanti's
anti-fascist Went the Day Well? (1942), then again as an evacuee
in The Demi-Paradise (1943). He was also in the modest
semi-documentary Painted Boats in 1945, directed by Charles
Crichton.
On television, Fowler could be seen in series such as Dixon of
Dock Green and Z-Cars, but his big break came with three years'
duty in Granada's popular comedy The Army Game (1959-61) and
later as Harry Danvers in the heaven-sent Our Man at St Mark's
(1965-66). These and later series including World's End (1981)
and Dead Ernest (1982) brought lucrative employment, as did
commercials.
He still accepted cameo roles in films, including Doctor in
Clover (1966), recalling the advice that "each appearance
was an advertisement for the next". He turned up as a
milkman delivering to a home tyrannised by Bette Davis in Seth
Holt's fine chiller The Nanny (1965), drove a cab in Lucky Jim
(1957), and featured in the film of George and Mildred (1980), as
he had in the TV series. more....
Ronald
Searle, artist and author, has died aged 91 (4 January 2012)
After the war, Searle worked as a graphic artist for advertisers;
created St Trinian’s (based on his sister’s school and
other girls’ schools in Cambridge); collaborated with
Geoffrey Willans on the Molesworth books (Down With Skool!, 1953,
and How to be Topp, 1954); and produced an extraordinary volume
of work for magazines and newspapers, including drawings for
Life, Holiday and Punch and cartoons for The New Yorker, The
Sunday Express, the News Chronicle and Tribune.
He also designed posters, illustrations for travel books and the
title backgrounds for the Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder film
The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950).
Searle attempted to kill off St Trinian’s in 1953 to
concentrate on what he considered to be his more serious work.
But, much to his annoyance, a series of film adaptations meant
that the spindly stockinged legs and dastardly schemes of his St
Trinian’s girls remained his most distinctive trademark in
Britain.
As the sadistic minxes of the school and their male counterparts,
the illiterate "skoolboys" of St Custard’s,
continued to delight generations of British schoolchildren,
Searle complained of being “trivialised” and
“typecast” in his homeland. more....
Ronald Wolfe
writer of Educating Archie, The Rag Trade and On The Buses has
died aged 89 (20 December 2011)
Ronald Wolfe was a cousin of the actor Warren Mitchell. He worked
as a radio engineer for Marconi before contributing scripts to
BBC radio series and writing material for Beryl Reid's stage
shows. In 1953, a year after Reid joined the radio comedy
Educating Archie, starring the ventriloquist Peter Brough and his
schoolboy puppet, he was asked to produce scripts for it and
eventually became head writer. The programme also featured Ronald
Chesney performing his "talking harmonica" novelty act
and at times included Benny Hill, Dick Emery and Bruce Forsyth.
Wolfe and Chesney continued in the same roles for a 1956 BBC
television special and the 1957 series Archie in Australia but,
when ITV launched Educating Archie (1958-59) on television,
Chesney abandoned performing and worked on scripts, doing the
same for the final two radio series, finishing in 1960. more....
Dulcie Gray,
star of British stage and screen for more than 50 years, often
appearing with her husband, Michael Denison, has died aged 95 (16 November 2011)
Theirs was a famously long marriage, which lasted for almost 60
years in a profession not known for stability. Between them they
starred in more than 100 West End plays and, in the 1940s and
1950s, were familiar figures in British films. On screen they
co-starred in My Brother Jonathan and The Glass Mountain in 1948,
The Franchise Affair in 1950 and the Battle of Britain movie
Angels One Five in 1952. In 1983, both were awarded the CBE.
On screen she was never a leading lady. Her career started with
supporting roles in such films as 2,000 Women and Madonna of the
Seven Moons (1944), They Were Sisters (1945) and Mine Own
Executioner (1947). Only when she began co-starring with Michael
Denison in My Brother Jonathan (1948) did she register with film
buffs. Like John McCallum and Googie Withers, Derek Farr and
Muriel Pavlow, the Denisons became known as a team. But in a
sense that was the problem. They were identified as
Michael-Denison-and-Dulcie-Gray rather than separate players.
They made a good living out of it, but at the expense of
individual fame. With the exception of Michael Denison’s
Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest, their screen work
was unmemorable.
On television, however, in later life, Dulcie Gray enjoyed
success in soap operas and serials such as The Voysey Inheritance
and Rumpole. In particular, she became identified in the 1980s
with the character of Kate Harvey in the long-running nautical
saga Howards’ Way. more....
Edmundo Ros,
bandleader, has died aged 100 (23
October 2011)
Edmundo Ros was the first to hit on the mix of melody and rhythm
which made Latin-American dance music so popular in the dreary
austerity days of the 1940s and 1950s.
The seductively orchestrated Latin-pop songs that set British
feet tapping in the 1940s and 50s made the Trinidad-born
bandleader Edmundo Ros a household name. But beside such musical
success, Ros made a remarkable reinvention of his life: the
mixed-race "outsider" successfully challenged the
British class system, to become, as he put it, "a respected
gentleman".
During the second world war, Ros briefly drove ambulances before
launching his own 16-piece dance orchestra to play at the Coconut
Grove Club at 177 Regent Street. He alternated between that and
the Bagatelle Club off Picadilly, where members included Winston
Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, and the heads of Europe's allied
forces. Most significant to Ros, Princess Elizabeth danced there
with her friend Captain Wills.
Ros's popularity escalated in postwar Britain through live radio
concerts, produced by Cecil Madden. In 1948, he supported Carmen
Miranda for a year at the London Palladium, while still playing
the Coconut Grove, and the following year The Wedding Samba sold
3m copies in Britain and entered the US charts.
On the radio, his hit records were a constant presence on
programmes like Housewives' Choice and Two-way Family Favourites.
On British TV, Ros performed on faux-Spanish sets for The Billy
Cotton Band Show, Saturday Night at the London Palladium and the
Royal Variety Shows, and in 1965 was hired by Madden for A Night
of 1000 Stars, the opening party for the BBC TV Centre, where he
backed Vera Lynn and the Beverley Sisters. more....
Peter
Hammond, actor and director has died aged 87 (20 October 2011)
Peter Hammond helped to transform staid television productions
with methods and techniques inspired by Orson Welles and Alfred
Hitchcock.
Hammond starred in such early television series as The Buccaneers
(as Lt Beamish) and The Adventures of William Tell (as
Hofmanstahl), before embarking on a BBC television
director’s course in the late 1950s.
Television camera techniques of the time, even in dramas, were
wooden and rudimentary. Actors were lined up in a row, with one
camera per face, and another in reserve for wide shots. Hammond
helped to change all that. During the 1960s, when he directed
such series as The Avengers (for which he won a Director’s
Bafta in 1965), Armchair Theatre and Out of the Unknown, he
carved a reputation for his fresh and unusual work with camera
angles, including clever mirror and window shots which added to
the drama by heightening atmosphere and tension.
His other credits as a film actor actor include Morning Departure
(1950, with John Mills); The Adventurers; (1951) and X the
Unknown (1956).
After switching to behind-the-camera work, he forged a reputation
as a director of classic BBC drama serials, beginning with a
12-part adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo (1964), with Alan
Badel as Dantes. In his Hereward the Wake (1965), Alfred Lynch
took the title role as the son of Lady Godiva who wages an
unsuccessful guerrilla war against William the Conqueror in
11th-century England; in The Three Musketeers (1966) Jeremy Brett
was in swashbuckling form as D’Artagnon. more....
Cecil Korer,
television producer, has died aged 86 (18 October 2011)
Cecil Korer's credits included It’s A Knockout, The Good Old
Days, Jeux Sans Frontieres, Ask the Family and Top of the Pops.
He spent five years as a travelling salesman before hearing of a
vacancy at the BBC for a scene shifter, the lowest grade
production worker, at £6 a week. Slowly he climbed the career
ladder until he reached the level of assistant floor manager.
Assigned to the highly-rated talent show Top Town, he worked with
its producer Barney Colehan, famous for the radio programme Have
a Go with Wilfred Pickles, who had recently moved to television.
On the day the finale of Top Town was to go out live, with an
estimated audience of some 14 million viewers, the floor manager
was taken ill and Colehan had to find a replacement. Korer had
attended all rehearsals and knew the programme thoroughly, so
Colehan asked him to step in. As a result, Colehan offered him
the job of assistant producer, in essence his personal assistant. more....
George Baker,
actor, has died aged 80 (8
October 2011)
The British cinema spotted his handsome features almost as soon
as they loomed across the West End boards in Frederick Lonsdale's
Aren't We All? (1953). Baker had the knack, as a character actor,
of furnishing whatever roughly was needed – arrogance or
timidity, charm or urbanity, fear or manliness, polish or menace.
It was the same in films like The Dam Busters, The Ship That Died
of Shame (both 1955), A Hill In Korea (1956), The Moonraker,
Tread Softly Stranger (both 1958), Goodbye Mr Chips and On Her
Majesty's Service (both 1969). He was a sympathetic actor because
he knew how to seem to listen to the others.
To the playgoer, though, it was his Shakespeare which won him
most respect, notably with the Old Vic (1959-61, including a tour
of the Soviet Union). His Bolingbroke to John Justin's Richard II
was rated "forthright, powerful and vindictive". His
Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, his Jack Worthing in Wilde's
The Importance of Being Earnest and his Earl of Warwick to
Barbara Jefford's Saint Joan in Shaw's play were also good. more....
Diane
Cilento,actress, has died aged 78 (7
October 2011)
Her heyday came in the late 1950s and 1960s, with her most
memorable film part being that of Molly Seagrim, the lewd
gamekeeper’s wench in Tony Richardson’s 1963 production
of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones.
Cilento disliked the majority of her early films, which were
quite anaemic, apart from the passion she injected into her
roles, something she put down to her Italian ancestry. Her first
leading part was in Roy Ward Baker's murky J Arthur Rank drama
Passage Home (1955), as the only woman on a cargo ship from South
America to London. Her sultry presence naturally gets the crew
all steamed up, especially the captain Peter Finch and first mate
Anthony Steele. She again causes sexual tension in The Woman for
Joe (also 1955), this time between a fairground owner (George
Baker) and a dwarf working as one of his attractions. In the same
year, Cilento married an Italian aristocrat, Andrea Volpe, with
whom she had a daughter, Giovanna.
Her allure was almost enough to sustain the whimsical The Angel
Who Pawned Her Harp (1956), in which she played the title role
– she is sent on a goodwill mission to Earth, landing in the
Angel, Islington. Much classier was Lewis Gilbert's adaptation of
the JM Barrie play The Admirable Crichton (1957), in which
Cilento is winsome and poignant as the maidservant Eliza Tweeny,
in love with the perfect butler (Kenneth More), who takes over
his master's role when his employer's family are shipwrecked and
marooned on a desert island. more....
Lieutenant-Commander
Peter Twiss, the first man to fly faster than 1,000mph ,has died
aged 90 (3 September 2011)
At the controls of the Fairey Delta 2 (FD 2), a supersonic
research aircraft, Twiss did not just creep past the post –
he smashed the previous world air speed record, setting a new
benchmark of 1,132mph.
Twiss appeared in the Bond film From Russia with Love (1963) at
the helm of a Fairey Marine Speedboat and also in the film Sink
the Bismark (1960), when he flew a Fairey Swordfish torpedo
aircraft. His autobiography, Faster than the Sun, was published
in 1963. more....
John Howard
Davies, actor and TV producer, has died aged 72 (24 August 2011)
John Howard Davies'
performance as Oliver in the 1948 David Lean production of Oliver
Twist led to roles in three other films, including Tom
Brown’s Schooldays (1951); then, after school, he appeared
in the television series William Tell.
As an adult he directed and produced some of the greatest comedy
series in British television. He was made a BBC producer in 1968
and worked first on Misleading Cases, a legal satire starring
Alastair Sim, moving on to The World of Beachcomber, starring
Spike Milligan; and All Gas and Gaiters . Then came Monty Python;
The Goodies; Steptoe and Son and Frankie Howerd’s Whoops
Baghdad.
He became Head of Comedy in 1978, launching yet more famous
series, including Yes Minister , Not the Nine O’Clock News,
and Only Fools and Horses.
In 1985 he joined Thames Television. But his productions there,
barring Mr Bean (1990) and After Henry (1992), were generally
regarded as disappointing.
more....
Robert
Robinson, broadcaster and writer, has died aged 83 (13 August 2011)
Although he had made his first radio broadcast in 1955, it was
BBC Television's early 1960s film review programme Picture Parade
that first brought him to the public eye. This led to an even
more popular programme, Points of View. Originally a five-minute
gap filler before the news, Robinson briskly and amusingly
conducted the presentation of viewers' letters about BBC
programmes.
He became best-known as the host of three long-running quiz
shows. On television, from 1967, there was Call My Bluff and Ask
the Family. (The first, a wordy parlour game for mid-league
celebrities, he satirically renamed Call My Agent.) On radio,
from 1973, he hosted Brain of Britain.
In 1971 Robinson was persuaded to join Radio 4's early morning
Today programme.
Also on radio Robinson's satirical side was given free reign in
his role as chairman of the incestuous but acerbically droll
Radio 4 programme Stop the Week, which ran from 1974 until 1992. more....
Googie
Withers, leading lady of British stage and screen, has died aged
94 (16
July 2011)
Through talent and determination, Googie Withers succeeded in
carving out a varied career despite a name that seemed forever to
consign her to light comedy roles. Born in Karachi, she was given
the nickname Googie by her Indian nanny and it stuck. A Hindi
word, it meant (according to who was telling) "dove" or
"crazy".
From a young age she intended to become a professional dancer.
She took her first lessons at the age of four and, when she was
eight, came to England for more advanced training. Her
professional training was undertaken with Italia Conti and then
with Helena Lehmiski in Birmingham.
During the war, she joined Southern Command's Garrison theatre
and after the liberation of France, played to the troops in
Holland and Belgium. In Antwerp, she narrowly escaped death when
the theatre where she was playing was hit by a V2 rocket only
minutes after she had left.
Particularly successful were the films she made with the director
Robert Hamer. After an episode in the portmanteau picture Dead Of
Night (1945), they worked together on a film of the play Pink
String And Sealing Wax (1945), a period piece set in Brighton, in
which Googie Withers enjoyed her strongest part to date as a
murderess.
On television she was named best actress of the year in 1954 in
Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. Her other films, included
Once Upon A Dream (1948), Pat Jackson's White Corridors (1951)
and Night And The City (1950) with Richard Widmark. more....
Joan
Reynolds, actress, has died aged 85 (1 July 2011)
Joan Reynolds was the star of Joan and Leslie, the first
home-grown sitcom on the newly launched commercial television
channel ITV in 1955. It was immensely popular with viewers and
helped to revive the sitcom on British television – the BBC
had, after the second world war, launched Pinwright's Progress,
then dropped it, and had only recently transferred Life With the
Lyons from radio to television.
Reynolds and her actor husband, Leslie Randall, played a married
couple. He was a journalist who wrote an agony-aunt column and
she was a "resting" actor, performing the role of his
stereotypical, dutiful wife. The programme, set in the fictional
couple's London flat, began as Leslie Randall Entertains, then
switched to the title Joan and Leslie towards the end of the
first series, which consisted of 15-minute episodes. Two
subsequent series were extended to 30 minutes and, by the final
run, Reynolds and Randall were earning the then huge sum of
£12,000 a year each. A sequel, The Randall Touch (1958), ran for
12 episodes.
Their fame kept the couple's profile high over the next decade,
when they were regularly seen in commercials for the washing
powder Fairy Snow (1962-67). An opportunity of success in
Australia was dashed when Joan and Leslie was revived there in
1969, panned by the critics and achieved poor viewing figures.
Following the couple's divorce in 1978, Reynolds never acted
again. more....
Cyril
Ornadel, Conductor and composer, has died aged 86 (23 June 2011)
In the 1950s, as conductor of ITV's immensely popular Sunday
Night at the London Palladium, Cyril Ornadel possessed the most
famous back of the head on British television. He was also
musical director on the West End productions of some of the
greatest of all musicals, twice won a Novello Award for his own
compositions and was awarded the prestigious Gold Badge of Merit
by the British Academy of Songwriters and Authors for services to
British music. His song "Portrait of My Love" is a
standard as is "If I Ruled the World" from his musical
Pickwick, which had the distinction of being, for a time, the
longest-running British musical on Broadway.
After the war, Ornadel began conducting variety shows and in
1950, aged 25, became the youngest musical director in the West
End when he took charge of Take It From Here with Jimmy Edwards
and Joy Nichols at the Victoria Palace. Over the next four
decades he went on to conduct such musicals as Kismet with Alfred
Drake and Doretta Morrow, Call Me Madam with Anton Walbrook, Pal
Joey, Wonderful Town, The King And I and My Fair Lady.
Among the many names he worked with at the London Palladium were
Nat King Cole, the Crazy Gang, Mario Lanza, Judy Garland and Noel
Coward. And as well as conducting other people's musicals,
Ornadel was busy writing his own. The first was Starmaker (1956),
written for Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge, and then in
1963, he wrote Pickwick for Harry Secombe. more....
Donald
Hewlett, actor, has died aged 90 (13 June 2011)
Donald Hewlett was best known for playing upper-crust roles in
the popular BBC Television sitcoms It Ain't Half Hot Mum and You
Rang M'Lord?
Hewlett began his on-screen career with a small part in the 1954
comedy film Orders are Orders, starring Peter Sellers, Donald
Pleasence and Sid James. He went on to appear in numerous
television shows, among them The Saint, The Avengers, Doctor Who
and Coronation Street.
In the West End in the 1950s, Hewlett appeared in two revues at
the Fortune Theatre, toured with the husband-and-wife team of
Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge, and in 1956 starred in a
successful musical, Grab Me A Gondola, which ran for two years.
His early television work was in children's programmes with Rolf
Harris. Hewlett later worked with Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett
and Dick Emery, among others, and appeared as Sir George
Hardiman, boss of a nuclear plant, in the 1971 Doctor Who story
The Claws of Axos.
His other roles included Sooty Pilkington in The Adventures of
Brigadier Wellington-Bull (1959), and Winkworth in Morris Minor's
Marvellous Motors in 1989. His last television appearance was in
The Upper Hand in 1995.
Among his other film credits are Bottoms Up (1960); Spike
Milligan's Adolf Hitler- My Part in His Downfall (1972); A Touch
of Class (1973); Carry on Behind (1975); and The First Great
Train Robbery (1979). more....
Roy Skelton,
actor, has died aged 79 (9
June 2011)
Roy Skelton provided the voices for many characters on British
television over nearly 50 years.
He joined the National Association of Boys’ Clubs Travelling
Theatre straight from school and worked at the Oldham Coliseum
before training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. After
repertory work in Bristol, he appeared in several plays in the
West End (including Oh! My Papa! and Chrysanthemum) and got his
first television role as Lampwick in Pinocchio. He went on to
appear in repertory theatre all over the country before landing
parts in Music for You and Quick Before They Catch Us, on the
BBC.
An opportunity to voice the grumpy Mr Growser character in the
BBC’s rod puppet version of Toytown led to his career
providing voice characterisations. Among other roles, he was
Sossidge the dog in Picture Book and the Lord Chamberlain and
King Boris in Gordon Murray’s Rubovian Legends. more....
James Arness,
actor, has died aged 88 (4
June 2011)
James Arness played Matt Dillon, the square-jawed, heroic marshal
of Dodge City in Gunsmoke, one of America’s longest-running
television series. The programme was an immediate success,
despite the observation by Amanda Blake (the saloon keeper Miss
Kitty) that: "This is the only show where the characters can
sit around in a bar room and say 'hello' for half an hour."
A youthful Burt Reynolds was recruited to play the lusty, honest
Dodge City blacksmith.
Critics hailed the show as "the grimy, gritty version of the
reality of frontier life" and as "“television's
first adult Western".
In 1966-67, however, the ratings plummeted, and it looked as
though the series had run its course; but when it was axed, such
were the howls of protest from viewers that the chairman of CBS,
William Paley, ordered it to be reinstated. The show (which had
originally begun on radio in 1952) ran on television until 1975,
notching up 635 episodes and making Arness a household name.
Arness’s brother Peter, who changed his last name to Graves,
starred in the television series Mission Impossible. more....
Janet Brown,
Comic actress and impersonator of Margaret Thatcher, has died
aged 87 (27 May 2011)
In 1946, while taking part in rehearsals for a Jack Hylton revue,
Janet Brown met the actor Peter Butterworth, who was later to
appear in the Carry On films. They married the same year, and she
credited him with sharpening her sense of humour.
She appeared with him in the first TV sitcom, Friends and
Neighbours, which ran for six episodes in early 1954. They played
husband and wife George and Constance Bird, opposite Banny Lee
and Avril Angers as Arthur and Maisie Honeybee. The theme tune
was a popular hit for Billy Cotton and his Band.
The children's TV show Whirligig alternated with
"Telescope" on Saturday afternoons when both started in
1950, but the latter was replaced in 1951 by "Saturday
Special" which was hosted by Janet Brown and Peter
Butterworth. Whirligig's star was Mr Turnip and his opposite
number was Porterhouse the Parrot (voiced by the great and
legendary Peter Hawkins).
Janet was also in demand on radio and later appeared on The Goon
Show.
On television, Janet Brown appeared in Rainbow Room, Where Shall
We Go? and Friends and Neighbours before the Seventies’
taste for impressions led her to concentrate on the showbusiness
niche that would make her famous.
On shows such as Who Do You Do (in which she appeared with
Freddie Starr) and Mike Yarwood in Persons she gave impressions
of the Coronation Street character Hilda Ogden, the entertainer
“Two-Ton” Tessie O’Shea, Noele Gordon and Pam
Ayres among others.
In 1981 she was given her own show, Janet and Co, making an
impact with her impersonations of Mrs Thatcher and the celebrated
dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse. She also played Margaret Thatcher
in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981) and on Roy
Hudd’s The News Huddlines on Radio 2. more....
Selwyn
Roderick, pioneering television producer in Wales, has died aged
82 (25 May 2011)
One of the first television producers in Wales, Selwyn Roderick
had a distinguished career in which he was held in high esteem as
much for the programmes he made as for his amiable personality
and the unfailingly generous help he gave to younger
professionals in the broadcast media.
He joined the BBC in Cardiff early in the 1950s while still in
his 20s, working at first in radio, and remained with the
Corporation for the rest of his working life. He and his
colleagues, who included DJ Thomas and Dafydd Gruffydd, laid the
foundations for what became BBC Cymru/Wales by exercising the
talents they had in abundance.
Among his early successes was a series of programmes as diverse
as Come Dancing, Songs of Praise and Your Life in their Hands. He
also covered umpteen royal events, eisteddfodau and rugby
internationals. more....
Terence
Longdon, actor, has died aged 88 (9
May 2011)
Terence Longdon was best known for his lead role in the
1950s-1960s British TV series Garry Halliday where he played a
Biggles-like pilot who flew into various adventure situations. In
film he was Drusus, Messala's personal aide in the film Ben-Hur.
He is also known for his character actor roles in British
television productions such as The Sandbaggers, Danger Man, and
The Avengers. He was also in some of the early Carry On films.
He also had a role in the 1958 film Another Time, Another Place
starring alongside Sean Connery and Lana Turner. more....
Enid Seeney,
ceramic designer known for her popular Homemaker range, has died
aged 79 (9 May 2011)
Enid Seeney designed ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent for just seven
years, but her most famous design, Homemaker, launched in 1957,
achieved classic status. The black-and-white pattern, which
featured contemporary furniture and other domestic objects flying
across the plates, was sold by Woolworths stores, and brought
modern design into ordinary homes at an affordable price.
Her early work was typified by stylised floral motifs, often
executed in pen and ink, and this fine line technique was
perfectly suited to the new movements in postwar design. Her new
design was believed to be too radical for the public, and it
attracted little interest when a single plate was displayed on
the Ridgway stand at the 1956 Blackpool trade fair. Convinced it
could be a success, Seeney and her team made up a prototype
coffee set, which sat on her workstation until it was spotted by
the buyer for Woolworths, and in May 1957 an order was placed for
tea sets, to be sold in five of its London stores. more....
Bob Block,
comedy scriptwriter, has died aged 90 (6 May 2011)
Bob Block was a prolific writer on both radio and TV shows from
the '40s until the late '80s. His earliest writing was for the
radio show 'Variety Bandbox' where he wrote for Derek Roy and
Frankie Howard. He was probably best remembered as scriptwriter
of 'Life With the Lyons' from 1951 for ten years. He also wrote
for 'Starlight Hour' which starred Vic Oliver, Ronnie Barker,
June Whitfield, Kenneth Connor, Dick Bentley, Ronnie Stevens,
Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly and also for 'Arthur's Inn'
which starred Arthur Askey.
For television Bob wrote for the children's programme
'Crackerjack!'. See here for his full CV.
Sir Henry
Cooper, the most popular and respected British boxer of the
postwar era, has died aged 76 (2
May 2011)
Cooper was the only man ever to win three Lonsdale belts, each
awarded for three successful defences of the British heavyweight
title he held for 12 years. His embodiment of the virtues of
courage and modesty endeared him to millions of fellow Englishmen
as “Our ’Enery”.
In 1952 he won his first Amateur Boxing Association title, as a
light-heavyweight.
Cooper had a difficult two years from September 1956, winning
only one of seven fights. An open air challenge for the European
heavyweight title was lost when Ingemar Johansson knocked out
Cooper while the sun was in his eyes. He considered quitting
boxing, but in 1958 outpunched Zora Folley, ranked third in the
world, to restore his confidence. In 1959 he won his first
British and Empire titles, from Brian London, in 15 hard rounds. more....
Keith
Fordyce, unflappable host of ‘Ready Steady Go!’ has
died aged 82 (29 March 2011)
On obtaining his degree, he worked as a football commentator for
BBC TV, his first broadcast being on the Leyton v Hereford match
on 22 November 1952. A comment on the BBC's files says that
"his voice lacked crispness".
Fordyce presented a flagship programme, Housewives' Choice, for a
week in August 1955, and this time the assessment was
"Professionally-modulated, virile voice and not too smooth;
but no strong character, no indication of extra entertainment
potential." Also in 1955, Fordyce fought a municipal
election for the Conservatives and won a seat on Wimbledon
Council, but he was to move to Radio Luxembourg as a staff
announcer. He presented their weekly Top Twenty programme and
stayed with the station for three years.
In 1960, he compèred Jack Good's ITV show Wham! which
featuredBilly Fury, Little Tony and Dickie Pride. That was
short-lived but he became the original host for Thank Your Lucky
Stars and the Sunday morning radio show, Easy Beat.
In August 1963 Fordyce hosted the first edition of Ready Steady
Go! for Associated Rediffusion and it was thought that his
know-how would help the inexperience of Cathy McGowan and Michael
Aldred. The chaos was all too real, especially on one programme
where Marianne Faithfull was to walk down a spiral staircase lip
syncing to "Blowin' In The Wind", but the wrong record
was cued – the Kinks' "All Day And All Of The
Night". The cameras switched to Fordyce to save the day.
Among his more embarrassing duties was to preside over a weekly
mime competition. Still, he preferred Ready Steady Go! to being
the straight man for Groucho Marx in his only UK television
series. more....
Dame
Elizabeth Taylor, actress, has died aged 79 (23 March 2011)
She made more than 50 films, won two Oscars, was a grandmother at
39 and was married eight times to seven men.
A woman of exceptional physical beauty, she grew into the most
photographed Hollywood film star of all. Other love goddesses,
such as Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, were not in
her league in terms of public and press attention. Everything she
did was news.
Her career was long and many-stranded. She began as a child star
and, with Natalie Wood and Judy Garland, shared the rare
distinction of enjoying even greater fame as an adult. Her affair
with, and subsequent marriage to, Richard Burton catapulted her
into world headlines and gave her waning popularity a fillip just
when it was needed. With Burton she embarked on a long series of
films which, at least at first, became box-office hits thanks to
curiosity alone, regardless of their quality.
To her credit, she was a tireless fund-raiser on behalf of Aids
and cancer research and a generous supporter of Jewish and
Israeli causes following her conversion from Christian Science to
Judaism, the religion of her third husband, Mike Todd. This
resulted in her films being banned in many Arab countries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/celebrity-obituaries/8401108/Dame-Elizabeth-Taylor.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/2251145.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/23/elizabeth-taylor-obituary
Jane Russell,
Hollywood film star of the Forties and Fifties has died aged 89 (2 March 2011)
She was a discovery of Howard Hughes, the aeronautics tycoon. The
Outlaw, a Western about Billy the Kid, was his production, which
he ended up directing himself after firing Howard Hawks, a much
more experienced film-maker. The Outlaw, made in 1941, was
briefly shown in 1943 but caused such controversy that it was
rapidly withdrawn and not widely released until 1950.
Though her mother had been an actress, the young Jane did not
initially entertain thoughts of a career in showbusiness, opting
instead for employment as a chiropodist's assistant. But showbiz
was in the blood and in 1940, she enrolled in Max Reinhardt's
Theatrical Workshop. Later, she studied with Maria Ouspenskaya,
with a little modelling on the side.
In a short space of time she made several – thrillers such
as His Kind of Woman (1951) and Macao (1952), both opposite
Robert Mitchum; The Las Vegas Story (1952) with Victor Mature;
and Double Dynamite (1951), with Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx.
in 1952, she also made Son of Paleface for Paramount.
Her biggest success – and the one memorable film of her
career – was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1953. It was
blessed by a stroke of casting genius. The blonde whom gentlemen
are supposed to prefer was Marilyn Monroe, leaving Russell to
play the brunette they allegedly marry. And calling the shots was
director Howard Hawks. more....
"The Sky
at Night" breaks a record (28
February 2011)
The BBC's The Sky At Night programme was first broadcast on 24th
April 1957 - making Sir Patrick Moore the longest-running
presenter of the same television show in the world.
On Sunday 6th March 2011 the programme celebrates its 700th
episode, and Sir Patrick has fronted all but one of them. more....
Sir George
Shearing, jazz pianist and composer, has died aged 91 (15 February 2011)
Sir George Shearing was one of the most successful pianists in
jazz, developing a style of such enduring yet broad appeal that
it became known as the "Shearing sound"; he also
composed several well-known jazz themes, including the standard
Lullaby Of Birdland.
Shearing's international popularity was based initially on the
quintet which he formed in 1949, featuring the novel and
attractive sound of piano, guitar and vibraphone playing in
unison. This was much imitated, but no one else could quite
replicate its fragile charm, or the fleet virtuosity of the
leader's own piano solos. As his career developed, Shearing
broadened his musical range, revealing himself to be an immensely
resourceful and witty improviser.
Among the Quintet's biggest successes were a version of Jerome
Kern's Pick Yourself Up (1950), with its clever introductory
eight bars in strict canon, and – in homage to the
celebrated jazz club in Manhattan – Shearing's own Lullaby
Of Birdland (1952). Ultimately the latter tune acquired such
overwhelming renown that Shearing was well-used to being known
for little else.
Later in the 1950s, Shearing pursued an interest in
Latin-inflected jazz. He had another hit record with Mambo Inn
(1954) and appeared leading a Latin ensemble in the 1959 film
Jazz On A Summer's Day. In the same year he recorded the hugely
popular album Beauty and the Beat with the singer Peggy Lee. more....
Edmundo Ros
celebrates his 100th Birthday (7
December 2010)
Caribbean musician, vocalist, arranger and bandleader, Edmundo
Ros OBE celebrates his 100th birthday today. He made his made
career in Britain and directed a highly popular Latin-American
orchestra, had an extensive recording career, and owned one of
London's leading night-clubs.
Edmundo Ros was born in Trinidad in December 1910. The family
moved to Caracus, Venezuela. Edmundo's musical career started in
the army, then he became the tympanist in the Symphony Orchestra
of Venezuela. He moved to London in 1937 to continue classical
studies, but popular music was to become his career. He played
drums in the Fats Waller recordings, played percussion and sang
in Don Marino Barreto's Cuban band and formed his five-piece
Rumba Band in 1940, and the rest is history. more....
BFI gets
Halas & Batchelor animation archive (4 December 2010)
15 years after the
studio's last release, the British Film Institute will announce
that it has been given the Halas & Batchelor archive,
including film prints, stills, scripts, correspondence and
original cells.
Different generations will have different memories: the only
feature-length animation of Animal Farm, perhaps, or the first
Murray Mints TV ad. Then there was Foo Foo from the 1960s,
Jackson Five and Asterix cartoons from the 1970s, numerous
education films screened in schools or one of the first pop
videos featuring downright weird and trippy animation that
accompanied Kraftwerk's Autobahn in 1979.
All of the above were from one of the most important British
animation studios there has ever been – the husband and
wife-run Halas & Batchelor, sometimes called the British
Disney – which for more than 50 years produced adverts,
public information pieces, feature films, TV cartoons and serious
award-winning animation respected the world over. more....
The BFI
Salutes the Palladium: 100 Years of Variety. (1 December 2010)
The BFI launch the first part of the season in December with a
celebration of the London Palladium's centenary, and present a
two-month season reflecting the golden age of television variety.
The season will use silent movie footage, vintage film clips and
a clutch of TV material to celebrate this prestigious occasion
and through these precious moving images you can relive some
outstanding performances and memorable nights. The December
programme features screenings such as Sarah Vaughn's TV debut in
1958, a couple of brilliant vintage editions hosted by a very
young Bruce Forsyth and the legendary Judy and Liza at the
Palladium (an historic record of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli
at the Palladium).
http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/film_programme/december_seasons/tv_variety_the_bfi_salutes_the_palladium
Ivor the
engine found in pig shed (26
October 2010)
A "priceless" collection of Ivor the Engine episodes
from the 1960s have been found gathering dust in a pig shed.
Almost 40 rusty reels of videotape were discovered under a
"large pile of steaming mess" in the disused sty.
The 16mm footage is understood to have been stashed by the late
Oliver Postgate, the creator of both Ivor the Engine and Bagpuss,
who died in 2008.
But they lay undiscovered for more than 40 years until they were
found by Postgate's former business partner, Peter Firmin, on his
property in Blean, Kent.
There are now plans for the animations, which are black and
white, to be digitalised and re-released.
Mary Malcolm,
postwar BBC television announcer, has died aged 92 (15 October 2010)
Together with Sylvia Peters and McDonald Hobley, Mary Malcolm
made up the trinity of announcers who nursed us into becoming a
nation of television watchers. This was in the 1940s and 50s,
when the BBC had resumed its pioneering service after the wartime
shutdown. Pretty well all the programmes went out live;
breakdowns, gaffes, broken links and missed cues were
commonplace. The announcer's task at such times was to reassure
and placate the audience, and fill in the time as best as he or
she could.
They were the first television celebrities, or at least the first
to enjoy celebrity beyond a limited London and home counties
area, and thus the first to experience the familiarity in which
the nation would hold its heroes and heroines who came into the
home. These were were not the outsize deities of cinema posters.
Except for their BBC accents – Mary Malcolm would have been
enunciated as Merry Melcombe – they were not so different
from people encountered in ordinary life.
Malcolm joined the team in 1948. The BBC's first instinct had
been to reconvene the pre-war announcing trio of Leslie Mitchell,
Jasmine Bligh and Elizabeth Cowell, but only Bligh was available,
and she soon left again. Hobley was recruited in time for the
relaunch, and Peters the following year. Both came from the
theatre. Malcolm came from BBC radio, having been urged to apply
for a job there after appearing on a wartime Workers' Playtime.
She did continuity announcing and presented a forces' favourites
request show of the sort associated later with Jean Metcalfe. more....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/14/mary-malcolm-obituary
Sir Noman
Wisdom, actor and comedian has died aged 95 (4 October 2010)
Norman Wisdom ranked second only to Charlie Chaplin as the 20th
century’s most consistently successful British screen comic;
he shared with Chaplin a talent for visual and physical humour
whose roots lay in music hall and whose appeal transcended
cultural boundaries.
His break came in December 1945 at the Collins Hall, Islington, a
venue for new variety turns. He had followed the manager
everywhere for three weeks asking for a chance. Billed as
“The Successful Failure”, he produced an act that was a
synthesis of his experiences and would never change. Wisdom was
life’s victim, a gormless, game village idiot. Mime and
pratfalls were his stock-in-trade, dance and song mere
distractions, as he clowned with musical instruments that shut on
his fingers or was knocked out by his boxing shadow. It was
silly, unsophisticated fun larded with pathos — and
austerity audiences lapped it up. In Skegness one teenage
schoolgirl laughed so hard that she dislocated her jaw. Within
two years Wisdom was a West End star.
He wanted to create a character unique to him, and in a
Scarborough charity shop he found a uniform. “The
Gump”, in a jacket three sizes too small with tie awry and
cap askew, became his trademark role, the eternal schoolboy with
the looks of a beaten puppy.
In 1953 Wisdom made his first major film, Trouble in Store.
Although he was already established on stage and on television,
reviews of the film were moderate, and Rank executives held out
no great hopes for it. In the event, the film set records in 51
London cinemas, and Wisdom’s plaintive theme song,
Don’t Laugh at Me, spent months in the Top 10.
An unbroken run of 15 successes followed until 1966, with the 5ft
4in tall Wisdom holding off even the challenge of James Bond to
be Britain’s favourite box-office draw. In 1964 a record
18.5 million people watched his BBC pantomime Robinson Crusoe. more....
Tony Curtis,
one of Hollywood's last matinee idols has died aged 85 (1October 2010)
The product of a classic success story, he rose from a New York
ghetto to enjoy fame and stardom that was largely unparalleled
for much of the 1950s and 1960s.
Curtis's rise began in the late Forties with a series of costume
dramas which exploited his athleticism and slightly feminine good
looks. Known among casting directors as "the ice cream
face" because of his smooth skin, he was typecast for a
decade in what he described as "doublets and hose"
parts.
But in 1957 he managed to secure his reputation as an actor with
a fine performance in Sweet Smell of Success (1957). His
portrayal of the sleazy, unprincipled publicity man Sidney Falco
surprised critics who had previously dismissed him as nothing
more than eye-candy.
Two years later Curtis managed to combine his looks and acting
talent in the film for which he will be best remembered, Some
Like it Hot. His partnership with Jack Lemmon produced some of
film comedy's most memorable lines, delivered with panache and
perfect timing.
After Some Like It Hot Curtis had the opportunity to work with
Cary Grant in Operation Petticoat, a nautical farce with Curtis
as a crafty junior officer. He had also taken the lead role in
The Vikings, which co-starred Kirk Douglas, and in 1960 starred
opposite Douglas again in Stanley Kubrick's Roman slave epic
Spartacus. more....
Lost tapes of
classic British television found in the US (12 September 2010)
A rediscovered haul of
television dramas that has been lost for 40 years or more is set
to change the way we think about many of Britain's biggest acting
stars.
The extraordinary cache of televised plays – described by
experts as "an embarrassment of riches" – features
performances from a cavalcade of postwar British stars. The list
includes John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Gemma Jones, Dorothy Tutin,
Robert Stephens, Susannah York, John Le Mesurier, Peggy Ashcroft,
Patrick Troughton, David Hemmings, Leonard Rossiter, Michael
Gambon, Maggie Smith and Jane Asher. The tapes have been
unearthed in the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
After months of negotiation, the library and the New York-based
public service television station WNET have agreed to allow the
British Film Institute in London to showcase the highlights in
November, an occasion that is certain to generate intense
nostalgia for what many critics maintain was the golden age of
television. more....
List of recovered
gems
Sir Geoffrey
Johnson Smith, TV reporter and politician has died aged 86 (13 August 2010)
Sir Geoffrey was a charismatic television reporter who switched
to politics and enjoyed a 41-year career in the Commons. He
joined the BBC’s current affairs unit as a producer, and in
1954 went in front of the camera, quickly establishing himself as
an accomplished and personable interviewer, appearing five times
weekly in the Highlight magazine programme.
Highlight earned him a reputation for breaking controversial
stories, and this followed him when he moved to the flagship
Tonight programme, where his interviews became increasingly
political, though never partisan.
Shortly before the 1959 general election, Cliff Michelmore,
Tonight’s presenter, had a hernia operation and Johnson
Smith was promoted to co-host the show for six weeks. His profile
was thus at its highest when the election was called, and on
October 8 1959 he ousted the Labour member for Holborn and St
Pancras South, Lena Jeger, by 656 votes.
Arriving at Westminster as a media star, Johnson Smith worked his
passage as a backbencher, concentrating his fire on St
Pancras’s “Red” Labour council. He successfully
promoted a Bill authorising councils to operate a meals-on-wheels
service for the elderly.
His inexperience did sometimes show, as when he dismissed
settlers in East Africa as “clods” . But he was on the
fast track, within six months becoming PPS to ministers at the
Board of Trade; in 1962 he moved to the Ministry of Pensions and
National Insurance.
His parliamentary career was interrupted in October 1964 when
Lena Jeger, as Labour came to power, had her revenge by 2,756
votes. He briefly returned to television, freelancing for the BBC
and Rediffusion’s religious programmes.
The following February he was back for the safe seat of East
Grinstead, the local association preferring him to the past and
future Cabinet minister Geoffrey Rippon. He took the seat by more
than 10,000 votes ; he would represent the constituency —
redrawn in 1983 as Sussex Wealden — until 2001. more....
Sunday Night
at The London Palladium conductor, Jack Parnell has died aged 87 (9 August 2010)
Jack Parnell provided the music for shows such as Sunday Night At
The London Palladium and wrote the theme tunes to programmes
including The Golden Shot during his long spell as musical
director at ATV where his Uncle Val was the Managing Director.
Parnell led his own band and from 1951 left Ted Heath to lead a
12-piece and then a 16-piece band.
With the advent of rock and roll, the fortunes of the big bands
declined. Parnell accepted the job of musical director at ATV in
1956, a post he was to hold for 26 years. The company’s
flagship show, Sunday Night At The London Palladium, was
broadcast live for most of its run, with rehearsals during the
day. The tension as transmission time approached was enormous,
but Parnell always maintained that shows produced under these
stressful conditions came over better than the later,
pre-recorded ones.
Disasters were sometimes only narrowly avoided, as when the
orchestra, accompanying Placido Domingo in a rehearsal of
excerpts from Pagliacci, turned the page and found itself playing
a soft-shoe shuffle. The library had sent along Harry
Secombe’s music by mistake.
During his decades at the broadcaster, he worked with legends
such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, Lena Horne and Nat King
Cole.
He also made series with Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck,
acted as a panellist on TV talent show New Faces and was musical
director for programmes such as The Benny Hill Show and a lavish
production of Peter Pan starring Mia Farrow, Sir John Gielgud and
Danny Kaye. He also composed signature tunes for programmes such
as Family Fortunes.
In the late 1970s he began his association with The Muppet Show,
for which he conducted the orchestra and frequently appeared on
screen. He was instrumental in getting the jazz great Buddy Rich
on the show.
Parnell retired from ATV in 1982, when it became Central
Television, moving to Southwold but continuing to perform with
the all-star veterans group Best Of British Jazz with trumpeter
Kenny Baker and trombonist Don Lusher. He also played with his
small group for weekly shows at the Green Man in Rackheath,
Norfolk. more....
Roy Rogers
horse fetches $266,500 (17 July 2010)
Trigger, the stuffed horse belonging to cowboy actor and singer
Roy Rogers, has fetched $266,500 (£174,000) at auction.
Christie's auction house, which ran the sale along with Western
auctioneer High Noon Americana, said the collection of items
related to Rogers' and wife Dale Evan's roles on television and
in the movies brought in $2.9 million.
Trigger, the palomino horse which Rogers had stuffed after it
died in 1965, was bought by rural US cable television station
RFD-TV for $266,500, while his saddle fetched $386,500
(£252,000) from a private buyer.
Other top sellers included Roy Rogers' 1963 Pontiac Bonneville
and the Nellybelle jeep, an iconic emblem on the Roy Rogers Show,
which ran on television in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum, which was based in Branson,
Missouri was closed in 2009. Roy Rogers died in 1998 at age 86.
The more than 300 items included in the sale ran from Roy's
sunglasses to a sterling belt buckle to a Roy Rogers directors
chair.
Avis Scott,
BBC television continuity announcer and actress, has died aged 92 (18 June 2010)
In March 1954 Avis Scott became a BBC TV in-vision announcer,
replacing Noelle Middleton and was immensely popular with
viewers. However, her good looks and charm were to be her
downfall as in January 1955 she was sacked for being "too
glamourous and sexy."
She also starred in several movies in the early 50's including
Waterfront with Richard Burton and in the West End she was
featured in Noel Coward's Present Laughter 1947-1948 as well as
Dear Murderer and Lady from Edinburgh, both in 1946. She moved to
Hollywood and worked in television until her retirement in the
early eighties.
Joan Rhodes,
music hall artiste who tore up telephone directories, has died
aged 89 (3 June 2010)
During the mid-1950s, she appeared on television and in variety,
tearing up phone books, lifting a steel table in her teeth,
bending and breaking iron bars and nails and throwing obese men
over her shoulder. Billed as "The Mighty Mannequin",
she showed no outward sign of her considerable muscle power: with
her 22in waist, she described herself as "an iron girl in a
velvet glove", dressing like a showgirl and interspersing
her feats with a slightly fey rhyming patter about the drawbacks
of being so strong.
In 1949 she gained national attention when she appeared in a
freak show entitled Would You Believe It? which toured the
country. Considerable success in the London music halls and tours
of America followed, and she appeared in a number of British
summer shows.
At Christmas 1958 she performed before the Royal Family at
Windsor Castle, where she snapped a 10in nail which the Duke of
Edinburgh had been able only to dent. On her way to the Pier
Theatre, Shanklin, in 1960, she was stopped by a policeman on the
Isle of Wight ferry and asked to explain the presence of several
hundred telephone directories in the back of her car.
At the height of her fame Joan Rhodes was viewed by the British
public with a kind of stupefied fascination. She became the
object of music hall jokes and cartoons in Punch. more....
Carol Marsh,
actress, has died aged 83 (1
June 2010)
Carol Marsh earned her big screen break when she was chosen from
more than 3,000 applicants to play Rose, the mousy, wide-eyed
waitress in the film noir classic Brighton Rock (1947).
After Brighton Rock she dyed her hair platinum for the title role
in Alice in Wonderland (1949). In the same year she was in three
comedies: Marry Me, Helter Skelter, and The Romantic Age, in
which she appeared with Mai Zetterling and Petula Clark.
She was the fragile, delicate yet ghoulishly determined Lucy,
Christopher Lee's ill-fated victim, in the 1958 Hammer production
of Dracula, the first colour version of Bram Stoker's classic. In
the 1951 film of Scrooge, with Alistair Sim in the title role,
Carol Marsh played the old skinflint's sister Fan, who dies
giving birth to his nephew, Fred.
Her career continued into the 1960s with films such as Man
Accused and parts in television dramas, among them The Adventures
of Sir Lancelot and Dixon of Dock Green. In the 1970s she
appeared in the record-breaking West End play The Mousetrap.
She had made her television debut in 1950 in The Lady's Not For
Burning, starring Richard Burton and Alec Clunes. She was Miranda
in a children's version of The Tempest, and Alexandra in Little
Foxes (both 1951). She featured in the 1959 Trollope serial The
Eustace Diamonds, playing Augusta Fawn, and was Mrs Blacklow in
the Arnold Bennett serial Lord Raingo of 1966.
She was busier on radio, and was a member of the BBC Drama Rep at
intervals between 1966 and 1979. more....
Dennis
Hopper, iconoclastic actor and director whose film Easy Rider
defined the counterculture of the 1960s, has died aged 74 (31 May 2010)
Put under contract by Warner Brothers after being spotted on
television while still a teenager, he made his film debut in
Rebel Without a Cause alongside James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal
Mineo. He played opposite Dean again in Giant (1956) and was
strongly influenced by Dean’s brooding style. He always
regarded Dean as the most talented and original actor he worked
with. They became close friends and Dean’s death in a car
crash in 1955 at the age of 24 affected him deeply.
Much of his subsequent work was in westerns, from Gunfight at the
OK Corral (1957) to The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand
Luke (1967) Hang ’em High (1968) and True Grit (1969).
Dennis Hopper was triumphantly to capture the spirit of the youth
revolution of the '60s in the film that became iconic of the
spirit of Sixties counter-culture, Easy Rider (1969). As
scriptwriter (with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern) actor (with
Peter Fonda) and director, of Easy Rider, Hopper was the
controlling genius of a film that could so easily have
degenerated into chaos as it pursued him and Fonda as a couple of
drop-outs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles on a ragged odyssey
across America (on the way giving Jack Nicholson his first big
screen break). more....
Ray Alan,
ventriloquist, has died aged 79 (24 May 2010)
Ray Alan was a technically brilliant voice-thrower who, alongside
his superbly snobbish, drink-soaked creation Lord Charles, became
the most famous ventriloquist in Britain during the Sixties and
Seventies.
Alan was inspired to create Lord Charles (family motto: Semper
Inebriate) in 1960, while watching a drunken aristocrat in the
audience at the Satire Club off Jermyn Street. "I saw this
chap sitting at a ringside table," Alan recalled,
"dinner suit on, delightful young lady with him, and there
he was patting her knee and pouring her champagne and saying: 'By
Jove, you lovely thing, oh you lovely little thing.' And I
thought what a wonderful character.
Lord Charles made his first television appearance in 1961 on the
BBC pastiche music hall show The Good Old Days.
Such was Alan's success with Lord Charles that they appeared
together on the programme more frequently than any other act.
With his frequent rejoinder "Silly ass", Lord Charles
would introduce viewers into the cosy, Wodehouseian world of the
peerage.
Alan's natural ability quickly helped him take over as the
nation's favourite ventriloquist from Peter Brough, whose radio
show, Educating Archie, had been a big success in the Fifties.
Alan was technically a much better "vent" than Brough,
who was well suited to radio in that his lips moved when he did
his act – which proved fatal when he attempted to transfer
to television.
in 1958 he made his television debut on Toytown, alongside the
hero of which, Larry The Lamb, Alan introduced a new character
reflecting the dawning space age: Mikki the Martian. Though Lord
Charles was his star turn throughout the Sixties, Alan also
performed in that period with his two best-known characters for
children (of which he was particularly proud), a small boy and
his pet duck known as Tich and Quackers. more....
Roland Fox,
BBC Parliamentary correspondent throughout the 1950s, has died
aged 97 (16 May 2010)
Roland Fox was a BBC Parliamentary correspondent and only the
second to hold the post; he covered the last years of Churchill's
premiership and the heated Suez debates, the first televised
State Opening of Parliament, and accompanied Harold Macmillan on
his "Wind of Change" tour of Africa.
There was no guidance, no training and no autocue; he often read
straight from his notes on to the air, anticipating the next
morning's press by many hours. When Winston Churchill resigned in
1955, there was a newspaper strike, so the story was broken by
the BBC's Parliamentary staff.
When regular television news bulletins began in July 1954, it
often meant a long taxi journey to Alexandra Palace in north
London, allowing Fox some time to learn his lines by heart on the
way. Later the Westminster studio was adapted for television.
On one occasion the studio lights suddenly failed in the middle
of Fox's piece. He knew what he wanted to say and gamely
continued in total darkness to the end of his live report. He
never had any editorial supervision; all that was required, he
said, was that he come out on time. more....
Lena Horne,
singer, actress, civil rights activist and, eventually, a
showbusiness phenomenon has died aged 92 (16 May 2010)
Although she did not regard herself as a jazz singer, she had a
formidable sense of rhythm and an easy-going style which went
well in a jazz context. As a film actress she had notable success
in Stormy Weather (in which she sang the title song) and Cabin In
The Sky. Her refusal to play demeaning roles, or to allow her
light complexion to be darkened with make-up, made enemies in
Hollywood but in the long run brought her great public respect.
Lena Horne starred on Broadway in Jamaica in 1957. She toured
internationally, appearing several times at the London Palladium
and the London Casino. She also recorded many albums, ranging
from jazz and blues to Rodgers and Hart songs such as The Lady is
a Tramp. Altogether she appeared in some 15 films, among them I
Dood It (1943) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946). The last, Death of a
Gunfighter, came out in 1969, after which she retired to Los
Angeles to grow cacti. more....
Dorothy
Provine, actress and singer, has died aged 75 (6 May 2010)
In 1958, Provine played a female gangster in The Bonnie Parker
Story: this was essentially a B-movie and had none of the quality
of Bonnie And Clyde (1967), but Provine shone in her role. This
was followed by inconsequential parts in Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and Wagon Train, but she
played opposite Lou Costello in the comedy, The 30 Foot Bride Of
Candy Rock (1959): Provine played the 30 foot bride. Roger Moore
and Provine co-starred in a TV series about prospectors, The
Alaskans (1959-60).
Provine's big break came with another TV series, The Roaring 20s,
in which she played the flapper, Pinky Pinkham. This
light-hearted escapism about cops, gangsters and showgirls in
Chicago in the 1920s was very successful and co-starred Donald
May and Gary Vinson.
Provine appeared in the comedy extravaganza It's A Mad, Mad, Mad,
Mad World (1963), as Jack Lemmon's wife in Good Neighbour Sam
(1964), with Hayley Mills in That Darn Cat! (1965) and she was
back to being a flapper in Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965).
Provine was to play the film star, Jean Harlow in Harlow (1965),
but, at the last minute, the director Alex Segal decided that
Carol Lynley had a greater dramatic range. more....
Tom Fleming,
actor and television presenter on important state occasions, has
died aged 82 (20 April 2010)
For 44 yearsTom Fleming gave a very definite Scottish identity to
the BBC's coverage of the Edinburgh Tattoo. His musical voice
brought a feeling of home-grown passion to the events on the
Esplanade. That voice captured the excitement and solemnity of
many occasions, starting with the Queen's Coronation in 1953,
when Fleming was outside Westminster Abbey. He also provided the
television commentary for the funerals of Diana, Princess of
Wales and the Queen Mother and numerous other state occasions.
Another annual duty was the Ceremony of Remembrance at the
Cenotaph in London. Fleming was able to find the correct
intonation for any event and make it suit the occasion.
Fleming was a renowned actor and did prestigious seasons with the
Royal Shakespeare Company and was closely connected with the epic
drama The Three Estates, which he first performed at the
Edinburgh Festival in Tyrone Guthrie's celebrated production in
1953.
In 1953, he joined the BBC to commentate on the Coronation and
proved a natural: unflappable and always ready with some
information when things were delayed.
In 1956 he gave a sympathetic reading of the title role of Jesus
of Nazareth: particularly challenging as it was the first time
the face of Christ had been acted on television. The 12-part
series, shown over Easter, displayed Fleming's acting skills to
excellent effect.
One of his more unusual assignments was to front the BBC's
coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest from Edinburgh in 1972.
Fleming's contribution to outside broadcasts for the BBC was
immense. He commentated on two royal weddings and ten funerals,
and the enthronement of two Popes and three Archbishops. One of
his last broadcasts was on Radio 4 in 2007, when he was in a
dramatisation of Walter Scott's Heart of Midlothian. more....
Kenneth
McKellar, among the most popular of Scotland's singers, has died
aged 82 (11 April 2010)
He became familiar to English television viewers courtesy of the
BBC and The White Heather Club, a hugely popular Scottish country
dance and music show which ran from 1958 to 1968 and, at its
peak, drew an audience of 10 million.
The White Heather Club featured stars such as Andy Stewart,
swathed in lace and tartan, singing Donald Where's Your Troosers?
and Kenneth McKellar with poignant renderings of Song of the
Clyde, Bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle and other stirring numbers.
In between, dainty girls in white blouses and laced pumps, and
young men with kilts and fixed smiles, would whisk and whoop each
other through the Dashing White Sergeant or the Eightsome Reel to
the strains of Jimmy Shand and his Band.
After abandoning the operatic stage, in 1954 McKellar signed with
the Decca record company. Over a period of 25 years he recorded
some 45 LPs, ranging from oratorio to Burns songs, achieving
massive sales all over the world.
During the 1950s McKellar became well-known in Scotland through
radio, singing Scottish songs, light opera and popular songs on
his own series, A Song For Everyone, for the BBC. At the same
time, he began trying his hand as a songwriter and was
responsible for such ballads as The Tartan, which has been
covered by some 40 artistes and The Royal Mile, which was heard
by more than four million people during the televised opening of
the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.
In 1966 McKellar was chosen to represent Britain in the
Eurovision Song Contest, singing A Man Without Love. It was not a
happy experience. Despite widespread predictions that he would
win, he was placed ninth, a result he attributed to the fact that
the Scandinavian nations had "made a mockery of the whole
contest" by voting for each other. more....
Sir Alec
Bedser, the Surrey and England cricketer, has died aged 91 (5 April 2010)
His supreme triumph came in 1953, when his 39 wickets at 17.48
apiece in five Tests enabled England to reclaim the Ashes for the
first time since the Bodyline series of 1932-33. The other nine
bowlers used by England that summer managed only 52 wickets
between them.
In the first Test in 1953, at Trent Bridge, on a pitch that was
far from vicious, Bedser returned figures of seven for 55 and
seven for 45, in the process overhauling Sydney Barnes’s
record of 189 Test wickets for England, which had stood since
1914. Later that summer, in which he celebrated his 35th
birthday, he established a world record for Test bowling when he
surpassed Clarrie Grimmett’s total of 216 Test wickets for
Australia. He also became the first England bowler since Barnes
to take 100 wickets against Australia.
Alec Bedser continued to play for Surrey until 1960, frequently
captaining the side in Peter May’s absence. He played a
vital part in Surrey’s run of seven consecutive
championships from 1952 to 1958, particularly in 1957, when he
temporarily recovered full fitness.
He served on the England board of selectors from 1961 to 1985,
and as chairman from 1968 to 1981. more....
Martin
Benson, actor, has died aged 91 (30
March 2010)
Benson made his greatest mark during a busy acting career as
Kralahome, the Grand Vizier in The King and I, whom he played in
the long-running London stage production and then in the 1956
Hollywood film with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.
But on starting out in films it was his hard face, elegantly
tailored figure and mastery of foreign accents that earned him a
natural place on the wrong side of the law; it was said he was
first choice for a role if Herbert Lom was unavailable.
After the war Benson decided against returning to a 10s-a-week
job in pharmacy and quickly found work in The Adventures of PC 49
(1949); I'll Get You for This (1951); Wide Boy (1952); Escape by
Night (1953); Soho Incident (1957); and Assassin For Hire (1958).
He stayed on in Hollywood after The King and I but was
unimpressed at being cast in 23 Paces to Baker Street, which
placed Sherlock Holmes's house on the edge of the Thames, and
returned home to appear in Interpol, The Flesh is Weak, Istanbul
and many more in the burgeoning world of British television. From
1958 he spent an enjoyable two years in Sword of Freedom as the
murderous Duke de Medici, opposite the dashing Edmund Purdom as a
painter and swordsman in 15th-century Florence. He was an
impressive resident defence counsel in The Verdict is Yours. He
also could be regularly spotted in episodes of The Saint, The
Troubleshooters, The Champions, The Bill and Last of the Summer
Wine. more....
Harry
Carpenter, sports journalist and boxing commentator, has died
aged 84 (22 March 2010)
For millions of television viewers, Harry Carpenter's boxing
match commentary was an essential ringside ingredient.
After wartime service in the Royal Navy as a Morse code operator,
he worked on several newspapers before joining the Daily Mail as
boxing columnist.
In 1949, Carpenter offered his services to the BBC as a boxing
commentator, but because there was no relevant footage to hand at
his audition, he had to provide a commentary for a football match
instead.
He heard nothing for months, until the head of outside
broadcasts, Peter Dimmock, phoned him to ask whether he could
fill in as commentator for an amateur boxing night.
Harry Carpenter proved himself adept at commentating on a host of
other sporting events, but it was always boxing with which he was
most closely associated.
His first fight commentary for the BBC was in 1949 and in the
next decade, he was responsible for the first live commentary
from behind the Iron Curtain in 1957 and the first via satellite
from the United States.
For much of the 1970s and 80s, Carpenter co-hosted the Sports
Personality of the Year programme, having first contributed in
1958. He was "flattered and pleased" that he was asked
to pay tribute to the Sports Personality of the Century, Muhammad
Ali. more....
Davy Crockett
actor, Fess Parker, has died aged 85 (19 March 2010)
Fess Parker, the Texas-born actor, became a star of early
television playing American frontier folk hero Davy Crockett and
later portrayed Daniel Boone. His role as Crockett made him a
household name in the mid-1950s and inspired a generation of
young American baby boomers to don his trademark coonskin cap.
His life changed at the age of 29, in 1954, when Walt Disney
hired him to star in a three-episode miniseries about Crockett,
the "King of the Wild Frontier" whose life became an
American folk legend.
The three episodes were enormously popular with viewers, catching
the Walt Disney Co by surprise and spawning one of TV's first pop
culture frenzies – inspiring the sale of coonskin caps,
buckskin clothes, toy rifles, books and other memorabilia.
The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett,"
which recounted that the hero "kilt him a bear when he was
only three," went to the top of the pop charts and stayed
there for 13 weeks.
Although the series was meant to end with Crockett's death at the
Alamo, its unexpected success prompted Disney to crank out two
more episodes and a feature film.
Parker returned to the frontier in 1964 as the star of
"Daniel Boone", a hit NBC series about another early
American folk hero and adventurer that ran until 1970. more....
Peter Graves,
actor, has died aged 83 (16 March 2010)
Peter Graves appeared in a multitude of films and television
shows during a career which spanned nearly 60 years, but will be
remembered principally for his roles as a spymaster in the TV
series Mission: Impossible and as a pilot in the spoof disaster
movie Airplane!
Peter's elder brother was James Arness, who found fame as Matt
Dillon in the television series Gunsmoke; and when Peter followed
him to Hollywood he decided to call himself Graves – the
surname of his maternal grandfather – to avoid any
confusion.
He first came to public attention in the 1950s television series
Fury, about the adventures of a boy and his horse, and in 1953
won plaudits for his portrayal of a Nazi spy in Billy Wilder's
prisoner-of-war drama Stalag 17.
In 1955 he appeared in John Ford's The Long Gray Line; Charles
Laughton's The Night of the Hunter; and Otto Preminger's The
Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell.
Graves's television appearances included Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, the miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and War and
Remembrance (1988), and Fantasy Island (1978-83). He also
presented a number of programmes about science and, for the Arts
and Entertainment Network's Biography series, was narrator on
programmes about the lives of famous figures such as Winston
Churchill and Sophia Loren. more....
Paddie
O'Neil, comedy actress and singer, has died aged 83 (11 March 2010)
Paddie O'Neil was a supremely versatile comedy actress and singer
with a career spanning five decades; she often appeared in shows
that featured her husband, the theatrical all-rounder Alfred
Marks.
In the late 1940s she met Marks, an up-and-coming comedian, when
they both appeared in a summer show in Brighton. In 1950 the BBC,
which was trying to find a successful comedy format for its
fledgling television service, starred them in a sketch series,
Don't Look Now, with a young Ian Carmichael.
The following year, Paddie O'Neil made her first movie, 'Penny
Points to Paradise', a low-budget comedy that was one of Peter
Sellers's earliest films. By now Marks and she had fallen in love
and they were married in the West London synagogue.
They scored their first major television success with Alfred
Marks Time (1956-59). Each week, Paddie O'Neil sang a duet with
Ray Ellington, who had become well-known for his appearances on
BBC Radio's The Goon Show.
Marks and O'Neil were again teamed for Val Parnell's spectacular
London Palladium pantomime Humpty Dumpty (1959-60), with Harry
Secombe in the title role. They played the King and Queen of
Hearts.
Paddie O'Neil appeared in her second feature film in 1965: The
Early Bird, starring Norman Wisdom. Other movies followed: The
Adding Machine (1969); Fanny Hill (1983); and The Little Match
Girl (1987). more....
Malcolm
Vaughan, singer who fell foul of the BBC but sold half a million
records as a result has died aged 81 (25 February 2010)
In October 1956, Malcolm Vaughan was due to appear on BBC TV's
Off The Record to promote his new release, "St. Therese Of
The Roses". The invitation was withdrawn a few days later
after a BBC committee had determined that the record was
unsuitable for broadcast because "the lyric is contrary both
to Roman Catholic doctrine and to Protestant sentiment." The
resulting controversy helped to sell records, and with airplay on
Radio Luxembourg the sugary wedding song climbed to No 3, stayed
on the charts for five months and sold half a million copies.
Early in his career Vaughan appeared, using his real name Malcolm
Thomas, as the voice of Dennis the Dachshund in a television
production of Larry The Lamb.
Vaughan had many hits in the 1950s with "To Be Loved",
"More Than Ever (Come Prima)" and "Wait For
Me", and sang the theme song from the Kenneth More film
about the sinking of the Titanic, A Night To Remember (1958).
Strangely, Vaughan did not make an album until Hello in September
1959.
Vaughan worked as a double act with Kenneth Earle throughout the
1960s but they never realised their ambition of making comedy
films like Morecambe and Wise. It would have been better for
Vaughan's career if he had continued making records and capturing
the same market as Matt Monro. The duo split up in 1972 with
Earle becoming an agent and Vaughan touring in productions of The
Good Old Days. more....
Lionel
Jeffries, character actor, screenwriter and director, has died
aged 83 (20 February 2010)
As an actor, the bald, bewhiskered Jeffries showed a facial
mobility and excellent comic delivery that turned him into one of
the best-known bumbling figures in British cinema; and however
brief his appearances, he was always an asset in films that
ranged from The Colditz Story and The Quatermass Xperiment to
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Trials of Oscar Wilde.
Jeffries won his first West End engagement, as Major ATM
Broke-Smith in Dorothy and Campbell Christie's Carrington VC
(1953), with Alec Clunes in the title role. The following season
saw him on the London stage as The Father in Peter Hall's
production of Lorca's Blood Wedding and The Doctor in Jean
Giraudoux's The Enchanted, both at the Arts Theatre.
Jeffries was soon attracted to the cinema, starting his film
career in Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1949). But he made his
first real impression as one of the prisoners-of-war in Guy
Hamilton's The Colditz Story (1954).
In one year alone he acted in nine different films. In 1955 he
was a great success in Windfall, and there followed a plethora of
successful cameo roles in which he proved capable of summoning up
both dry comedy and menace. Among them were an inquisitive
reporter in the Quatermass Xperiment (1955); Gelignite Joe, a
diamond robber whose schoolgirl niece contrived for him to
impersonate a new headmistress in Blue Murder at St Trinian's
(1957); and a sailor charged with trying to prevent the ship's
captain from knowing about all the livestock being carried on
board in Up the Creek (1958).
Other parts included Major Proudfoot in Law and Disorder (1958);
an army adjutant trying to impose regulations on Anthony Newley's
conscripted pop singer in Idol on Parade (1959); and a prison
officer attempting to discipline Peter Sellers and Bernard
Cribbins in Two-Way Stretch (1960).
Jeffries continued in this vein for another two decades, samples
being The Hellions (1961); The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963); First
Men in the Moon (1964); You Must be Joking! (1965); Rocket to the
Moon (1967); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played
Grandpa Potts; and The Prisoner of Zenda (1978). In all he
appeared in 70 films between 1949 and 1988.
But it was as the director of The Railway Children, one of the
most enchanting films ever made for young people, that Jeffries
left his mark on the history of cinema.
Jeffries's script and direction, along with the acting of Bernard
Cribbins, Dinah Sheridan and Jenny Agutter and the homely tone of
the whole enterprise, earned the film its place as a minor
classic.
With this success behind him, Jeffries was inspired him to make
more films in the genre, coming up with The Amazing Mr Blunden
(set in 1918, it has a widow and her two children living in a
country house haunted by the friendly Mr Blunden); Wombling Free
(1977) and The Water Babies (1978). None of these, though,
rivalled the warmth, simplicity, charm, and eye for period detail
that distinguished The Railway Children. more....
Kathryn
Grayson, soprano and familiar star of MGM musicals, has died aged
88 (20 February 2010)
She appeared in 20 films, all but three for MGM – but only
one, the 1952 remake of Show Boat, was a big hit.
Cast opposite Gene Kelly in Thousands Cheer (1943) and Anchors
Aweigh (1945), she displayed a winsome charm.
Early co-stars were June Allyson in Two Sisters from Boston
(1946) and Frank Sinatra in Anchors Aweigh, It Happened in
Brooklyn (1947) and The Kissing Bandit (1948), a pseudo-Mexican
extravaganza that failed at the box office.
MGM then cast her opposite Mario Lanza, a podgy and then unknown
tenor of whom some hopes were entertained. They made two films
together – That Midnight Kiss (1948) and The Toast of New
Orleans (1950).
Kathryn Grayson's career benefited in tandem with Mario Lanza's;
hence Grounds for Marriage (1951), a comedy with Van Johnson
about a prima donna who makes a play for her ex-husband. This
afforded a rare on-screen chance to show her operatic form,
though she was vocally and dramatically miscast in excerpts from
Carmen and the film was released only as the second half of a
double-bill.
Shrewdly typecast in Showboat as the pretty but simpering
"belle of the Cotton Blossom", she was backed by
outstanding production values and strong performances from Howard
Keel and Ava Gardner. Her last three films for MGM, all with
Howard Keel, contained her best work. Show Boat, Lovely to Look
At (a 1952 remake of Roberta, with music by Jerome Kern) and Kiss
Me Kate, the 1953 3-D version of the Cole Porter musical based on
The Taming of the Shrew, were well within her vocal range. In the
last, in particular, as Shakespeare's shrewish Kate, she
demonstrated the long-awaited germs of an acting talent. more....
Cy Grant, the
Guyanese actor, singer and writer who was the first black person
to be seen regularly on British TV, has died at the age of 90 (16 February 2010)
Cy Grant served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and
qualified as a barrister before turning to acting.
He became best known for his role singing 'Topical Calypsos' on
the BBC's daily topical programme, Tonight. It made him a
household name but he left after two and a half years to avoid
being typecast.
He went on to star in the award-winning TV drama Home of the
Brave in 1957 and played the lead in Othello at the Phoenix
Theatre in Leicester in 1965 at a time when white actors were
routinely "blacked up" for the part.
He returned to the Bar briefly in 1972 but left after six months.
Two years later, he helped create the Drum Arts Centre in London
- which was considered to be hugely important in the development
of black theatre. He went on to set up multi-cultural festivals
across England in the 1980s.
Alongside his acting and activism work, he recorded five albums,
having performed Caribbean folk songs and calypso across the
world. Two of his best known singles are King Cricket and The
Constantine Calypso, in celebration of Garfield Sobers and Learie
Constantine, two of the West Indies' most famous cricketers.
He also recorded many shows for radio and wrote several books
including a collection of poems. more....
Margaret
Dale, ballet choreographer and TV producer, has died aged 87 (9
February 2010)
Margaret Dale was a Sadler's Wells Ballet dancer who became
Britain's most distinguished producer of ballet for television,
making more than 60 programmes in an era that is often considered
ballet's golden age.
The invitation to create six little ballets for children's
television led, in 1954, to her decision to train as a BBC
producer. There she invited Kenneth MacMillan to create a
half-hour ballet for television. This was 'Turned Out Proud', for
the weekly 'Music at Ten' slot, and she and MacMillan sifted
through the corporation's record collection to create a musical
score.
Although the BBC's music controller was "bewildered" by
the result, and the Musicians' Union protested at the use of
recorded material, Margaret Dale used these concerns to ask for,
and be granted, permission to use live music for MacMillan's much
darker and more ambitious Sadler's Wells ballet, 'House of
Birds', transmitted live in 1956.
She also set up a studio session with the Bolshoi Ballet in the
lakeside act of 'Swan Lake' during their famous 1956 debut tour
to London. This attracted 12 million viewers, and was the first
of several television films she made during visits to London by
the Bolshoi and the Kirov.
Margaret Dale also adapted many classic ballets for television,
starting in 1957 with 'Coppelia', starring Nadia Nerina. Others
included Giselle, Ashton's 'La fille mal gardée' and John
Cranko's 'Onegin', whose 37-minute abridgement in 1966 was
thought by some to be better than the stage version. more....
Sir John
Dankworth, pioneer of modern jazz has died aged 82 (7 February 2010)
Johnny Dankworth, was a leading composer of film music, a
tireless champion of musical education, regardless of genre, and
a superb instrumentalist in his own right.
In 1950 Dankworth formed his first band, the Johnny Dankworth
Seven, containing some of Britain's leading young soloists. The
style was neatly arranged bebop, inspired by Miles Davis's band
of the time. Although this enterprise almost collapsed in its
early days, a modest growth in the audience for modern jazz
allowed it to gain a foothold. Within a year, the Seven, and
Dankworth himself, figured among the winners in the annual polls
conducted by the music press.
In 1951, the Seven appeared in one of the two inaugural jazz
concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. In the same year the Seven
recruited a young and totally inexperienced singer, Cleo Laine.
Dankworth broke up the Seven in 1953 and launched his first big
band, consisting of eight brass, five saxophones, rhythm section
and three vocalists.
In the mid-1950s the orchestra had a long-running radio series in
which Dankworth made a point of introducing guests from other
musical genres. These were mainly classical virtuosi, such as the
clarinettist Jack Brymer and violinist Kenneth Essex.
In 1960 Dankworth gave up full-time bandleading in order to
concentrate on composition. He composed and conducted the music
for Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (Reisz, 1960) and The
Criminal (Joseph Losey, 1960). So successful were these, and so
distinctive the music, that the Dankworth sound became
inseparably linked with the new wave of British cinema in the
1960s.
Among the best known are The Servant (Losey, 1963), Darling (John
Schlesinger, 1965), Modesty Blaise (Losey 1966) and Morgan, A
Suitable Case For Treatment (Reisz, 1966). To these were added
television themes such as The Avengers (1961) and Tomorrow's
World (1966), as well as an endless stream of advertising
commercials.
John Dankworth and Cleo Laine were married in 1958 and their
careers were intertwined thereafter. more....
Ian
Carmichael, the actor, has died aged 89 (7 February 2010)
Ian Carmichael personified the affable, archetypal silly ass
Englishman in scores of revues, light comedies, films and
television programmes.
To his wide-eyed boyish grin, bemused courtesy and trusting
manner, Carmichael brought an invaluably comic air of innocence
to bear on his thousand and one misfortunes. His old-world
manners were his technical lifeline, and the lightness of his
touch on stage and screen ensured the effect of often-thin
material.
In sometimes brilliant London stage shows in the early Fifties
which satirised the fashions and foibles of the day,
Carmichael’s timing and gravely expressive features enriched
scores of sketches as a polite and easily embarrassed Englishman,
trying to change his clothes discreetly, for example, or to
assemble a recalcitrant deck chair.
It was the film version of his first straight stage success,
Simon and Laura (1955) which established Carmichael on the
screen. The following year his portrayal of an artful conscripted
dodger in the Boultings’ comedy Private’s Progress
endeared him to everyone who had ever been called up. Few
comedians knew how to look more comically, humanly afraid. His
apprehensive subaltern - standing rigidly to attention on the
parade ground as an offstage sergeant barked a string of commands
which he knew he would never be able, as expected, to repeat to
his platoon - was a model of silent, facial panic. The character
returned, fleetingly, in I’m All Right, Jack (1959). In this
picture he had just been demobilised and, in looking for work,
became caught in a wrangle between capitalists and trades
unionists from which he emerged, inadvertently, triumphant.
But it is probably his portrayals on television of PG Wodehouse's
dithering Bertie Wooster and Dorothy L Sayers's elegant Lord
Peter Wimsey which underlined his gifts as an exponent of the
light English comedy of manners to greatest effect.
Carmichael also directed several light entertainment television
series such as Mr Pastry’s Progress, It’s A Small World
and We Beg To Differ. more....
Pernell
Roberts, actor who starred as Adam Cartwright in Bonanza, has
died aged 81 (27 January 2010)
Pernell Roberts was the last of the original stars from Bonanza,
the US television series that took the western to a huge
mainstream international audience of all ages and both sexes,
with its focus on family values and moral dilemmas.
One of the most successful television series ever, it originally
ran from 1959 to 1973 in the US, opened in the UK on ITV in 1960.
Roberts played Adam Cartwright, the introspective, eldest son of
a rancher, Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene). Ben had been married
and widowed three times, which explained why he had produced
three such different sons. The others were big, awkward, loveable
Hoss (Dan Blocker) and the handsome, young ladies’ man
Little Joe (Michael Landon).
But Roberts grew dissatisfied with the series. He had been an
acclaimed Shakespearean stage actor and found the production line
of television "banal". The stories did indeed get
repetitive. Characters were repeatedly victims of prejudice and
were accused of things they did not do. The Cartwrights were
against violence, but killed dozens, possibly hundreds of
villains, against their will.
Roberts quit in 1965, but failed to build on the success of
Bonanza before effectively re-emerging as the star of the MASH
spin-off Trapper John MD (1979-86). more....
British
actress Jean Simmons dies aged 80 (23
January 2010)
Simmons, who was born in London, made her film debut in the 1944
British production Give Us the Moon after being spotted by Val
Guest, the director.
Several minor films followed before David Lean, the British
director, gave the actress her breakthrough role of Estella,
companion to the reclusive Miss Havisham in the 1946 Great
Expectations.
That was followed by the Black Narcissus and Olivier’s
Oscar-winning Hamlet in 1948, for which Simmons was nominated as
best supporting actress.
Simmons left Britain for Hollywood in 1950, accompanied by the
actor Stewart Granger, her future husband.
She then starred in Young Bess, where she played the young Queen
Elizabeth I, The Robe, The Actress, The Egyptian and Desiree in
which, in 1954, she played the title role opposite Brando’s
Napoleon. The pair teamed again in 1955 for Guys and Dolls.
Her other notable films included Elmer Gantry, with Burt
Lancaster; Until They Sail, with Paul Newman; The Big Country
with co-star Gregory Peck; Spartacus, also starring Kirk Douglas;
This Earth Is Mine with Rock Hudson; All the Way Home with Robert
Preston; Mister Buddwing, alongside James Garner; and Rough Night
in Jericho with Dean Martin.
During the '80s she won an Emmy Award for her role in the
miniseries, The Thorn Birds and then she also appeared on
television shows including Murder, She Wrote, In the Heat of the
Night and Xena: Warrior Princess. more....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/1878829.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7000653.ece
Bill McLaren,
Rugby union broadcaster, has died aged 86 (20 January 2010)
Bill McLaren spent 50 years commentating on rugby union matches
for BBC radio and television.
In this role his powerful Scottish tones, memorable turns of
phrase, dedication to research and rigid impartiality proved an
awesome combination, enhancing the broadcast experience for
millions of listeners and viewers throughout club and
international seasons.
In 1948 he was selected for the final trial to represent the
Scottish national team but was unable to compete, having been
given a diagnosis of tuberculosis. When he recovered he worked
for three years as a reporter on the Hawick Express, all the
while maintaining his strong interest in rugby. Unbeknown to him,
a colleague with BBC connections wrote to a friend in London
recommending McLaren’s services as a rugby commentator.
On the strength of this McLaren was offered a commentary test. He
was characteristically reluctant to accept the challenge but
eventually agreed, making his debut on the Scottish Home Service
in January 1952 for the South of Scotland versus South Africa
game. This led, in 1953, to his national radio debut covering the
Scotland v Wales international. In 1962 he switched to
television.
McLaren’s day job was to supervise sport and teach PE in
Hawick’s five primary schools. He filled this role from the
early 1950s until 1987, and was proud to have taught several of
Scotland’s future international players in their youth. more....
Donald
Pickering, actor, has died aged 76 (15 January 2010)
Donald Pickering made his stage debut in 1951 in George Devine's
production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Old Vic
School Theatre in London alongside Prunella Scales, Joan
Plowright and Patrick Wymark. He made his first television
appearance in 1956 in an edition of ITV's Television Playhouse.
Often cast in the role of a suave authority figure, government
minister or a high-ranking military officer, Pickering made his
debut in Dr Who in 1964 when he played Eyesen in the story The
Keys of Marinus alongside the first Doctor, William Hartnell.
Pickering's other television roles includes appearances in dramas
such as The House of Eliott, All Creatures Great and Small,
Rumpole of the Bailey, The Professionals, Tales of the
Unexpected, Crown Court, The Pallisers and The Saint. His comedy
appearances included roles in Yes, Prime Minister, Lovejoy and
The Brittas Empire. In 1980 he played Doctor Watson for 23
episodes in Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. more....
George
Cowling, the nation's first on-screen weather man, has died aged
89
(28 December 2009)
George Cowling secured his place in history on January 11 1954,
when he ventured before the BBC cameras to become the BBC's
on-screen weatherman.
From 1949, the BBC had carried weather maps at the end of the
evening's programmes, during which an off-screen announcer read a
script supplied by the Meteorological Office. The introduction of
an on-screen forecaster was a big step for both organisations.
Studio facilities and technology available to the forecasters
were extremely primitive and provided little in comparison to the
vast quantities of instantly-accessible data churned out by
today's hi-tech instruments, many of them in orbit above the
Earth.
In the early-1950s television programmes began at 8pm, and the
new weather feature was tacked on to beginning of the schedule.
Part of the brief was to look back at the previous day's
forecast, assess how accurate it had been, and, if necessary, to
try to explain what had gone wrong.
Thus Cowling and his colleagues began to talk at 7.55pm, and had
four-and-a-half minutes to fill before the continuity announcer
took over to introduce the evening's entertainment. While the
viewer might have considered the slot brief, more than four
minutes represented a real challenge for an inexperienced
broadcaster to fill fluently without a script. Cowling himself
noted later that to fill the time "unprompted, before
critical millions, could only spell one thing: unhappiness".
Cowling joined the Met office, then part of the Ministry of
Defence, aged 19, and worked through the war as a weather
forecaster for the RAF, stationed initially in Yorkshire, and
then on the Continent.
After 15 years with the Met, he was transferred to the London
Weather Centre where he coped successfully with the exacting
requirements of his new television job before promotion took him,
in February 1957, to RAF Bomber Command. Subsequent postings
included Singapore, Malta, Bahrain and Germany. He also taught at
the Met Office College and was principal forecaster at Heathrow. more....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6970848.ece
Gene Barry,
actor, has died aged 90 (12
December 2009)
In 1951, Gene Barry landed a film contract with Paramount at
1,000 dollars a week and made his big-screen debut as a nuclear
physicist in The Atomic City (1952). He was a scientist again in
his best-remembered film role, as Dr Clayton Forrester, in The
War of the Worlds (1953).
But television became the medium in which Barry made his mark.
Following his appearance in an episode of the suspense series The
Clock (1950), he worked his way up the cast list, via programmes
such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), to play the PE teacher
Gene Talbot during the run of the sitcom Our Miss Brooks
(1955-6).
Then came the title role of the suave, dapper, Arizona
gambler-lawman, with a black derby, pinstriped suit, gold vest
and a sword disguised as a gold-tipped cane, in the Western
series Bat Masterson (1958-61). Masterson, "the fastest cane
in the West", who also carried a gun, was a 19th-century
former Dodge City sheriff – and the character established
Barry's line in debonair roles.
As the suave and witty Los Angeles Chief of Detectives in Burke's
Law, Gene Barry brought to television screens a policeman who
turned up to crime scenes in style, sitting in the comfortably
upholstered rear of a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.
The millionaire Amos Burke was also seen at home, in his
luxurious mansion, where a string of beautiful women visited the
eligible bachelor. Burke's Law (1963-65) was the tongue-in-cheek
antithesis of established American crime dramas such as Dragnet,
with its mundane but eminently watchable police procedurals, and
The Untouchables, which presented a weekly bloodbath of murders
and massacres.
Following Burke's Law, he was cast as the snappily dressed
publishing tycoon Glenn Howard in The Name of the Game (1968-71),
a lavishly made series that rotated Barry, Tony Franciosa (as a
journalist) and Robert Stack (as a senior editor) in a
three-weekly cycle of stories. When leading roles dried up, Barry
made guest appearances in programmes such as Fantasy Island
(1978, 1981), The Twilight Zone (1987) and Murder, She Wrote
(1989). more....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6953791.ece
Richard Todd,
actor, has died aged 90 (5
December 2009)
Todd was one of the first British officers to land in Normandy in
advance of the main D-Day landings and went on to become
Britain's highest-earning matinee idol of the post-war years; his
most memorable role was that of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC, in
The Dam Busters (1955), a film he carried with the help of
Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis.
Todd made his screen debut in For Them That Trespass (1948) and
triumphing in The Hasty Heart, Todd travelled to Hollywood to
appear as a bridegroom with a murky past in King Vidor's
Lightning Strikes Twice (1950), then starred as Marlene
Dietrich's former lover – and a murder suspect – in
Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950).
There followed an orgy of swashbuckling heroics in Disney's The
Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the
Rose (1953) and Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue (1954), all of which
served only to prove that Todd was no Errol Flynn.
His role as Peter Marshall in A Man Called Peter persuaded Henry
Koster to cast Todd in his Virgin Queen (1955) as a roguish Sir
Walter Raleigh, whose dalliance with lady-in-waiting Joan Collins
angers Elizabeth I (Bette Davis). Koster then cast him in D-Day,
the Sixth of June the following year.
The Dam Busters (1954) marked the beginning of a fruitful
collaboration with the director Michael Anderson. Todd went on to
appear in Anderson's Yangtse Incident (1956) as the commander of
a crippled frigate breaking a Chinese blockade, and in the
Hitchcock-style Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) he played the
mysterious stranger claiming to be the late brother of the
heiress Kimberley Prescott (Anne Baxter). He returned as a wing
commander (this time named Kendall) for their last film together,
Operation Crossbow (1965).
Todd made his television debut in 1953, as Heathcliff in a BBC
adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Later, Todd appeared in such
series as Virtual Murder; Silent Witness; Holby City; Murder, She
Wrote; and in the Doctor Who story Kinda in 1982. He was General
Benjamin Cutler in the television miniseries Jenny's War (1985),
and played Lord Roberts of Kandahar in the miniseries Sherlock
Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls (1992, featuring
Christopher Lee as Sherlock Holmes and Patrick Macnee as Dr
Watson). more....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/1834671.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6944417.ece
Timothy
Bateson, character actor, has died aged 83 (27 November 2009)
Bateson established his reputation as a fine character actor in
1955 with the single, incomprehensible speech of the pathetic
Lucky in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
The young actor had learned his craft carrying spears and having
one-line parts at Stratford and the Old Vic while drawing
inspiration, when appropriate, from the touching comedy of Miles
Malleson. He went with the productions of Antony and Cleopatra
and Caesar and Cleopatra which Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh
took to New York.
Although Bateson preferred the theatre, he continued to take film
work, playing Coker in Vice Versa (1948); Dr Cook in White
Corridors (1951); and the ostler in Olivier's Richard III. More
work came with the growth of television. He was Lord Shoreby in
The Black Arrow (1958); Guppy in Bleak House (1959); and
Tappertit in Barnaby Rudge (1960). There were occasional roles in
The Saint; Dr Finlay's Casebook; The Avengers; Doctor at Large;
Please Sir; Last of the Summer Wine; Hi-De-Hi!; and Midsomer
Murders. more....
Max
Robertson, writer, broadcaster and sports commentator, has died
aged 94 (20 November 2009)
Max Robertson was the first presenter of Panorama, of BBC
Television's antiques quiz show Going for a Song, and was a
commentator at the Queen's Coronation in 1953; but he was best
known as the "other voice of Wimbledon", alongside the
television pundit Dan Maskell.
Robertson covered every Wimbledon final for the BBC from 1946 to
1986 and transformed the art of tennis broadcasting for radio. He
delighted audiences by being able to describe with riveting
exactness every stroke that was being played, conjuring up a
dynamic mental picture of what was taking place on court.
Following service during the War, he began doing outside
broadcasts, initially for the BBC European Service then, from
1949, for Outside Broadcasts. He was chosen to do the commentary
for the first postwar Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1948 and
covered summer and winter Olympiads. He also covered the royal
tour of Canada in 1951 when the young Princess Elizabeth
deputised for her father who was too ill to travel.
Robertson established a reputation as a jack-of-all-trades. In
addition to his outside broadcasts for radio, he was in
increasing demand for television, working on children's
programmes, sports broadcasts and conducting interviews. During
the Coronation he was to be seen on the Victoria Embankment
alongside three cameras, shouting against the full-throated
cheering of thousands of schoolchildren as the Queen passed by.
He became caught up - briefly - in BBC current affairs
broadcasting when, in 1953, he was appointed to present the new
flagship programme Panorama. This was, originally, a fortnightly
"magazine" programme with the presenter holding the
fort while roving interviewers made their contributions. After
Malcolm Muggeridge took over as studio anchor man, Robertson
continued to file items on such varied matters as myxomatosis in
rabbits, horror comics and rag-and-bone men.
In 1954 he turned freelance. As well as his tennis commentaries,
he covered swimming and athletics for television and commentated
on summer and winter Olympiads until 1968. more....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2009/nov/20/max-robertson-obituary
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6928732.ece
Harry Alan
Towers, prolific radio, television and film producer and
screenwriter, died in August aged 88 (4
November 2009)
In 1944 Towers was head of the RAF's Radio Unit, making
programmes for the Forces Service; there he introduced Richard
Murdoch to Kenneth Horne, and the outcome was the long-running
BBC comedy series Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh.
In 1956 his company, Towers of London, hired Marius Goring to
impersonate The Scarlet Pimpernel for a series filmed at Elstree
studios. Between 1957 and 1959 Towers masterminded two
co-productions with a Stateside company, Ziv TV: Martin Kane,
Private Investigator in which William Gargan played the American
gumshoe seconded to Scotland Yard, and Dial 999, with Robert
Beatty's RCMP detective seconded to the Yard.
Towers graduated to the cinema in the '60s. Edgar Wallace's hero
Commissioner Sanders was played by Richard Todd twice, in Death
Drums Along The River (1963) and Coast Of Skeletons (1964), while
Sax Rohmer's fiendish oriental villain Fu Manchu was splendidly
interpreted by Christopher Lee in five movies between 1965 and
1970.
There followed two comedy adventures, Our Man In Marrakesh (1966)
and Jules Verne's Rocket To The-Moon (1967), loaded with bankable
stars like Terry-Thomas; and Sumuru, with Shirley Eaton the
eponymous "female Fu Manchu". more....
Sir Ludovic
Kennedy, television presenter, author and campaigner, has died
aged 89 (20 October 2009)
When the Independent Television network was established in 1955,
Kennedy was engaged as a presenter in a magazine programme called
Sunday Afternoon. The programme was short lived but launched
Kennedy on his television career. A year later he was called in
at short notice by ITN to stand in for Robin Day, who had been
struck down with flu, and was invited to stay. One critic
described him as reading the news "as though it were a
letter to faraway relative whom he wished to interest", an
attractive and comfortable style which soon caught the attention
of other television producers. His star rose in the Sixties and
Seventies, when he presented This Week, then Panorama and later
Midweek and Tonight.
During the 1950s, Kennedy developed political ambitions and in
1956 he stood as Liberal candidate in the Rochdale by-election.
Though Labour won the seat, he won the largest Liberal vote at
any election for two decades. He contested the seat again in the
general election of 1959 and was again narrowly beaten.
From 1961 onwards, Kennedy published a steady stream of books
about crime, the law and miscarriages of justice. He believed the
main culprit in nearly all these cases to have been the
"extremely childish" British system of adversarial
justice in which "each side does its best to vanquish the
other and truth falls by the wayside". He campaigned for
many years for the establishment of a Ministry of Justice and a
change to a system more like the French inquisitorial system in
which a juge d'instruction battles away to find out the truth.
Kennedy combined his laconic, humorous style with a rage for
justice that made him a formidable investigator. He specialised
in ferreting out truth, pursuing almost-lost causes and bringing
to light what seemed to him to be miscarriages of justice. Some
of his television exposés were followed up with books, of which
the most famous were to do with the execution of Timothy Evans
(the man hanged in 1951 for murders which, it later transpired,
had been carried out by John Christie), the framing of Stephen
Ward in the Profumo case and, with The Airman and The Carpenter
(1985), the electrocution in America of Bruno Hauptmann, the man
accused, probably falsely, of being the kidnapper and murderer of
the Lindbergh baby. More recently, Kennedy campaigned for the
release of the Birmingham Six and other IRA suspects who, it is
now recognised, had been the victims of serious injustices.
Following his mother's death (in 1977 after many months of
bedridden misery) he became an active and public supporter of
voluntary euthanasia. more....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/1805650.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6880951.ece
Ian Wallace,
opera singer and 'My Music' panellist on radio, has died aged 90 (14 October 2009)
He ranged from singer, character actor, comedian, compère and
clown to radio and television panellist, scriptwriter and
pantomime king.
What made Wallace a household name was the endearing way he had
with silly songs about animals, especially one about an amorous
hippopotamus with a chorus which went: "Mud, mud, glorious
mud". First broadcast on a Henry Hall Guest Night in 1952,
the song virtually became Wallace's signature tune.
Whether in classical opera, musical comedy, plays, films,
television, radio or on the concert platform, Wallace's readiness
to perform on all kinds of occasion brought him an exceptional
range of admirers.
Apart from opera, his dramatic credits included Bottom in A
Midsummer Night's Dream; César in a West End musical version of
Marcel Pagnol's Fanny (Drury Lane); and the Emperor of China in
Cole Porter's Aladdin (Coliseum).
Wallace was also a regular on the Radio 4 panel game My Music and
other quiz shows on radio and television in which he would,
sitting down, suddenly break into snatches of opera. With his
unpretentious affability he could always put audiences at ease.
Wallace made his Italian operatic debut as Massetto in Don
Giovanni at Parma (1950); and was La Cenerentola at Rome (1955),
and Dr Bartolo in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Venice (1956). From
1965, his regular appearances for Scottish Opera included
Leporello in Don Giovanni, Pistola in Falstaff and the Duke of
Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers. For the Welsh National Opera (1967)
he sang Don Pasquale and for Glyndebourne Touring Opera (1968) Dr
Dulcamara in L'Elisir D'Amore. more....
Barry Letts,
actor, director and producer, has died aged 84 (13 October 2009)
A pioneer of British television, Barry Letts served the medium
for more than half a century. As an actor, he was rarely off
screen in the embryonic days of television drama. Later, as a
producer and director, his early-evening dramas commanded large
and loyal family audiences. But it was through his work on Doctor
Who that he secured his place in TV history.
His earliest screen role, as a Welsh seaman, came in Ealing
Studios' San Demetrio, London (1943), a naval adventure.
After the war he began to appear on stage, TV and in film, with
featured roles in Scott of the Antarctic (1948), The Cruel Sea
(1952) and Reach for the Sky (1956). His TV debut came in
Gunpowder Guy (1950), a one-off on BBC children's television.
Patrick Troughton starred as Guy Fawkes, Letts was a fellow
conspirator and it was broadcast live from Lime Grove, west
London. Letts said his understanding of the demands placed on a
producer stemmed from his appearances in early Sunday evening
serials, such as The Black Arrow (1958) and the second world war
drama The Silver Sword (1957).
Children's TV productions included The Gordon Honour (1956),
which traced two feuding families down the ages, and The Man from
the Moors (1955), as Charles Dickens.
For older viewers, he played Lewis Carroll in Nom-de-Plume
(1956), a series in which the identity of each episode's subject
was revealed only at its end, and?Colonel Herncastle?in Wilkie
Collins's The Moonstone (1959), again with Troughton. The mid-50s
saw him telling 15-minute stories to camera that he had written,
and by 1963 he was reading the Epilogue. more....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6889546.ece
John Hart,
actor who played television's 'other' Lone Ranger has died aged
91 (11 October 2009)
Destined to go down in history as television's "other"
Lone Ranger, playing the masked man riding his trusty white horse
Silver for 52 episodes, John Hart stepped into the role in 1952
when Clayton Moore was replaced amid reports that the original
star had walked out in a pay dispute. However, television viewers
were not so accepting of the "new" Lone Ranger, who
brought them rushing to the small screen with his shout of
"Hi-yo, Silver!" and his native American companion
Tonto (Jay Silverheels) on horseback by his side. Eventually, in
1954, American television executives brought back Moore, who
continued in the role until The Lone Ranger ended in 1957 after
an eight-year run, denying that his departure had been caused by
disagreements over money.
Despite this disappointment, Hart went on to other starring roles
on screen. First, he played the hero of the title in the 15-part
cinema serial Adventures of Captain Africa, Mighty Jungle
Avenger! (1955). Then, he was seen on television, also as the
title character – an 18th-century fur trader in New York's
Hudson Valley during the French and Indian War – in 39
episodes of Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957). Again,
he had a native American companion, this time Chingachgook,
played by the horror film star Lon Chaney, Jr. more....
Felix
Bowness, actor and warm-up man, has died aged 87 (7 October 2009)
Felix Bowness died on September 13th. He was best known as the
jockey Fred Quilly in the 1980s television sitcom Hi-De-Hi!
He worked in radio during the 1950s and began his radio career,
billed as That Irresponsible Young Man, in 1950 on Variety
Bandbox, followed by Workers' Playtime (1953-59) and Mid-day
Music Hall (1954). For BBC TV, he was in the sitcom Hugh and I
(1964), with Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd, and The Benny Hill Show
(1965), in Hill's pre-smut days. Bowness was also in Frankie
Howerd's 1966 BBC series.
He was the BBC's most prolific "warm-up" man, working
on The Morecambe and Wise Show and some 3,000 editions of Wogan.
He was cast in Jimmy Perry and David Croft's Hi-De-Hi! in 1980,
and went on to appear in their You Rang, M'Lord, and in Oh,
Doctor Beeching! by Croft and Richard Spendlove. more....
Ray Barrett,
Australian actor, has died aged 82 (11
September 2009)
Aussie actors don't come much tougher than Ray Barrett. His heavy
build, steely eyes and pockmarked, though handsome, face became
well known to British television viewers in the 1960s, mainly as
Peter Thornton, a hardnosed, globe-trotting field agent for a
multinational oil company in The Troubleshooters (1965-72).
By 1955, having moved to Sydney, he was getting roles on radio
and became adept at changing his accent to suit the parts, which
later became handy for voiceover work. But in 1958 he decided to
try his luck in Britain, though it took him two years to find
work as an actor. His career in Britain began with the lead as a
detective sergeant in an episode of Armchair Mystery Theatre
(1960) and, in the same year, he joined his fellow Australian
Charles Tingwell in several episodes of the medical soap opera
Emergency-Ward 10.
Mainly playing British characters, with only a smidgen of an
Aussie accent, Barrett's often unsmiling face was seen in series
such as The Avengers, The Saint and Doctor Who, as well as seven
episodes of the espionage drama Ghost Squad (1963-64).
From 1963 to 1964, he provided the American voice for the
irascible, disabled Commander Sam Shore in Stingray, the
Supermarionation futuristic sub-aquatic puppet series made by
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson that preceded Thunderbirds. Each
episode began with Barrett announcing: "Stand by for action!
We are about to launch – Stingray! Anything can happen in
the next half hour."
Barrett was then called upon to voice Tracy (and the villainous
The Hood) in Thunderbirds on television as well as the feature
film Thunderbirds Are GO (1966).
But it was The Troubleshooters that gave him his highest profile,
instantly from the all-action title sequence with Barrett in a
speedboat. more....
Keith
Waterhouse, playwright, novelist and newspaper columnist has died
aged 80 (5 September 2009)
Keith Waterhouse's collaboration with Willis Hall was one of the
most enduring and distinctive dramatic partnerships in the
history of theatre, films and television.
After two years' National Service in the RAF, he was hired by the
Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds before he joined the Mirror, for
which he was a correspondent in the United States and the Soviet
Union. He was also invited to write speeches for the Labour
leaders Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson.
Meanwhile, he embarked on a career as an author which would see
him produce some 60 books during his career. In 1956 he produced
a history of the Café Royal, and the following year he published
There Is A Happy Land and in 1959 Waterhouse published Billy
Liar, one of the great comic novels of the 20th century. The book
caught the public's imagination with its portrait of a cheeky
north country lad trying to bring some fun into his drab life as
an undertaker's assistant by engaging in fantasies that
embarrassed and dismayed his family.
Waterhouse's collaboration with Willis Hall produced a rich seam
of material. Celebration (Nottingham Playhouse and Duchess, 1961)
evoked the manners of a proletarian northern family, first at a
wedding reception and then at a funeral. England Our England
(Prince's), with music by Dudley Moore, was a satirical revue in
the spirit of the mocking television programme That Was the Week
That Was, to which the duo also contributed.
They followed up with a wryly amusing double bill, Squat Betty
and The Sponge Room (Royal Court 1962), and then All Things
Bright and Beautiful (Bristol Old Vic), which extracted slightly
indignant fun from a family being moved from a condemned house to
a block of flats. more....
Neville King,
ventriloquist, has died (28 August 2009)
As a ventriloquist, Neville King was a master of his art, and his
dummy "Grandad" epitomized the mischievious twinkle
eyed pensioner whom we all love, or have loved at some time in
our lives.
Turning professional in 1963, his first summer season was on the
Isle of Man followed by seasons in Blackpool, Bournemouth,
Bridlington, Scarborough, Torquay, Eastbourne, and Paignton.
In 1964 Neville joined the worlds longest running Musical,
"The Black & White Minstrel Show", with whom he
remained for 11 years, 3 of which were at the Victoria Palace,
London. He also did a season in Malta and a very long, record
breaking, tour of Australia whilst with the Show.
In 1965 he was chosen to appear before Her Majesty the Queen
& the Duke of Edinburgh in the Royal Variety Performance at
the London Palladium. In 1967 he again appeared at the Palladium,
this time in front of Princess Margaret at a Royal Gala.
Neville entertained the troops for Combined Services
Entertainments in Ireland, South America, Cyprus, Germany,
Salalah and Masirah. He also entertained UN troops in Holland
& Belgium. He did 5 World Tours, including a tour of Canada,
with the London Palladium Show. He also worked in Salisbury,
Johannesburg, Tangier, Malta, Tasmania and more recently at the
famed "Sporting Club" in Monte Carlo.
Scots variety
star Margo Henderson has died aged 80 (28 August 2009)
Margo Henderson died of a
broken heart - just nine days after her beloved husband in July
2009. Margo Henderson and Sam Kemp, who worked as a stage double
act during the 1950s and 1960s, were devoted to each other.
Margo and musician Sam met 61 years ago on the Glasgow stage
circuit, when she was 19 and a budding solo performer. Musician
and singer Sam was around 10 years older. They married and were
soon working together as Kemp and Henderson.
During their theatre careers, the couple played dozens of venues
throughout Scotland.
Margo also enjoyed success in London, with a regular bill in the
Five Past Eight Show at the Alhambra Theatre, before being signed
for a slot alongside the Black and White Minstrel Show in the
1960s. more....
John Bentley,
movie, television and soap opera star has died aged 92 (17 August 2009)
Handsome, British stage actor John Bentley entered London's film
industry in 1946, where he was immediately put to work grinding
out inexpensive detective melodramas. He was seen as radio hero
Paul Temple in an entertaining Boy's-Own-Adventure film series,
then starred as John Creasey's gentleman sleuth "The
Toff" in a brace of second features. Occasionally, Bentley
ventured into "A"-picture territory, notably the 1956
Errol Flynn vehicle Istanbul (1956). In 1957, John Bentley
starred as Inspector John Derek in the Kenya-filmed TV detective
series African Patrol.
He went on to play Hugh Mortimer from 1965 through 1977, becoming
a favorite of housewives everywhere in the soap opera
"Crossroads." The soap achieved its highest ratings
ever during the 1975 wedding episode where Bentley's character
married the Crossroad's Motel matriarch, Meg Richardson played by
soap legend Noele Gordon. 18 million viewers watched the
on-screen wedding and Bentley's popularity soared. In 1977, in
true soap opera style, Bentley's character was killed off in a
terrorist plot that Bentley himself described as
"ridiculous." more....
Virginia
Carroll, film actress, has died aged 95 (5 August 2009)
Virginia Carroll rode into film history in a series of Westerns
during a career in which she accumulated more than 85 on-screen
credits.
But as in the cases of so many of her film contemporaries –
among them Dorothy Revier, Muriel Evans, Madge Bellamy and Nell
O'Day – the female leads in these films often brought little
attention or hopes of further screen work outside the Western
genre.
Throughout the 1940s Virginia Carroll rode the range with a
plethora of Western cowboy leads, including Gene Autry and Roy
Rogers, often cast as the love interest held captive by cattle
rustlers, an embittered lawman or a band of "Red
Indians".
She had parts in popular television shows such as The Adventures
of Wild Bill Hickok, The Roy Rogers Show, Dragnet and Perry Mason
before retiring in 1959. more....
Dallas
McKennon, actor and character artist has died aged 89 (29 July 2009)
McKennon was best known for his extensive work over half a
century as a character artist for the Walt Disney Studios; his
distinctive voice can be heard in such animated classics as The
Lady and the Tramp (1955), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961),
Mary Poppins (1964) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).
McKennon was also a prolific contributor to Disneyland Records,
appearing on numerous recordings over many years. Away from
Disney, he voiced many other famous cartoon characters for Tex
Avery and Walter Lantz, as well as appearing on-screen in a
variety of films and television shows, including Dragnet, Lawman,
Gunsmoke and The Untouchables.
During the 1960s and 1970s, he provided the original voice of
Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's Frosties ("they're
g-r-r-r-r-r-eat!"); Corny the Rooster for Kellogg's
Cornflakes; and Snap, Crackle, and Pop for Kellogg's Rice
Krispies.
McKennon quickly became a fixture at Walter Lantz's production
company which distributed animated features through Universal
Studios; he was the voice of Buzz Buzzard in Lantz's Woody
Woodpecker shorts between 1951 and 1972.
In Lady and the Tramp he voiced the Hyena, Toughy, Professor and
Pedro. He voiced the Owl in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and the Fox,
Hounds, the Penguin, the Hunting Horse, the Carousel Guard and
various news reporters in Mary Poppins.
On-screen, McKennon played Cincinnatus, the local store keeper
opposite Fess Parker in Daniel Boone, which ran for six years. He
played opposite Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959);
was the projectionist in the Vincent Price horror film The
Tingler (1959). more....
Harry Towb,
actor, has died aged 83 (27 July 2009)
One of the actor's biggest stage roles was in the National
Theatre production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. He also performed
in Little Shop of Horrors, Barmitzvah Boy, Death of a Salesman
and The Mandate. With the Royal Shakespeare Company Mr Towb
helped bring Sherlock Holmes and Travesties to Broadway.
And back in his home town he most recently played Tiresias in
Antigone at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast.
At Dublin's Abbey Theatre his plays included Philadelphia Here I
Come, The Rivals and The Importance Of Being Earnest. Elsewhere
Mr Towb's numerous television credits include Z Cars, The
Avengers, Home James, Moll Flanders, Heartbeat, Casualty, and The
Bill.
He also took roles in the films The 39 Steps, Patton, Digby the
Biggest Dog in the World, Carry On at Your Convenience, and The
Most Fertile Man In Ireland.
During the Fifties he had TV parts in 'The Teckman Biography',
Sherlock Holmes, Billy Bunter, Joan and Leslie, The Army Game,
The Vise, Dial 999 and The Third Man amongst many others. more....
Patrick
Dowling, TV writer, producer and director, has died aged 89 (25 July 2009)
As a writer, a producer and a director, Patrick Dowling was
responsible for some of BBC television’s most enchanting
output for young viewers, from the 1960s to the 1980s.
With Vision on (1964-76) and Take Hart (1977-83), he cemented the
reputation of the endearing artist Tony Hart (obituary, January
18, 2009), and introduced Peter Lord and David Sproxton (later to
form Aardman Animations and to win an Oscar) to the screen with
their plasticine Morph.
Dowling also created one of television’s most engaging
oddities, The Adventure Game (1980-86). It was set on the planet
Arg, and audiences and the participating celebrities were
confronted with such oddities as an elderly retainer who could
only hear when wearing his spectacles, a backwards-talking
Australian and an angry aspidistra plant.
His BBC career began in 1955, as production assistant and floor
manager, initially for the writer-producer Dorothea Brooking. He
also composed the music for The Balloon and the Baron, a
“new fairytale” by Brooking, shown on Boxing Day 1960.
He began directing with The Cabin in the Clearing (1959), a
children’s western serial. Working with a Computer (1965)
was a prophetic, educational series. In 1968 he made Price to Pay
(1968), a vehicle for Alan Price.
In 1964 he created the pioneering programme for which he became
best known, Vision on, for deaf children. more....
John Ryan,
the creator of Captain Pugwash has died aged 88 (24 July 2009)
The cartoonist and animator invented the hapless pirate in 1950
and the character first appeared as a strip in the comic The
Eagle.
He went on to be the star of two animated television series which
Mr Ryan produced using a unique live animation technique, moving
the characters and sets by hidden levers.
His other characters included Harris Tweed, Special Agent, Sir
Prancelot and Mary Mungo & Midge.
John Ryan used his talent for caricatures to supplement his
teaching income and created his famous pirate and his ship The
Black Pig.
Captain Pugwash strips were published in several magazines and
the first Pugwash book came out in 1957. In that year Mr Ryan was
commissioned by the BBC to create the first animated series.
The characters and sets for each scene of the five-minute
episodes were created using cardboard cut outs and filmed moving
in real time, with Mr Ryan and his wife Priscilla pulling the
levers. The voice-over by the actor Peter Hawkins was recorded at
the same time as the animation.
The series was revived in 1974 for a colour edition, still
keeping its distinctive look. Other programmes by John Ryan
Studios filmed using the same animation technique were Mary Mungo
& Midge (1969) and The Adventures of Sir Prancelot (1971-72)
and he also made Ark Stories for ITV in 1981.
He drew for numerous newspapers and magazines and in later years
toured the country’s schools, libraries and book fairs
giving talks about his artwork. more....
Karl Malden,
Method actor whose distinctive but homely features effectively
consigned him to a lifetime in supporting roles, has died aged 97 (2 July 2009)
Malden's early film career made little impression. His first
appearance was in They Knew What They Wanted (1940) and, until
the film of A Streetcar Named Desire, he played only bit parts,
albeit in films of some renown, such as Kazan's Boomerang (1947),
The Gunfighter (1950) by Henry King, and Lewis Milestone's war
epic Halls of Montezuma (1951). Streetcar put him on the map,
though not always one on which he would like to be recognised. In
King Vidor's Ruby Gentry (1953), he played the first of several
betrayed husbands - the man whom Jennifer Jones marries to spite
her old flame Charlton Heston. Outrageously melodramatic, it is
now a cult classic - unlike Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954), a
tacky 3-D remake of the Edgar Allan Poe story, with Malden in the
role (originally played by Bela Lugosi) of a mad psychiatrist,
who hypnotises an ape to do his dirty work.
The detective role in Hitchcock's I Confess (1953) was also
thankless, as Malden played second fiddle to Montgomery Clift's
Catholic priest, who is suspected of murder but bound by the
confessional not to reveal the killer's identity.
The mid-1950s were Malden's best years, embracing not only On the
Waterfront and Baby Doll, but Fear Strikes Out (1957), a
harrowing biopic of the baseball player Jim Piersall (Anthony
Perkins), whose confidence was sapped by his father's driving
ambition.
At this time, Malden also ventured into direction. He made one
film - the 1957 Korean War courtroom drama Time Limit, starring
Richard Widmark and Richard Basehart - although Malden did not
appear in it himself. It was politely received. He also handled
some scenes, uncredited, for a western, The Hanging Tree (1959),
in which he played the villain, when the director Delmer Daves
fell sick. more....
Gale Storm,
has died aged 87. She was one of the biggest stars on American
television in the 1950s, famous for her wholesome appearance and
chirpy personality (30 June 2009)
Before landing the starring role in My Little Margie in 1952,
Gale Storm had appeared in several B-films opposite such stars as
Roy Rogers, Eddie Albert and Jackie Cooper. After her last
television series, The Gale Storm Show, ended in 1960, she went
on to a successful singing career while continuing to make
occasional television appearances.
She was often cast in westerns as the girl the cowboy left
behind, and appeared in such B-movies as The Dude Goes West with
Albert, The Kid from Texas with Audie Murphy and The Texas
Rangers with George Montgomery.
With her film roles diminishing in the early 1950s, Gale Storm
followed the path of many fading Hollywood stars of the day and
moved to television. The sitcom My Little Margie debuted on CBS
as a summer replacement for I Love Lucy in 1952. It quickly
became an audience favourite and moved to its own slot that
autumn.
The year after My Little Margie ended its 126-episode run in
1955, she moved on to The Gale Storm Show, which lasted until
1960. In this she played Susanna Pomeroy, a troublemaking social
director on a luxury liner.
Having taken vocal lessons, she sang on her second series, and
three of her records became best sellers: I Hear You Knocking,
Teenage Prayer and Dark Moon. She subsequently appeared only
sporadically on television, taking guest roles in such programmes
as Burke's Law, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote. more....
Steve Race,
the musician and broadcaster has died aged 88 (23 June 2009)
Steve Race became a familiar face on television in the 1950s and
went on to host the popular Radio 4 panel game My Music, which
ran from 1967 until 1994; he subsequently set a regular crossword
for The Daily Telegraph.
His first job was as a pianist with Harry Leader's band, and he
went on to play with the bands of Lew Stone and Cyril Stapleton,
and to arrange for the Ted Heath band and Judy Garland.
Race first came to notice on BBC children's television in 1953,
in the magazine programme Whirligig, a miscellany of items that
introduced a generation of postwar children to puppet favourites
such as Hank the cowboy and Mr Turnip.
In 1955 Race became light music adviser to Associated
Rediffusion, remaining in the post until 1960, when he went on to
conduct for many television series, including the Tony Hancock
and Peter Sellers shows.
Race enjoyed nine weeks of chart fame in 1963 with his catchy
rendition of Pied Piper (The Beeje), which reached number 29. In
1962 and 1963 Race won awards for his commercial jingles for ITV.
The most lucrative was the one for Birds Eye frozen peas:
"Sweet as the moment when the pod went pop". He also
won an Ivor Novello Award for his composition Nicola (named after
his daughter).
In 1965, aged 44, he suffered a heart attack, but it did little
to halt his prodigious work rate.
Immaculately dressed and sporting a distinguished white beard,
Race - although a somewhat shy man - was always confident and
assured in front of a microphone or a camera. 'My Music', while
pioneered on radio, made a successful transfer to television
bringing out the best (and worst, when it came to puns) from the
comic writers Denis Norden and Frank Muir, and their
fellow-panellists John Amis and Ian Wallace. Neither Race nor
Wallace missed a single episode of more than 520 that were
broadcast. more....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/1715941.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6564110.ece
Tenniel
Evans, Taffy Goldstein in 'The Navy Lark', has died aged 82 (17 June 2009)
On screen, Tenniel Evans was one of those character actors with a
face recognisable in dozens of television programmes but whose
name was less familiar. He played doctors, police officers,
judges and vicars, and even went on to be become a priest
himself.
But it was out of vision, acting a look-out in the long-running
BBC radio comedy The Navy Lark (1959-77), that Evans could claim
to be "recognised". As Taffy Goldstein, alongside
Ronnie Barker as Johnson, he was one of the two Able Seamen among
an inept crew aboard HMS Troutbridge, a frigate refitted to house
undesirable elements of the Royal Navy.
He made his television début as a policeman in an episode of No
Hiding Place (1960), before acting Jonathan Kail, alongside
Geraldine McEwan and Jeremy Brett, in an ITV adaptation of Tess
(1960, based on Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles).
For 45 years, Evans worked solidly in character parts on
television, flitting from one popular programme to another - and
even playing Hitler in The Roads to Freedom (1970). Occasionally,
the actor found regular roles, such as John, one of the solicitor
siblings, in the legal drama The Sullavan Brothers (1964-65),
Sergeant Bluett in the sitcom My Brother's Keeper (1975-76),
Geoff Barratt in the final series of the post-war comedy-drama
Shine on Harvey Moon (1985), Teddy Haslam in the zoo vet drama
One by One (1987) and Sir Edward Parkinson-Lewis in September
Song (1994). He also took over from the late Patrick Troughton
the role of Perce, grandfather of Ashley (Nicholas Lyndhurst), in
the sitcom The Two of Us (1987-90). more....
Terence
Alexander, actor, has died aged aged 86 (3 June 2009)
Terence Alexander played gentlemen and rogues, combining the two
in his most famous role, Charlie Hungerford in the television
detective series Bergerac.
He began his successful television career in the 1950s and
subsequently appeared in many series, including The Forsyte Saga,
the Les Dawson and Dick Emery shows, Terry and June, and The New
Statesman. His radio work included several plays as well as the
series Law and Disorder and The Toff. Alexander’s numerous
films included the comedies The Square Peg (1958), with Norman
Wisdom, and Carry On Regardless (1961). He also appeared in the
epic Waterloo (1970) and the thriller The Day Of The Jackal
(1974). But probably his best film role was as an ex-officer
turned bank robber in the comedy adventure The League Of
Gentlemen (1960).
He performed in many West End comedies and farces, including
Fringe Benefits (Whitehall, 1976) and Alan Bennett’s Habeas
Corpus (Nottingham Playhouse, 1980).
With John Nettles in the title role, Alexander brought humour and
suavity to Bergerac as the detective’s millionaire
ex-father-in-law. His lightness of touch was perfect for the
slim, silver-haired Charlie, constantly puffing a cigar and often
in a flap. more....
Vivian Cox,
film producer and schoolmaster, has died aged 93 (2 June 2009)
Viv Cox’s career in films began after demobilisation in
1946. After working with Sydney, Muriel and Betty Box at
Shepherd’s Bush Studios, he became associate producer to
Betty Box and then producer at Pinewood Studios.
Among his early films were So Long at the Fair (with Jean Simmons
and Dirk Bogarde, 1950), Father Brown (with Alec Guinness, 1954)
and Bachelor of Hearts (with Hardy Kruger and Sylvia Syms,
scripted by Cox’s friends Leslie Bricusse and Frederic
Raphael, 1958).
From 1959 to 1967 Cox worked as an independent producer and
screenwriter for Rank Studios, producing such titles as Watch
Your Stern (with Spike Milligan, Leslie Phillips, Hattie Jacques
and Kenneth Connor, 1960) and We Joined the Navy (with Kenneth
More, 1962). Between 1960 and 1976 Cox produced all the stage
shows for the annual Royal Command Film Performance and hosted
the royal party.
In 1967 Cox returned to his first profession and his alma mater,
teaching English, French and Drama at Cranleigh School. A gifted
and inspiring teacher, he taught for eight years, during which he
also directed several plays, including Hassan with Juliet
Stephenson.
From 1975 until his retirement in 1982 he worked with Sir Bernard
Miles as administrator at London’s Mermaid Theatre. more....
Australian
actor Charles 'Bud' Tingwell has died aged 86 (15 May 2009)
Outside of Australia he was probably best known for his role as a
high court lawyer in the cult 1997 comedy The Castle, but locally
he was the face of many roles spanning a 50-year career, from
television to the stage and the silver screen.
Tingwell acted in his first movie in 1946 and appeared in over
100 films during his long career, which included a 17-year stint
working in Britain. He moved to England in 1956 where he carved
out a career as a 'London Aussie', appearing as an Australian
surgeon in Emergency – Ward 10, and as Inspector Craddock in
four of the Miss Marple films alongside Dame Margaret Rutherford.
He also voiced the character of Mr Bennet in Catweazle as well as
characters in The Thunderbirds.
After returning to Australia with his wife and two children in
1973, Tingwell settled in Melbourne and began his long foray in
the local entertainment industry.
He had a long-standing role on the police TV drama Homicide and
also appeared in the cult TV show Prisoner: Cell Block H, and
later enjoyed a recurring role on Neighbours. Tingwell played
many small roles in scores of Australian films including Breaker
Morant, Puberty Blues and the mini-series All The Rivers Run. more....
Laurence
Payne, actor, has died aged 89 (4
May 2009)
The screen and stage actor Laurence Payne made his biggest
impression as the titular detective in Sexton Blake, a
children’s television series which is fondly recalled by a
generation of now middle-aged viewers. The series, which ran from
1967 to 1971, went out in a tea-time slot.
Payne made his television debut in the Adrian Brunel play Till
Tomorrow (1948). He played Captain Bluntschli in an adaptation of
George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man (1952) and Troilus in
The Face of Love (1954), a modern and comic version of
Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. His first film was the
Ealing Studios drama Train of Events (1949), directed by Charles
Crichton, but – apart from an appearance as Joseph in the
opening scenes of the biblical epic Ben-Hur (1959) – most of
his screen work was on television.
Payne played D’Artagnan in a BBC’s The Three Musketeers
(1954); Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice (1955); Mercutio in
Romeo and Juliet (1955); Philip Truscott in the sci-fi serial The
Trollenberg Terror (1956-57, before reprising the role in the
1958 film); King Magnus in The Apple Cart (1962); Colonel Andrev
in the Balkans-set political thriller The Midnight Men (1964);
Lieutenant Rinaldi in A Farewell to Arms (1966); Capulet in Romeo
and Juliet (1976); and Weaver in Psy-Warriors (a 1981 “Play
for Today” written by David Leland and directed by Alan
Clarke).
Payne also had three roles in Doctor Who over the years: Johnny
Ringo in the wild west story “The Gunfighters” (1966);
Morix in “The Leisure Hive” (1980) and Dastari in
“The Two Doctors” (1985).
Payne also wrote crime novels, including The Nose on My Face
(1961), Birds in the Belfry (1966) and Spy for Sale (1969). more....
Ken Annakin,
film director whose hits included the Huggetts saga, has died
aged 94 (25 April 2009)
The director Ken Annakin was one of the British cinema’s
most stalwart craftsmen. Able to turn his hand equally to
domestic comedies, war epics, family fare for Walt Disney and
big-budget spectaculars, he was a reliable purveyor of screen
entertainment — as he once put it: “I make films for
audiences.”
He had his biggest commercial success in the 1960s with Those
Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, a rumbustious comedy
built around the 1910 London-to-Paris air race.
In 1946 he joined Gainsborough Studios under Sydney Box and the
following year made his first feature, Holiday Camp, a
comedy-drama notable for launching the Huggetts, a warm-hearted
working-class family headed by Kathleen Harrison and Jack Warner.
Annakin’s sympathetic and unpatronising treatment of
ordinary people was rare in the British cinema of those days.
With the teenage Petula Clark joining the cast as their youngest
daughter, the Huggetts appeared in three further films, all
directed by Annakin, Here Come the Huggetts, Vote for Huggett and
The Huggetts Abroad. They were conceived as a series and in many
ways the Huggett saga anticipated television soap opera, albeit
on a cosier level.
By the early 1950s Annakin had emerged as an efficient
all-rounder, tackling anything from the Malayan emergency in The
Planter’s Wife to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a
Boat and another Greene story, Loser Takes All. He also began an
association with the Disney studio that yielded four films, from
Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) to the children’s
classic Swiss Family Robinson (1960), which starred John Mills. more....
Peter Rogers,
'Carry On' producer, has died aged 95 (16 April 2009)
Peter Rogers dreamt up the Carry On comedies and went on to
produce the entire Carry On oeuvre, from Carry On Sergeant (1958)
to Carry on Emmanuelle (1978).
Some time after Rogers had established himself as a producer,
working with the director Gerald Thomas, he obtained an RF
Delderfield script, The Bull Boys – a serious piece about
the effect of army conscription on a pair of ballet dancers. To
avoid any audience irreverence he had it rewritten by Norman
Hudis as a comedy: Carry On Sergeant.
The film, which starred William Hartnell and a youthful Bob
Monkhouse, with Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth
Connor as three hapless army privates, was shot quickly on a
budget of under £75,000. The critical response was lukewarm. The
Monthly Film Bulletin called it "a conventional farce, in
which all the characters come from stock". Yet Carry On
Sergeant became an unlikely success - hitting No 3 in the UK
box-office charts for 1958, behind Dunkirk and Bridge On the
River Kwai, so Rogers decided to make another.
Carry On Nurse, also starring Williams, Hawtree and Connors,
topped the box office charts in 1959. Over the next 20 years the
formula was applied to many institutions – hospital, police,
school – and to locations as exotic as the Wild West, the
Khyber Pass and Ancient Egypt. The routine was simple enough.
Rogers would think up the title in his bathtub, then summon the
scriptwriter.
In the mid-1950s, working with Gerald Thomas, Rogers went on to
produce children's films in which he was able to indulge his love
of animals. These included The Gay Dog (1954), Circus Friends
(1956) and The Dog and the Diamonds (1953), which won the Venice
Film Festival Award in the same year. He also wrote and produced
the thriller Time Lock (1957).
During the Carry On years, Rogers continued to produce other
comedies, such as the spicily titled Please Turn Over and Watch
Your Stern and also produced the television series Ivanhoe, with
Roger Moore, and the film version of the Sid James sitcom Bless
This House. more....
Edward Judd,
versatile character actor, has died aged 76 (14 April 2009)
Stardom came to the actor Edward Judd in cult sci-fi films of the
1960s, sandwiched between his roles in soap operas and other
character parts on the small screen.
By the time he found himself catapulted to international fame, he
had already appeared as a regular in Britain's first daily
television serial, Sixpenny Corner (1955), playing Denis Boyes,
one of the community living around a garage run by the newly-wed
Nortons in the fictional rural town of Springwood. The soap was
written by Hazel Adair, who was later to create the
longer-running Crossroads.
His first starring role in a film, as a hard-drinking newspaper
reporter redeeming himself in The Day the Earth Caught Fire, was
not so far removed from the everyday life of soaps, where the
ordinary encounters the extraordinary. In the 1961
black-and-white feature - directed by Val Guest, following his
earlier Quatermass pictures - Judd is seen as the fictional Daily
Express journalist Peter Stenning, who stumbles on the revelation
that American and Soviet nuclear tests have knocked the Earth off
its axis, sending it heading for the sun and causing floods and
fires.
Judd gained repertory theatre experience in Windsor and
Nottingham, before his brooding good looks led him to further
screen roles as an adult. On television, he took 11 different
bit-parts in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1957) and appeared
in other swashbucklers such as Ivanhoe, The Adventures of Robin
Hood and William Tell (all 1958). Later came roles as Gavin Grant
in the espionage drama series Intrigue (1966) and the crippled
Uncle Russell in Alan Plater's adaptation of Flambards (1979).
He also started low down the cast list in films, in pictures that
included Carry on Sergeant (1958), I Was Monty's Double (1958)
and Sink the Bismarck! (1960). But after his sci-fi successes,
Judd was cast in supporting roles, such as Oswald in O Lucky Man!
(1973), the director Lindsay Anderson's anti-capitalist,
surrealist musical. more....
Huw Thomas, ITN news
presenter, has died aged 81 (3
April 2009)
When ITN News started in September 1955, an exciting new format
was created with two people for the Six O’Clock News who
were referred to as “newscasters” rather than
“newsreaders”. The implication was that they had a very
definite input into the news coverage.
Huw Thomas fitted well into this bright, professional line-up: he
had a touch of Welsh panache, he was articulate, handsome,
invariably polite but with a dogged questioning manner that
ensured that questions were answered and not skated around.
In 1956 Thomas answered an advertisement for the new Independent
Television’s news programme which was to be produced through
Independent Television News (ITN). The less formal style of ITN
made an immediate impact and was considered more colourful and
“viewer friendly” than the BBC’s more traditional
presentation. Thomas and his colleagues questioned correspondents
and politicians live, and this added to the up-to-the-minute feel
of the news coverage.
The newscasters were encouraged to create an on-screen
personality, and this suited the eloquent Thomas. He had a
debonair and gracious on-screen personality, with a fine voice
and black swept-back hair. At one stage he was receiving sacks of
fan letters and became something of a cult figure. He responded
to the challenge of altered schedules and hastily organised live
interviews with relish. The value of his legal training was
apparent in his questioning, which was always sound, courteous
and to the point. more....
Derek Benfield, actor and
the author of more than 30 plays, has died aged 82 (31 March 2009)
In recent years he was most familiar to television viewers in the
role of Patricia Routledge's long-suffering husband in the BBC
detective series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, in which she
stars as a fussing, somewhat self-righteous private eye in
Yorkshire.
Benfield also had a long-running part in one of the most popular
television series of the 1970s. The Brothers concerned a warring
family, the Hammonds, which owned a haulage firm, and Benfield
played the company's foreman, Bill Riley.
Benfield's first television appearance was in the BBC serial
Return to the Lost Planet, after which he had roles in popular
programmes such as Emergency Ward Ten, Z Cars, and Dixon of Dock
Green (for which he also wrote four scripts). There were parts in
dramas such as Great Expectations and The Knowledge before he
became a regular in the cult children's science fiction drama
Timeslip, broadcast in 1970-71.
As a writer, Benfield specialised in farce, and plays such as The
Post Horn Gallop and Wild Goose Chase (which chart the exploits
of the eccentric Lord and Lady Elrood) have proved popular with
amateur dramatic societies. His play Beyond a Joke was staged
with Arthur Lowe in the leading role, and Bedside Manners starred
John Inman and later Tim Brooke-Taylor. Touch and Go was
translated into French by Marc Camoletti and ran for a year in
his theatre in Paris; last Christmas it had a successful run at
the Mill at Sonning. more....
Tim Brinton, ITN
newscaster who became a robustly right-wing Conservative MP, has
died aged 79 (30 March 2009)
Tim Brinton joined the BBC in 1951 as a radio announcer, mainly
on overseas programmes. From 1957 he was head of English
programmes at Radio Hong Kong.
He switched to ITN's high-profile team of presenters in 1959. His
greatest moment came the following February when he broke into
Right of Reply to announce Princess Margaret's engagement.
Brinton, a professionally-trained actor who had left ITN to go
freelance in 1962, became almost as well known playing a
newsreader as he had been as the genuine article. His film
credits included Information Received (1961), Allez France
(1964), Bunny Lake is Missing (1965), Man at the Top (1973) and
Carry On Emmanuelle (1978). Among television dramas in which he
appeared were Dixon of Dock Green, Knocker, The Power Game and
The Avengers.
In 1971 Brinton took over as anchor of Southern Television's
Scene South-East.
he was a committed Tory who had campaigned for the former Home
Secretary Henry Brooke in Hampstead. He was elected to Kent
County Council in 1974, and prior to the 1979 election was
selected to fight the Labour-held marginal of Gravesend; he
captured it with the handsome majority of 9,346, and in 1983 was
re-elected for the redrawn constituency of Gravesham.
At Westminster Brinton became a founder-member of the education
select committee, defending independent schools and complaining
that children were swapping school meal vouchers for Mars bars
and chips. He was also vice-chairman of the Conservative
backbench media committee. more....
Edmund Hockridge, singer
and actor, has died aged 89 (17
March 2009)
With his rugged looks and strong baritone voice the Canadian-born
singer Edmund Hockridge was one of the West End’s biggest
stars in the 1950s.
He played leading roles in a string of popular musicals including
Carousel, Guys and Dolls, Can Can and The Pajama Game and had
recording hits with songs such as Young and Foolish, No Other
Love, The Fountains of Rome and More than Ever. A song from The
Pajama Game, Hey There, gave him his biggest record hit and
became his signature tune.
Immensely popular with British audiences, Hockridge eventually
made his home in the UK and for more than 40 years topped bills
around the country in musicals, variety, radio and TV shows.
He often worked with the Glen Miller Band and the Canadian band
of the Allied Expeditionary Forces led by Robert Farnon. He sang
and produced more than 400 shows with the BBC Forces Network and
as the war ended he sang with big bands such as Geraldo’s.
Throughout the 1950s he recorded a host of show tune LPs and was
a frequent guest star on television. He appeared in early
editions of The Benny Hill Show as well as Sunday Night at the
London Palladium and he starred in a six-month, sell-out variety
season again at the Palladium. In 1953 he was in the Royal
Variety Show along with stars such as Max Bygraves and Tommy
Cooper and the same year he was Canada’s representative in
the Westminster Abbey choir at the Coronation.
He made his film debut in 1944 with a brief appearance in
Starlight Serenade but he had more substantial roles in the 1950s
in films such as For Better, for Worse (1954), the romantic drama
starring Dirk Bogarde, and King’s Rhapsody (1955),
co-starring with Anna Neagle and Errol Flynn. more....
Ali Bongo, magician, has
died aged 79 (9 March 2009)
Ali Bongo, real name William Wallace, was a hard-working stage
magician with a prodigious talent for inventing tricks; although
he eventually became the inspiration for the outlandish
magician-detective Adam Klaus in the BBC's Jonathan Creek, Ali
spent most of his career in television behind the scenes,
devising routines for performers such as David Nixon and Paul
Daniels.
Having played the part of a wizard called Ali Bongo in a village
hall pantomime, he borrowed the name for his stage act. On stage
Bongo always claimed himself to be of "Pongolian"
descent, but the character he created was no doubt partly
inspired by his Indian upbringing. He wore brightly-coloured
clothing, spoke in a ringing Asian accent, and tore through his
act at a frantic pace, with a litany of endearingly absurd
catchphrases - "hokus-pokus fishbones chokus" or
"uju buju suck another juju" - thrown in for good
measure.
After National Service, Bongo became a manager at the magic
department of Hamleys in Regent Street. When eventually he left
the store to become a full-time professional, he came to the
attention of David Nixon, a likeable and witty magician with his
own show at the BBC.
By the 1950s Ali was working as a magician in variety theatres
and clubs throughout the country. Billed as "The Shriek of
Araby", he wore outrageously colourful costumes and his act
was a combination of brilliantly mimed, zany comedy with expertly
performed magic tricks. Casseroles of fire turned into colourful
displays of doves and silks, bouquets of flowers changed colour,
ladies were sawn in half and he involved his audiences with
hilarious mind-reading feats.
Impressed by Bongo's ingenuity and grasp of stage technique,
Nixon employed him as an adviser on David Nixon's Magic Box until
1971, when Bongo was given his own slot on the children's
entertainment series Zokko. His reputation grew and in 1972 he
was voted Magic Circle Magician of the Year. But he continued to
be employed as an adviser on such television shows as Tarot Ace
of Wands, Doctor Who, The Tomorrow People, and later worked with
Nixon's successor at the BBC, Paul Daniels, with whom he was to
remain a close friend.
In 2008 he was elected president of the Magic Circle and remained
a frequent visitor to its premises near Euston, helping to run
the Young Magicians' Club where he passed on the tricks of his
trade to the next generation of performers. more....
Joan Turner, comedienne
and popular entertainer, has died aged 86 (5 March 2009)
At the height of her fame in the 1960s Joan Turner was widely
regarded as one of Britain’s most brilliant comediennes.
Famed for her soprano voice and biting wit, she was billed as
"the voice of an angel - the wit of the Devil" and was
regularly seen on popular television shows, at the London
Palladium and at nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.
Critics were quick to compare her to Gracie Fields, and her
voice, like that of Fields, did have an astonishing range. She
was set for international stardom, but, prey to drink and
gambling problems, she proved too erratic and undisciplined to
maintain a successful career, and her eventual decline was
pitiful.
She made her debut at the Finsbury Empire as a singing
comedienne, billed as "The Wacky Warbler", and later
played all the leading music halls around the country. For four
years she specialised in the title role of Aladdin in the Lew
Grade pantomime and on one memorable occasion slipped unannounced
into the long-running Crazy Gang show at the Victoria Palace and
stopped the show.
By now a headliner in variety she was quickly snapped up by
television and made regular appearances as a guest star on shows
with Dickie Henderson and Harry Secombe and in 1954 was chosen
for the Royal Variety Performance, where she sang with Eric
Robinson and his Orchestra.
In the same year she opened with Jimmy Edwards and Tony Hancock
in the revue Talk of the Town (Adelphi Theatre), which ran for a
record 656 performances. At the end of the 1950s she had written
and compiled a one-woman show, An Evening with Joan Turner,
running at two hours and in which she did more than 20
impressions.
In the early 1970s she surprised her critics by giving an
exceptional performance in the lead role in The Killing of Sister
George which toured, and she made several comedy recordings, the
best of which was The World of Joan Turner. It was not enough,
however, to support her lavish lifestyle, and in 1977 she was
declared bankrupt. "I couldn’t stop gambling," she
admitted. "The more I lost the more I wanted to win it all
back." more....
Tony Osborne, composer and
arranger, has died aged 86 (3
March 2009)
Osborne's first job was a trumpeter and relief pianist with Cyril
Stapleton, and then with Frank Weir, Carroll Gibbons and Ambrose.
He played in the BBC Orchestra for the comedy successes, The Goon
Show and Take It From Here.
Soon Osborne was working for the major companies of the day,
notably with EMI, and he formed his own band, the Brass Hats, for
weekly appearances on the BBC TV teenage show, Six-Five Special.
When that was superseded by Juke Box Jury in 1959, Osborne wrote
and recorded the theme song, "Juke Box Fury", under the
name of Ozzie Warlock and the Wizards. When Osborne fell out with
the show's producer, Russell Turner, Turner replaced his tune
with John Barry's "Hit And Miss", which began Barry's
run of success.
In 1960, the American star Connie Francis recorded in England and
Osborne wrote and conducted the arrangement for her
million-selling "Mama", which was sung in Italian.
Among his arrangements were "Sisters" for the Beverley
Sisters, "Out Of Town" for Max Bygraves, "Love
Is" for Alma Cogan, "Little Donkey" for Nina and
Frederik, and "Say It With Flowers" with Dorothy
Squires and Russ Conway.
Around the late 1950s, Osborne began recording under his own
name, favouring place names for his instrumental titles –
the best known are "The Lights Of Lisbon", "The
Man From Marseilles", "The Windows Of Paris",
which became the theme music for the BBC drivetime programme,
Roundabout and was recorded by Bing Crosby, with lyrics by Johnny
Mercer, and "The Man From Madrid", a Top 50 entry in
1961. He also had a chart hit with "The Shepherd's
Song" in 1973. more....
Dilys Laye, actress known
for comic roles in the Carry On films, has died aged 74 (20 February 2009)
Dilys Laye was one of Britain’s most experienced comedy
actresses, best known for her appearances in the Carry On films.
But she was equally adept in straight roles, notably with the
Royal Shakespeare Company, and she was a seasoned musical star,
having appeared in the original Broadway production of Sandy
Wilson’s The Boy Friend, opposite Julie Andrews.
Her gift for comedy was noticed during the early 1950s when she
began appearing in a series of then hugely popular intimate West
End revues, including High Spirits, For Amusement Only and
Intimacy at 8.30 in which she starred alongside such performers
as Ian Carmichael and Cyril Ritchard.
She made her Broadway debut in 1954 as Dulcie in The Boy Friend
after which she returned to Britain to play in both West End and
provincial theatre comedies and musicals.
In 1957 she played Mrs Herbert in the film Doctor at Large,
opposite Dirk Bogarde and James Roberston Justice. In the 1960s
she had established herself as a leading comedy actress on
television, appearing regularly in series such as the BBC’s
Comedy Playhouse. In 1967 she had a small role in Charlie
Chaplin’s romantic comedy film A Countess from Hong Kong.
For much of her career the theatre remained her first love and
she showed her versatility as an actress when she joined the RSC
in the 1970s playing roles such as Maria in Twelfth Night and the
Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. She frequently played leading roles in
musical comedy and in recent years had topped the bill in touring
productions of Sweeney Todd, The Pirates of Penzance, Fiddler on
the Roof and 42nd Street. Trevor Nunn cast her as Mrs Pearce in
the 2007 Drury Lane revival of My Fair Lady.
In 1981 she wrote and appeared in the ITV sitcom Chintz, which
also starred Michele Dotrice.
Laye almost never stopped working and had been seen on television
in recent years in Midsomer Murders, Holby City and EastEnders,
in which she played Maxine Palmer. more....
Shirley Jean Rickert, 'Our
Gang' member, has died aged 82 (20
February 2009)
Shirley Jean Rickert was to a legion of Depression Era fans the
cute girl with the platinum blonde curls in the Our Gang comedies
filmed during the early 1930s. Shirley was five when she made her
Our Gang debut in Helping Grandma (1931), appearing with Jackie
Cooper, Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Matthew
"Stymie" Beard, Dorothy deBorba, Allen
"Farina" Hoskins and Norman "Chubby" Chaney.
After a dozen or so Our Gang shorts, Shirley left the troupe to
play Tomboy Taylor in the rival Mickey McGuire comedy series,
with Mickey Rooney in the title role. Certain that her daughter
was a star in the making, Shirley's mother negotiated her way out
of the series contract after Shirley had made just five short
films in 1934.
Fame eluded her. By the mid-1930s, she was reduced to playing a
series of bit parts. During the war years she was briefly under
contract with Columbia Pictures, then worked as an uncredited
dancer in a number of film musicals, including The Pirate (1948)
with Gene Kelly; Royal Wedding (1951), starring Fred Astaire; and
Singin' in the Rain (1952).
When the old Our Gang comedies resurfaced in television
syndication across America in the mid-1950s as The Little
Rascals, Shirley Jean Rickert found herself a new generation of
fans. more....
Richard Coleman, Actor,
has died aged 79 (14 February 2009)
Richard Coleman made his big-screen début as a naval officer in
Yangtse Incident: the Story of HMS Amethyst (1957) and landed
similar roles in Girls at Sea (1958) and The Navy Lark (based on
the BBC radio sitcom, 1958). He also played the baddie Metellus
in the biblical epic Ben-Hur (1959).
But it was in television that the actor's future lay. He had
regular roles as Nick Allardyce in The Adventures of Ben Gunn
(1958), a six-part serial by R.F. Delderfield featuring
characters from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, the
minstrel Alan-a-Dale in episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood
(1958-60) and Jack Royston in the soap opera Weavers Green
(1966), set around a Norfolk country vet's practice.
Coleman also took one-off character roles in many popular
television series, including Dixon of Dock Green (1963, 1964), No
Hiding Place (1964, 1965), The Avengers (1966), Z Cars (1973),
George and Mildred (1977) and Surgical Spirit (1991).
In the 1970s, Coleman was one of the best-known faces on
television, starring with Wendy Craig in two archetypal sitcoms
of domestic mayhem.
Coleman joined her in thesitcom ...And Mother Makes Three, in
which Craig played a dithering young widow, Sally Harrison,
trying to hold down a job while bringing up her two sons, with
some assistance from her Auntie Flo and in the follow up series
...And Mother Makes Five (1974-6).
Both series were created by the writer Richard Waring and
followed his previous sitcom, Not in Front of the Children, which
starred Wendy Craig in another family saga. more....
Stewart Morris, BBC light
entertainment producer, has died aged 79 (9 February 2009)
In 1958, the TV producer Jack Good was producing the very
exciting rock ’n’ roll show, Oh Boy! for ITV, and the
BBC wanted something similar. Stewart Morris was recruited to
produce their reply, Drumbeat. Morris favoured a studio
production over a theatre audience, but otherwise the shows were
identical. Many of the performers were the same but Morris made
Adam Faith a star and established John Barry as the leader of a
rhythm combo, the John Barry Seven. The visiting Americans were
Paul Anka and the Poni-Tails. “Drumbeat made me a star in
Scotland,” the singer Vince Eager said, “as they
didn’t have ITV there and had never seen anything like
it.”
Drumbeat only ran for six months, but Morris had shown his
capabilities and he was then entrusted with Juke Box Jury. This
was hardly demanding work and hardly a TV format – four
panellists listening to the latest releases and commenting on
them – but it had a popular host, David Jacobs, and high
viewing figures.
In January 1967, Morris produced The Rolf Harris Show in which
Harris sang, joked, painted and played ethnic Australian
instruments. Harris was born on the same day as Morris and they
referred to each other as twins. During the first season, Sandie
Shaw sang the potential UK entries for the Eurovision Song
Contest, and the public voted for “Puppet On A String”,
which led to the UK’s first victory in the contest. The
following year, Morris produced the live TV broadcast of the
contest from the Royal Albert Hall and also produced the Royal
Variety Performance from the London Palladium. In 1976, he
produced the first live broadcast of a Royal Variety Performance.
When BBC2 started in 1964, Morris was put in charge of the
Saturday afternoon alternative to sport on BBC1 and ITV. Open
House was fronted by Gay Byrne and featured such American stars
as Gene Pitney, the Supremes and the Beach Boys.
In 1986, Morris produced his biggest spectacle: the opening
ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, which involved
over 10,000 sportsmen and musicians.
Morris retired from the BBC in 1992. He then produced a Royal
Gala for the 50th anniversary of VE Day for Carlton TV in 1995
and four series of Barrymore with Michael Barrymore for LWT from
1992 to 1995. more....
Ingemar Johansson, the
Swedish heavyweight boxer has died aged 76 (2 February 2009)
Ingemar Johansson caused a
sensation by destroying Floyd Patterson inside three rounds to
win the world title in June 1959; the American was floored seven
times before Johansson became the first European to capture the
sport's richest prize since Italy's Primo Carnera 25 years
earlier. An intelligent fighter blessed with sound boxing skills,
Johansson also possessed a thunderous punch in his right hand
which the press dubbed "Ingo's Bingo", although the
colourful Swede preferred to call it "Thor's Hammer".
This was the punch that earned him the Scandinavian and European
crowns before his remarkable win over Patterson.
Yet Johansson's reign proved brief. Patterson gained his revenge
by stopping him in five rounds in the return bout 12 months later
and the Swede also lost their third and final encounter in March
1961. Although this trilogy of fights ended Johansson's days as a
world title contender, he emerged from them £1.5m the richer. more....
Tony Hart, Artist and TV
presenter, has died aged 83 (18 January 2009)
Tony Hart was an iconic and much-loved figure for millions of
budding young artists who tuned into his BBC art shows for nearly
50 years. He received two Bafta awards, won a lifetime
achievement award in 1998, gave a TV platform to Morph - the clay
character with the incoherent babble - and also created the
original design for the Blue Peter badge.
Hart graduated in 1950 and soon became a freelance artist. His
career did not take off immediately, and he later admitted to
drawing murals on restaurant walls in exchange for meals. But it
would not take long for him to move into television. He met a BBC
children's TV producer at a party in 1952 and, following an
interview, demonstrated his talents by drawing a fish on a
napkin.
He became resident artist on Saturday Special, subsequently
appearing on Playbox and Titch and Quackers.
In 1964, he fronted Vision On, which was intended for deaf
children, and by the time Take Hart arrived in 1978, colour
television gave his programmes added punch.
His kindly, avuncular manner was a key feature of the programmes,
and advances in technology allowed his remarkable range of ideas
to bear full fruit.
Hartbeat (1985-1994) often attracted 5.4 million viewers and Hart
received between 6,000 and 8,000 drawings and paintings through
the post every week - the best of them would be pinned to the
walls of his studio.
His career continued with his final series, Smart Hart, where he
shared the studio with a young Kirsten O'Brien, and that kept him
in work until his retirement in 2001. more....
Author and dramatist Sir
John Mortimer has died aged 85 (16 January 2009)
Sir John Mortimer made his radio debut in 1955 when he adapted
his own novel, 'Like Men Betrayed' for the BBC Light Programme.
But he made his debut as a playwright with 'The Dock Brief',
starring Michael Hordern as a hapless barrister, first broadcast
in 1957 on BBC Radio's Third Programme, later televised with the
same cast and subsequently presented in a double bill with 'What
Shall We Tell Caroline?' at the Lyric Hammersmith in April 1958,
before transferring to the Garrick Theatre.
His play, 'A Voyage Round My Father', given its first radio
broadcast in 1963, is autobiographical, recounting his
experiences as a young barrister and his relationship with his
blind father. It was memorably televised by BBC Television in
1969 with Mark Dignam in the title role. In a slightly longer
version the play later became a stage success. In 1981 it was
remade by Thames Television with Sir Laurence Olivier as the
father and Alan Bates as young Mortimer.
Mortimer is best remembered for creating a barrister named Horace
Rumpole, whose speciality was defending those accused of crime in
London's Old Bailey. Mortimer created Rumpole for 'Rumpole of the
Bailey', a 1975 contribution to the BBCs 'Play For Today'
anthology series. Played with gusto by Leo McKern, the character
proved popular, and was developed into a Rumpole of the Bailey
television series for Thames Television and a series of books
(all written by Mortimer). more....
Patrick McGoohan, actor in
the television series The Prisoner, has died aged 80 (15 January 2009)
After a few minor stage roles in the West End, McGoohan was
signed by Rank at a time when the British film industry was
flourishing. His clipped, almost metallic delivery in the manner
of Olivier’s Richard III, and the persistent stare, made him
an ideal movie actor. Among his early films were No Life for
Ruth, Dr Syn, Three Lives of Thomasina and All Night Long.
Possibly his most memorable role of the period was a villain at
the wheel in a taut thriller called Hell Drivers that co-starred
the also emerging Stanley Baker and Herbert Lom.
The TV series Danger Man followed in 1959 after a troubled Rank
failed to renew his contract along with other players. Ever the
prickly perfectionist, McGoohan quickly found fault with the
early scripts and came close to losing the part because of his
demands. He insisted that John Drake should never carry a gun,
although he was permitted to wrestle one away from a baddie
occasionally, and all women were to be treated with strict
courtesy.
At different times McGoohan turned down the chance to play James
Bond and also the Saint (he said they were immoral) because of
the sex and violence content. But he collected his share of
accolades. He won a TV Actor of the Year award for his
performance in The Greatest Man in the World, and in 1959 the
Critics Award for Best Actor of the Year on stage when he played
the title role in Ibsen’s verse drama Brand, as the
religious bigot who finally destroys himself.
He moved behind the camera directing several episodes of his
friend Peter Falk’s long-running TV detective series
Columbo, although he did appear in several, picking up a pair of
Emmy Awards. He starred in another TV series, Rafferty, a
tailor-made role about a rebellious, irascible doctor, and he
returned to Britain occasionally for TV appearances. Among them a
remake of Jamaica Inn with Jane Seymour, and Hugh
Whitemore’s The Best of Friends in which he played George
Bernard Shaw.
But it is for The Prisoner and its infuriating, fascinating
mystery that he will be remembered most. As he once said in
exasperation: “Will I never escape it? I am a prisoner of
The Prisoner.” more....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/1380371.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5518785.ece
Edmund Purdom, British
character actor famed for his roles in The Student Prince and The
Egyptian, has died aged 84 (5
January 2009)
Edmund Purdom made his acting debut in repertory in 1945, aged
21. Six years later, he appeared with Laurence Olivier and Vivien
Leigh on Broadway in alternating performances of Caesar and
Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra, playing respectively a
Persian and Thyreus. One of his first film roles was in Joseph
Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar (1953) as Strato, the young servant of
Brutus (James Mason).
It was the sad fate of the actor Edmund Purdom that the best
known of his films, The Student Prince (1954), is remembered more
for the star who wasn't in it. After the temperamental tenor
Mario Lanza was fired from the film, the non-singing unknown
Purdom replaced him. Luckily for MGM, Lanza had recorded the
songs for the CinemaScope production before shooting began. Thus
his voice is heard bellowing incongruously out of the slender
frame of Purdom.
Purdom's reputation as a surrogate is underlined by the fact that
he got his first chance of stardom when he replaced Marlon Brando
in The Egyptian (1954) after Brando wisely cried off, preferring
to play Napoleon in Desirée instead.
By the end of the 1950s, like a number of stars for whom
Hollywood work had dried up, Purdom went to Italy and into
rubbishy costume melodramas such as Herod the Great (1959), The
Cossacks, Salambo (both 1960), Suleiman the Conqueror and
Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile (both 1961). This stream of Italian
films was interrupted by some British television work and, in
1964, two films made in England, The Beauty Jungle, revealing the
seedier side of beauty contests, and The Yellow Rolls-Royce. more....
US singer Eartha Kitt has
died aged 81 (26 December 2008)
American singer, dancer and actress Eartha Kitt has died at the
age 81. She was one of the few artists to be nominated in the
Tony, Grammy and Emmy award categories and was a stalwart of the
Manhattan cabaret scene.
Her break came at 16 when she got a job as a dancer with a
professional troupe touring Europe. She later sang in Paris
nightclubs and appeared in several films in the 1950s.
Her lithe, feline movements, the bewitchingly provocative glances
from her wide-set eyes and her unique vocal style –
girlishly husky with an effective use of vibrato – were
truly incomparable. Initially her image was that of a
gold-digger, epitomised by such hits as "Just An
Old-Fashioned Girl", "Santa Baby" and "I Want
to Be Evil", but other best-selling records testify to her
versatility – the seductive "Jonny", her wry
"Dinner for One Please, James", a vitriolic "The
Heel" and, in one of her most persuasive and touching
recordings, the pathos of "The Day That the Circus Left
Town". Besides stage and cabaret, she also had a film,
theatre and television career, delighting a new generation when
she played Catwoman in the series Batman.
Kitt was blacklisted in the US in the late 1960s after speaking
out against the Vietnam War at a White House function.
However, she returned triumphantly to New York's Broadway in a
1978 production, Timbuktu!, and continued to perform regularly in
theatre shows and concert halls.
From the 1980s onwards she appeared in numerous films, and her
1984 hit Where Is My Man found her another generation of night
club fans. more....
Jack Douglas, actor and
comedian, has died aged 81 (19
December 2008)
A permanent fixture in the final eight Carry On comedy films,
Jack Douglas is best remembered for the twitching character he
usually portrayed, complete with flat cap, spectacles and
workman's overalls, and the one-word catchphrase:
"Phwaay!"
The character, known as Alf Ippititimus, was created on stage two
decades earlier and became a staple of his act.
His break as a performer came while he was directing Dick
Whittington (1948-49) at the Kingston Empire in Surrey. He was
persuaded to step in after the comedian Joe Baker's straight man
was taken ill. As a result, the pair formed a double-act and, in
addition to their stage appearances across Britain and in
Australia, they were seen regularly during the first year of the
children's television programme Crackerjack (1955-56). He made
his film début in the RAF comedy Nearly a Nasty Accident,
starring Jimmy Edwards, in 1961. As well as appearing with the
Carry On team in their forays into television, Carry On Christmas
(1972) and Carry On Laughing (1975), Douglas performed on the
small screen in many entertainment programmes. Having earned a
reputation as a brilliant stooge, Douglas worked occasionally
with Bruce Forsyth and Benny Hill, and, for 12 years, with Des
O’Connor. He and O’Connor topped the bill in numerous
summer seasons: theyappeared in more than 50 TV specials and were
the unexpected hit of the Royal Variety Show in 1969. The
following year they appeared in America on The Ed Sullivan Show. more....
Van Johnson, actor who
rode his luck to become a major Hollywood star before fading from
view, has died aged 92 (15 December 2008)
After graduating, he worked
for a time in an office, but his sights were always set on a
career in showbusiness. He took dancing, singing and acting
lessons and managed to land small roles in such Broadway shows as
Entre Nous (1935) and New Faces (1936).
In the late 1930s, he also appeared in a couple of Rodgers and
Hart shows – Too Many Girls and Pal Joey. In Too Many Girls
he had the lead role, but when it was filmed in 1940, he was
unknown in Hollywood and was given only a one-line part.
Nevertheless, it was his screen debut.
With war stories dominating Hollywood productions, he became
renowned as the boy-next-door turned sailor, soldier or airman.
He made his mark in A Guy Named Joe (1943), as a pilot steered
towards grieving Irene Dunne by the spirit of her dead lover,
played by Spencer Tracy.
A Guy Named Joe was a big hit, so Van Johnson was co-starred with
Irene Dunne again in a schmaltzy wartime drama The White Cliffs
of Dover (1944) before being cast in a musical, Two Girls and a
Sailor (1944), with June Allyson and Gloria De Haven.
As a GI (of which he had no personal experience), he was seen in
such films as Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944), Battleground
(1949) and Go for Broke! (1951). When he was not winning the war,
he was the romantic foil for swimmer Esther Williams in the
musicals Thrill of a Romance (1945), Easy to Wed (1946), The
Duchess of Idaho (1950) and Easy to Love (1953).
None of his later films was distinguished. They included the
romantic melodramas Action of the Tiger (1958), with Martine
Carol, and Subway in the Sky (1959) with Hildegarde Neff, and the
Resistance thriller, The Enemy General (1960).
For a time, he switched to the theatre, appearing in Damn Yankees
on tour, Bye Bye Birdie in repertory, The Music Man in London and
La Cage aux Folles, replacing Gene Barry in one of the lead
roles. Subsequently his screen appearances became increasingly
infrequent.
He forsook Hollywood and began appearing in international
co-productions, such as La Battaglia d'Inghilterra and Il Prezzo
del Potere (both 1969) and a steady stream of television films.
His last Hollywood film was a cameo in Woody Allen's The Purple
Rose of Cairo (1985). more....
Beverly Garland, B-movie
and television actress, has died aged 82 (13 December 2008)
Beverly Garland did battle with some of the most ludicrous
monsters in cinematic history as the star of 1950s B-movies such
as 'Swamp Women' and 'It Conquered the World'. She later went on
to play Fred MacMurray's wife in 'My Three Sons', one of the
longest-running situation comedies on American television.
In 1955 she was nominated for an Emmy for her performance as a
leukaemia patient in the medical drama 'Medic', and by the
mid-1960s she had left the world of horror and sci-fi to play
Bing Crosby's onscreen wife on the short-lived 'Bing Crosby
Show'. She also appeared in a string of successful television
shows, such as 'Perry Mason', 'Gunsmoke' and 'Rawhide'. She was
best known, however, for her role as Fred MacMurray's wife
Barbara in the 1960s hit 'My Three Sons'.
In 2001 she faced Anne Robinson on the American version of The
Weakest Link, after which she observed of the show's inquisitor:
"She's more venomous than Joan Crawford, Faye Dunaway and
Miriam Hopkins combined." more....
Oliver Postgate, Bagpuss
and Ivor Creator, has died aged 83 (9
December 2008)
Oliver Postgate's work was both whimsical and matter-of-fact,
magical and mundane. He went into partnership with Peter Firmin,
forming the production company Smallfilms. It was just that; a
two-man operation making short animated films from a makeshift
studio in a disused cowshed in Kent.
They started in 1959 with Ivor the Engine, a series for ITV about
a little Welsh steam engine who wanted to sing in a choir. Early
films like Ivor the Engine relied on cardboard cut outs.
Ivor was followed in the early 1960s by the sagas of Noggin the
Nog for the BBC. His adventures were sometimes alarming,
sometimes charming, and eventually ran to five series.
In 1963 they branched out into stop-motion puppet animation,
first with the Pingwings and then with the Pogles. The arrival of
colour television spurred the team to new heights of invention.
Their work took on a decidedly surreal edge with the Clangers,
pink creatures with pointed noses who lived on a blue moon with a
friendly soup dragon, and spoke in whistles. Postgate and another
actor did their voices with Swanee whistles, after Postgate had
painstakingly written out every word of the script. The Clangers
were perhaps Postgate and Firmin's finest achievement though not,
apparently, their most popular.
From 1974, that honour went to Bagpuss, a pink and white striped
cat, who presided over a shop dedicated to mending broken
articles. In 1998 (by which time the Bagpuss generation had
reached their 20s and early 30s) the programme was voted the best
children's series ever in a television poll.
Oliver Postgate made his last film in 1987, complaining that
children's television commissioners were no longer interested in
what he had to offer. With his story-telling skills, his love of
found objects and mechanical improvisation, his funny voices and
air of eccentricity, the man himself gave a good imitation of
everyone's favourite uncle.
And his creations live on, at once surreal and comforting. more....
http://www.smallfilms.co.uk/
Reg Varney, gifted comic
actor from the East End, has died aged 92 (17 November 2008)
In 1950 Varney made his film debut in Miss Robin Hood. By the
late Fifties, with halls closing as television spread, Varney was
working only twenty weeks a year. Even a praised Touchstone in a
Bernard Miles production of As You Like It at the Mermaid did not
yield better work. He was on the point of throwing it in, perhaps
to run a pub, when he saw the progress Benny Hill was making on
television. Ronald Chesney, the harmonica player showed him a
script which he had written with Ronald Wolfe. This was The Rag
Trade, a situation comedy set in the dressmaking workshop of
Fenner Fashions.
The show was taped on Sundays allowing the producers the pick of
actors on the West End stage, who would not have been available
for work during the week.
The star-studded cast included Miriam Karlin, Peter Jones, Sheila
Hancock and Barbara Windsor. Varney was aware that he was the
only performer without West End acting experience and worked hard
to make up for it.
At read-throughs of the script his performance would give the
writers cause for concern. But on the day of recording, he would
know his lines and the comic potential of the episode better than
anyone.
He moved on to his own show, The Valiant Varneys, which ran for a
year from 1964, and the next year starred in Joey Boy, a comedy
feature film about the Army. He appeared in The Great St
Trinian's Train Robbery in 1966.
Between 1967 and 1969 he played an affluent fitter in the sitcom
Beggar My Neighbour, in which he co-starred with Pat Coombs,
Peter Jones and June Whitfield.
But it was the television comedy On the Buses, written by Ronald
Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, that made Varney a household name.
Screened from 1969 until 1973, the series revolved around a bus
driver's capers with his conductor, played by Bob Grant, their
home life, and their efforts to put one over on the bus depot's
lugubrious Inspector Blakey (Stephen Lewis).
Varney also starred in three On the Buses feature films, made by
Hammer: On the Buses (1971), Mutiny On the Buses (1972) and
Holiday On the Buses (1973). But when he finally left the role
for good, his career suffered. more....
Pat Moss, showjumper
turned rally driver, has died aged 73 (13 November 2008)
Pat Moss was a leading showjumper who later caught the automotive
bug and went on to become a trailblazing women's rally driver.
She won the European Ladies' Championship five times, and in 1960
she and her co-driver, Anne Wisdom, won the daunting
Liège-Rome-Liège rally, the first time a major international
rally had been won by an all-female crew.
As an eight-year-old she won many pony events, competing against
her brother, and both were presented to King George VI after
winning the Victor Ludorum at the 1945 Windsor Cup horse trials.
In 1950 she was victorious at the Horse of the Year Show, and
three years later she was presented to the Queen after winning
the Queen Elizabeth Cup at White City. She went on to make the UK
showjumping team.
Moss had her first driving lesson, courtesy of her brother
Stirling, in a Willys jeep when she was seven, but in 1952, when
she was about to turn 18, Stirling's manager, Ken Gregory, took
her on a small rally. She was his navigator and they got lost on
their way to the start. Despite this less than propitious
beginning to her rally career, by 1954 she had graduated, via a
Morris Minor convertible, which she admitted she thrashed, to a
Triumph TR2. In March 1955 she was invited to drive a works MG TF
on the RAC Rally and success there led to rides for MG in a works
Magnette, then with an Austin Westminster in 1956 and a Morris
Minor in 1957.
In 1960 she won the Liège-Rome-Liège rally outright in the
Healey.
A tough and fast competitor, Moss blazed a trail for women
competitors and achieved many strong results, including second on
the 1961 RAC, third on the 1962 East African Safari Rally despite
a collision with an antelope, and victories on the Tulip Rally
and the Rally Deutschland. In the Dutch event she scored the Mini
Cooper's first international victory. She would also win the
European Ladies' Championship on four more occasions, adding
1960, 1962, 1964 and 1965 to that 1958 success.
A switch to Ford for 1963 brought the ladies' prize on the Tulip
and Acropolis rallies and, following her marriage, she drove
Saabs successfully with Liz Nystrom as her navigator until a move
to Lancia for 1967. In 1968 she took a Fulvia to victory on the
Sestrières Rally and finished sixth, the highest-placed Lancia,
on the 1969 Monte Carlo Rally. more....
Russ Hamilton, one of the
UK’s first international pop stars, has died aged 76 (16 October 2008)
Russ Hamiltion whose real name was Ronnie Hulme scored Top 10
hits in Britain and the United States in the late 1950s.
Ronnie was born in Liverpool and became a Butlin’s Redcoat
at its Clacton camp. His big break came when he was in a Redcoat
troupe which recorded at Oriole’s London studio. He also
recorded two of his own songs.
The result was the 1957 single, We Will Make Love, with the
poignant lines: “When the sun takes the place of the moon in
the sky, we'll go on a journey, you and I, to a far distant land,
where our dreams were planned, in the clouds up above we will
make love.”
Oriole released it as a single, under the name Russ Hamilton. It
reached number two in the UK chart, selling a million for a gold
disc. The flip-side, Rainbow, was a US number four. Russ was in
huge demand for a while, appearing alongside major stars such as
Perry Como but the following single, Wedding Ring, only scraped
into the UK Top 20.
After that the hits dried up, but Russ continued to record fine
songs for a several years and then settled in a flat in Buckley,
North Wales, occasionally complaining that he had seen very
little of the money he had earned for others. more....
Peter Copley, versatile
theatrical actor, has died aged 93 (14
October 2008)
Having been trained at the the Old Vic Theatre School, Peter
Copley first appeared as the Gaoler in The Winter’s Tale at
the Old Vic in 1932. Playing in 16 Old Vic revivals in five
years, he moved to the Edinburgh Festival as the Fencing Master
in the opera Ariadne auf Naxos, he felt again on home ground. He
was an expert at swordplay. It had been his custom to supervise
fencing at the Old Vic, and he rarely missed a chance to direct
duels in, say, Olivier’s Richard III and Henry IV.
In 1963 he was called to the Bar at Middle Temple, but nothing
could deter him from acting. He went on to appear in all kinds of
drama, ancient and modern, in the West End and the provinces,
even into old age. With his gleaming eyes, distinctive voice and
irresistible presence his assumptions as lawyers, schoolmasters,
diplomats, priests and other sticklers for verbal precision made
Copley invaluable.
His television appearances in the '50s and '60s included parts in
'Fabian of the Yard', Sunday Night Theatre', 'No Hiding Place',
'Maigret', 'Danger Man' and 'The Saint'. more....
Nadia Nerina, prima
ballerina, has died aged 80 (13 October 2008)
For nearly a quarter of a century Nadia Nerina was one of the
most popular ballerinas of her time, largely as a leading dancer
with the Royal Ballet but also in guest appearances for many
other companies, and on concert tours.
Her special gifts were immortalised in the role of Lise which
Frederick Ashton created for her in his production of La Fille
mal gardée. He made such dazzling use of her virtuoso technique,
with its speed and lightness, that when first given in 1960 he
was asked whether he thought anyone else would be able to dance
it.
Rudolf Nureyev danced in the Royal Ballet’s Giselle and
inserted a series of entrechats-six, which shocked many dancers
and fans. In amusing retaliation, Nerina one night, knowing that
Nureyev was in the audience, substituted 32 entrechats-six (not
usually a woman’s step) for her featured 32 fouettés in the
“Black Swan” sequence. Nureyev must have taken it well
because a little later he danced with her in the Laurencia pas de
six which he mounted for television — a medium in which
Nerina had been one of dance’s pioneers, appearing in six
programmes between 1957 and 1965. more....
Paul Newman, Oscar-winning
Hollywood actor, has died aged 83 (28
September 2008)
Paul Newman was a Hollywood actor of true star quality, who
remained at the top of his profession for more than 40 years.
As an actor he had a commanding presence, dominating the screen
by force of personality. It earned him a stream of Oscar
nominations in such films as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The
Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Absence of
Malice (1981) and The Verdict (1982). He was unsuccessful,
however, each time and it was not until 1986 that he was finally
named best actor at the seventh attempt in The Color of Money
— a sequel to The Hustler, for which many felt that he
should have won 25 years earlier.
He made his screen debut in 1954 in The Silver Chalice — a
Biblical epic that proved a commercial disaster. That Warner
Bros, to whom he was under contract at the time, did not ditch
him was probably due to his striking physical resemblance to
Marlon Brando, then at the peak of his powers.
In the late 1950s, for Warner Bros and on loan to other studios,
Newman made a number of now largely forgotten melodramas. In
Arthur Penn’s first film, The Left Handed Gun (1958), he
played Billy the Kid as a precursor of the “crazy, mixed-up
kids” then being portrayed by James Dean. Audiences shunned
it. From this period of his career, only Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1958) made money, though Tennessee Williams regarded it as a
travesty of his play.
Highlights of the middle section of Newman’s career were the
two tongue-in-cheek pictures he made with Robert Redford under
director George Roy Hill, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(1969) and the Oscar-winning The Sting (1973). Both sophisticated
entertainments, they were not among his most demanding work, but
were undeniably crowd-pleasers.
So, too, was The Towering Inferno (1974), in which he played the
architect of a doomed skyscraper. Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict
(1982), in which he was an “ambulance chaser” — a
seedy lawyer who latches onto accident victims as potential
clients — was notably intelligent and also a box-office hit.
After winning an Oscar for The Color of Money in 1986, Newman was
able to be more selective about the scripts that came his way. more....
David Jones, theatre,
television and film director has died aged 74 (24 September 2008)
David Jones was a theatre, television and occasional film
director who cut his teeth on the BBC’s Monitor programme
and had a long association with the Royal Shakespeare Company
before moving to the United States, where he did most of his
later work.
During National Service he was a second lieutenant in the Royal
Artillery and in 1958 he joined BBC Television. He had expected
to work on the early-evening magazine Tonight, but was diverted
by Grace Wyndham Goldie, the formidable talks executive, to help
on “a little programme about the arts”, though she
warned him it might be short-lived.
In the event Monitor became a television landmark, taking the
arts seriously while making them accessible to a wide audience.
Under the tough yet avuncular and relentlessly enthusiastic Huw
Wheldon it became an unofficial film school, nurturing the
talents of not only Jones but also John Schlesinger, Ken Russell
and, later, Melvyn Bragg. Although still in his early twenties
when he joined Monitor, Jones was entrusted with some of the more
important assignments and with his literary background was a
natural choice for tackling writers.
In 1958 he went to Cambridge to make a film about the usually
camera-shy E. M. Forster on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
Jones not only directed the film but also interviewed Forster in
his rooms at King’s College. Among Jones’s other
subjects were Lawrence Durrell, Frank O’Connor, the Irish
writer, and George Chapman, the Welsh painter. In 1962 Jones
succeeded Humphrey Burton as Monitor’s editor. more....
Michael Pate, Australian actor, writer and director, has died aged 88 (20 September 2008)
After serving in the Australian Army's entertainment unit during
the Second World War, during which he served as compere for the
touring performances of Gracie Fields, he began to act in films,
and in 1950 he supported Tommy Trinder and Chips Rafferty in
Bitter Springs. Telling of the conflict between settlers and
Aborigines, it was the last (and least successful) of the three
films made in Australia by Ealing Studios after the war.
Pate also acted in a stage version of Charlotte Hastings'
thriller, Bonaventure (1950), and he made his Hollywood debut
when Universal asked him to repeat his role in Douglas Sirk's
enjoyably melodramatic screen version of the play, retitled
Thunder on the Hill (1951) and starring Claudette Colbert as a
nun turned sleuth, proving the innocence of convicted murderer
Ann Blyth. Pate remained in the USA for several years, appearing
in more than 200 films and TV shows. He was Flavius to Marlon
Brando's Marc Antony in Julius Caesar (1953), played a droll Sir
Locksley in Danny Kaye's funniest comedy, The Court Jester
(1955), and was frequently cast as a Native American in such
films as Hondo (1953) and The Great Sioux Massacre (1965) and
countless television westerns including Maverick, Laramie, Have
Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke and a memorable episode of
Rawhide in which he saved the stars, Eric Fleming and Clint
Eastwood, from being flogged while tied to tree trunks. more....
Lita Roza, Sultry
interpreter of romantic ballads, has died aged 82 (15 August 2008)
The public know the Liverpool singer Lita Roza for one song above
all others, the children's novelty "How Much is That Doggie
in the Window?" However, that doggie was her bête noire:
she was talked into recording the song and did not consider it
representative of her work. There were few to rival her real
talent as a sultry and sophisticated interpreter of romantic
ballads.
In 1951, Roza recorded "Allentown Jail" with the Ted
Heath band. Although record sales were not then collated, it was
undoubtedly her first hit, as the song rose high in the
sheet-music charts. After "Allentown Jail", her A&R
man, Dick Rowe, asked her to sing "How Much is That Doggie
in the Window?" and Roza replied, "I'm not recording
that, it's rubbish." She recalled, "He said, 'It'll be
a big hit, please do it, Lita.' I said that I would sing it once
and once only and then I would never sing it again, and I
haven't. The only time you'll hear it is on that record."
Even when the record was No 1, no one could persuade Lita to
perform her hit, but it did lead to her recording several
unsuitable songs. She was appreciated as much for her stunning
looks as for her voice and she topped the Melody Maker poll for
Favourite Female Vocalist from 1951 to 1955, and a similar one in
the New Musical Express from 1952 to 1955.
In 1954, Roza left the Ted Heath band and started working as a
solo act: "I would be singing with pit orchestras, who were
usually dreadful," she said. "It was like going to the
knacker's yard although I always carried my own pianist." In
1955, Lita had hits with two songs she liked – "Hey
There" and "Jimmy Unknown" – and then sang
"A Tear Fell" on a charity single for the Lord's
Taverners Association, which made No 2. She recorded albums of
standards, Listening in the Afterhours (1955) and Love is the
Answer (1956).
She had recorded another fine album, Me On a Carousel, for Pye in
1958, as well as a stream of variable singles, the better ones
including "Volare" and "I Could Have Danced All
Night". After leaving Pye in 1960, Roza recorded only
sporadically. more....
Sir Bill Cotton, TV light
entertainment producer, has died aged 80 (12 August 2008)
William Frederick Cotton, known early in his career as Bill
Cotton Junior, was born on April 23 1928 with showbiz in his
blood. He was the younger son of the bandleader Billy Cotton.
According to Bill, his father's musical talent was limited to
"waving his arms about" in front of the band (he never
learned to read music). But his extrovert personality and ability
to spot winning performers made him a variety icon. His famous
introductory shout of "Wakey wakey!" was said to have
originated when he had to rouse the band for their Sunday morning
radio show after a hard week on the road.
Billy's relationship with his sons was complicated and ambiguous.
He was proud of Bill junior's success in the BBC but
simultaneously afraid that it might threaten his own standing.
Despite this, he was happy to have Bill junior as producer of his
TV show, while the younger Cotton freely acknowledged the debt he
owed to his father's career and influence.
Cotton junior joined the BBC as a light entertainment producer in
1956. After early successes with Six Five Special and the
discovery of Tommy Steele, he was asked to produce his father's
show. He was extremely reluctant to take on this task. He knew
– none better – how difficult Cotton senior could be
and dreaded the almost inevitable public rows. Father and son
reached a working agreement: they might have their differences
backstage, but never in front of performers or crew.
His name was associated with a string of variety and comedy
successes. Among the many artists who owed their promotion up the
rungs of the TV ladder to him were Tommy Steele, Russ Conway,
Michael Parkinson, Dave Allen, Bruce Forsyth, Des O'Connor and
Cilla Black.
Cotton's broadcasting philosophy was simple. He believed his job,
both as Head of Light Entertainment and later as controller of
BBC1, was to maximise the audience for the BBC channels by
providing them with comedy and entertainment programmes of the
highest quality. In this way the crucial business of maintaining
audience parity with the ITV opposition would be secured, and the
future of the licence fee made safe. more....
Jill Adams, actress billed
as 'Britain's Monroe', has died aged 78 (6 August 2008)
A tall, striking blonde, Jill Adams provided good humour and a
welcome touch of glamour to several films from the mid-Fifties.
At the start of her film career, she was publicised as
"Britain's Marilyn Monroe". It was hardly an accurate
description, but the former model Adams made a stunning cover
girl, featuring on the cover of the popular weekly Picturegoer
twice, in 1954 and 1955, and she played in over 20 films in the
space of a decade.
In 1953 she began taking bit roles in movies – dancing with
Nigel Patrick in Forbidden Cargo (1953), appearing in the Arthur
Askey comedy The Love Match (1954), and in Doctor at Sea (1955)
with Dirk Bogarde.
The James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli is credited with
having discovered her when she played a bit part in his
production The Black Knight (1954), and she was soon playing
larger roles, notable among which were her fine comic performance
in the Launder-Gilliat black comedy The Green Man (1956), with
Alastair Sim and George Cole, and her glamorous depiction of the
"girl upstairs" in the comedy about barristers,
Brothers in Law (1957), her role a deliberate echo of Monroe's in
The Seven Year Itch.
She had one of her first substantial roles in the sprightly
"B" movie One Jump Ahead (1955), in a rare villainous
portrayal as a murderess who was once an old flame of a reporter
(Paul Carpenter) who is usually "one jump ahead" of the
police. Adams was one of Rex Harrison's seven wives in the
sophisticated comedy The Constant Husband (1955).
At the peak of her acting career in 1957, Adams married Peter
Haigh, the debonair presenter of radio's Movie-Go-Round and the
founding co-presenter (with Derek Bond) of Picture Parade, a
weekly television movie magazine that would evolve into the show
presented for many years by Barry Norman.
Adams appeared in The Scamp (1957), and was given star billing in
an Australian movie, Dust in the Sun (1958), but it had limited
distribution. In 1960/61 she featured in a television series, The
Flying Doctor, based on the real-life activities of the Royal
Flying Doctor Service serving the Australian outback. more....
Hugh Lloyd, comedy actor,
has died aged 85 (15 July 2008)
Hugh Lloyd began his association with Tony Hancock when he was
offered several "one-liners" in the radio show
Hancock's Half Hour in 1954. After joining Hancock on a tour of
Cyprus, Malta and Tripoli, entertaining the troops there, Lloyd
and Hancock became close friends.
On their return to Britain Hancock offered Lloyd much larger
parts in the television version of Hancock's Half Hour in 1956.
Lloyd played "the patient in the next bed" in one of
Hancock's best-known episodes "The Blood Donor". He
went on to co-star in over 30 sketches including "The
Librarian", "The Lift" and "The
Reunion".
Lloyd stopped working with Hancock in the late 1950s, although he
did appear as Ted (one half of a Punch and Judy act) in Hancock's
film The Punch and Judy Man in 1963.
In 1962 Hugh Lloyd starred in his own series opposite Terry
Scott. Lloyd and Scott first met during the war and worked
together in variety shows in the early 1950s. They reformed their
partnership for the long-running situation comedy Hugh and I,
which both maintained was based on exaggerated versions of
themselves.
Lloyd reprised the type of character he had played with Hancock;
lugubrious, meek and constantly under attack from the bludgeoning
Scott. In 1969 he returned to situation comedy in the bizarre BBC
series The Gnomes of Dulwich. Lloyd, again paired with Scott,
played a bearded "fishing gnome". He spent most of each
episode sitting perfectly still in front of a plastic garden
pond. As usual, Scott played the belligerent, argumentative lead
with Lloyd as his morose, deadpan foil.
Hugh Lloyd was appointed MBE in 2006. more....
Veteran character actor
Tony Melody has died aged 85 (9
July 2008)
Tony Melody became a household name in some of Britain's best
loved and longest running comedies and soaps. He started out as a
singer with the Northern Dance Orchestra and later became a
household name with character and comedy cameos. His breakthrough
came during the heyday of radio comedy, in The Clitheroe Kid, the
long-running show (1957-72) starring the diminutive,
Lancashire-born, former music-hall performer Jimmy Clitheroe in
the guise of a naughty schoolboy. Melody played Mr Higginbottom,
a 6ft 4in taxi driver and Jimmy's arch-enemy, and he joined
Clitheroe in the television version, Just Jimmy between 1964 and
1966. Later he moved to play
more television parts such as in Steptoe and Son (teaching a
young Harold Steptoe how to dance), Coronation Street, Heartbeat
(helping Greengrass steal a train), Casualty, Emmerdale, City
Central, Where the Heart Is and Last of the Summer Wine.
One of his biggest breaks came when he appeared in the film Yanks
alongside Richard Gere. more....
Sir Charles Wheeler,
distinguished BBC foreign correspondent, has died aged 85 (5 July 2008)
His first job was on the tabloid Daily Sketch, where his
principal task was to rip news-agency reports from teleprinters
and rush them to the editors' desks. In 1943 he joined the Royal
Marines and, because he spoke fluent German, was soon recruited
by the special intelligence unit formed by Ian Fleming (later the
creator of James Bond), playing an important role in the
preparations for the D-Day landings.
In the aftermath of the Allied victory he was assigned to Berlin,
where his job was to make sure that German officers with
technical know-how, such as U-boat commanders, did not end up in
the Soviet zone. In 1947 he joined the BBC Overseas Service as a
sub-editor on the Latin American desk and after three years he
was given his first reporting assignment, as a correspondent for
the German service in Berlin.
In 1956 he moved to television as a producer on Panorama, the
long-running current affairs programme. It was the golden age for
that old BBC warhorse, and Wheeler found himself a member of a
classic company which included such figures as Richard Dimbleby,
Robin Day, Ludovic Kennedy and Woodrow Wyatt. One of his earliest
successes on Panorama was to get a camera into Hungary to cover
the ill-fated anti-Soviet uprising, sending the film back to
London every day through Austria. His place, of course, at that
time was behind the camera rather than in front of it — and
it was probably in part a desire to reverse that position which
led Wheeler in 1958 to apply for a post with BBC News.
His principal work there was for radio — television stories
outside Europe at that stage had to be filmed, placed in a
canister and then flown home. But the BBC’s new South Asia
correspondent soon proved himself a master of words, always
taking great pains, quite incapable of writing a dull script and
rather tending to show up his lazier colleagues on programmes
such as From Our Own Correspondent. more....
Sooty changes hands (27 June 2008)
Sooty, the silent puppet bear with a penchant for magic tricks
and water pistols, has been sold to his presenter, who plans to
bring the children's TV character back in a new series.
Richard Cadell, who has presented the TV show featuring the much
loved children's character for 10 years, has teamed up with his
brother to buy the rights to Sooty and his friends Sweep, the
squeaking grey dog, and Soo the panda. The deal is believed to be
worth almost £1m.
Sooty has featured on British TV since the 1950s, first appearing
on the BBC under the watch of Harry Corbett, who had bought the
puppet on Blackpool pier to amuse his son Matthew. The show moved
to ITV in 1968 and Matthew later succeeded as presenter more....
Cyd Charisse, one of the
leading dancers at MGM in the heyday of the Hollywood musical,
has died aged 87 (18 June 2008)
She regularly partnered Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire on screen and
was famous for the length and shapeliness of her legs, which were
insured in her prime for $10 million. They were so long and
lissom that they gave the impression of a woman over six foot
tall, though in fact she was a surprisingly petite 5ft 6in.
Astaire, with whom she starred in The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk
Stockings (1957), paid her perhaps the ultimate, if grammatically
suspect, compliment: "That Cyd! When you've danced with her
you stay danced with."
Her classical ballet training distinguished her from the other
MGM danseuses of the 1940s and 1950s. It lent her a touch of
class, even when playing ladies of easy virtue in the ballet
sequences from Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The Band Wagon. She
could not carry a note, however, and if her films called for even
a few vocal bars, she was generally dubbed. One exception was an
extraordinary number set in a male gymnasium in It's Always Fair
Weather (1955), where her toneless voice could be heard piping
"You've got me on the ropes."
Nor could she act. Throughout her career with MGM, the studio
made loyal efforts to cast her in straight acting roles, but the
results were mostly lamentable. Cyd Charisse's on-screen magic
evaporated whenever she opened her mouth. So when the golden age
of the Hollywood musical came to an end in the late 1960s, she
was forced back on her weakest suit. She continued to make films
until 1980 but few tapped her dancing talents and most were Euro
pot-boilers ecxposing her rudimentary acting skills. In later
years, she had more success in cabaret with her second husband,
singer Tony Martin. more....
80 years of BBC shows to
go online (11 June 2008)
Every TV and radio programme
ever made by the BBC could be placed online as part of an
ambitious project unveiled today. The scheme will see a webpage
created for nearly every programme broadcast on BBC radio and TV
in the past 80 years. Initially, pages will contain information,
clips and links about the show, but it is hoped that whole
programmes will eventually be made available as part of a massive
internet archive. This will either be via the seven-day catch-up
service iPlayer or as a new online archive service.
It is unclear whether the archive service will be free. The new
details were revealed by Jana Bennett, director of BBC vision, at
the Banff television festival in Canada. However, a number of
episodes from shows including Hancock's Half Hour, Doctor Who,
Steptoe and Son and the Goon Show have been lost.
During the Seventies many tapes were destroyed or taped over to
make space in the BBC's storage facilities or because they were
considered a fire risk. Others, such as the Quatermass series,
were broadcast live and not recorded. Ms Bennett said:
"Eventually we will produce pages for programming stretching
back over nearly 80 years - featuring all the information we have
on the richest TV and radio archive in the world. The BBC is
committed to releasing the public value in that archive." more....
Jonathan Routh,
broadcaster, artist and author has died aged 80 (6 June 2008)
Jonathan Routh became Britain's first television prankster in
1960 when he co-starred in Candid Camera, the hidden camera show
that became an ITV staple for the next seven years; he also wrote
The Good Loo Guide (1968) and later became a prolific, albeit
eccentric, painter.
For two years he presented Candid Microphone on Radio Luxembourg,
and in 1957 Routh set up as a professional part-time hoaxer with
an advertisement in The Times reading: "Practical joker with
wide experience of British public's sad gullibility organises,
leads, and guarantees success of large-scale hoaxes." By
then he had already caused consternation by leaving a pair of
shoes daily in Kensington public library, taking a grand piano
for a ride on the Tube, and sending himself through the post to
Wandsworth covered in two pounds worth of stamps.
In Candid Camera, Routh's hidden lens recorded the chaos
resulting from carefully-planned comedy situations – for
example, his search for Little Louis, a performing flea
accidentally mislaid in a London taxi. Although Routh had
imported the Candid Camera format from America, there was
something essentially British about it. At its heart lay
practical joking which, although often cruel, had been a national
sport in the leisured days of the 18th and 19th centuries.
With the comedian Bob Monkhouse as host, Candid Camera made Routh
a cult television figure as the deadpan agent provocateur with
the hangdog aspect, iron nerve and beetle brows who preyed on the
unsuspecting. Viewers sent in up to 1,000 ideas for hoaxes a
week, most taken in good part by the unfortunate victims. more....
Nat Temple, clarinettist
and dance-band leader who frequently appeared on radio and
television has died aged 94 (5 June 2008)
Nat temple was one of the best-known bandleaders of the post-war
period, particularly celebrated for his work in radio and
television; he was also an exceptionally gifted clarinettist,
whose talent received far less recognition than it deserved.
He turned professional at 16, joining the band led by the singer
and comedian Sam Costa. In 1940 Temple joined the Grenadier
Guards and played with service bands for the rest of the war,
including periods in North Africa and Italy. While still in the
Army he contrived to play from time to time, and even record,
with numerous other bands.
A chance meeting with the Canadian actor and comedian Bernard
Braden led to Temple's becoming musical director of a new,
"oddball" radio show, Breakfast With Braden. This was
followed by the late-night Bedtime With Braden, which gained a
sizeable cult following. Temple was cast as the bumbling
bandleader, a part he played so convincingly that he got taken on
in the same role by other shows – Michael Bentine's Round
The Bend, Dick Emery's Emery At Large and Peter Ustinov's In All
Directions.
From these, Temple graduated to children's television, acting as
genial music-master for Jack In The Box, Telebox and, most
famously, Crackerjack, with Eamonn Andrews. more....
Bo Diddley,
rock’n’roll singer and songwriter, has died aged 79 (3 June 2008)
Bo Diddley's first single I’m a Man became a hit on the
R&B chart in 1955. It was not exactly blues or even R&B
— although it owed an allegiance to both — but
represented a new kind of guitar-based rock’n’roll
which was earthy, basic, unrefined, jive-talking — and
decidedly funky. A second single, Diddley Daddy, followed it up
the charts and in November that year he became the first black
artist to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. He had been asked to
perform Sixteen Tons, a song by the country singer Tennessee
Ernie Ford. Once the cameras were rolling, he instead strummed
the raucous riff from his signature tune, Bo Diddley. The show
went out live and a furious Sullivan could do nothing. Diddley
was banned from appearing on the show again but he didn’t
care. The row had already made his reputation as a
rock’n’roll pioneer.
Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry aside, arguably none of the first
generation of American rock’n’rollers had a greater
impact on the subsequent course of popular music. Along with
Berry, Diddley was also one of the first black performers to
“cross over” and enjoy success in the predominantly
white pop chart of the time. Among the classic singles to his
name, all driven by the primitive but irresistible beat he
likened to a freight train, were Diddy Wah Diddy, Who Do You
Love?, Mona, You Can’t Judge a Book by Looking at its Cover,
Road Runner and Say Man more....
Bernard Archard, star of
the TV series 'Spycatcher', has died aged 91 (6 May 2008)
Disillusioned with the experience of regular unemployment as an
actor in Britain, in 1959 Bernard Archard booked a seat on the
next boat to Canada, with plans to make a new start. But then he
was asked to audition for the starring role in Spycatcher, as
Lt-Col Oreste Pinto, a wartime Allied counter-espionage expert.
The programme, which ran to four series, finally made Archard a
star at the age of 43 and he became a prolific character actor in
films and on television.
Following his success in Spycatcher, Archard was frequently
typecast as policemen, in long-forgotten films such as The Clue
of the New Pin (1960), Man Detained (1961), The Silent Playground
(1963) and The List of Adrian Messenger (1963). On television, he
was HM Inspector of Constabulary on official visits to the police
stations in both Z Cars (1965) and its spin-off, Softly Softly
(1967). more....
Humphrey Lyttelton,
broadcaster and jazz musician, has died aged 86 (26 April 2008)
After spending the Second
World War as an officer in the Grenadier Guards, Lyttelton became
a pioneering figure in the British jazz scene. He formed his
first band in 1948 after spending a year with George Webb's
Dixielanders, a band that pioneered New Orleans-style jazz in the
UK. The Humphrey Lyttelton Band quickly became Britain's leading
traditional jazz group, and continental tours gave them a
following in Europe.
In 1949, he signed a recording contract with EMI which led to a
string of records in the Parlophone Super Rhythm Style series and
which have become highly sought after. By the late 1950s he was
branching out, enlarging his band and experimenting with
mainstream and non-traditional material, and shocking his
established fans in the process. In 1959, the band made a
successful tour of the United States.
He was a keen amateur calligrapher and birdwatcher, and in 1984
formed his own record label, Calligraph. He composed more than
120 original songs during his career. In 1993 he won the radio
industry's highest honour, a Sony Gold Award. He also won
lifetime achievement awards at the Post Office British Jazz
Awards in 2000, and the inaugural BBC Jazz Awards the following
year.
It was in 1972 that, against his better judgement, he took on the
chairmanship of Radio Four’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a
Clue. Nobody imagined that his role, somewhat like a naïve and
despairing schoolmaster who was forced to read out double
entendres that he never understood, would last for the rest of
his life. His sharp humour was hilarious and yet without malice. more....
Hazel Court, horror
actress highly popular for her appearances in Roger Corman's Poe
cycle, has died at the age of 82 (16
April 2008)
Hazel Court was born in England in 1926 and became one of the
'Gainsborough girls' at the Gainsborough production company in
the 1940s, but significant screen roles were to elude her until
her induction into the horror genre, notably in the Hammer Film
The Curse Of Frankenstein(1957), where she played the evil
count's unwanted suitor. She also played the daughter of Jack
Warner and Kathleen Harrison (in their first appearance as the
Huggetts) and represented the millions of girls who had lost
their men in the war.
Though appearing in the horror classic The Man Who Could Cheat
Death (1959), her enduring popularity was initiated by her
involvement in Roger Corman's 'Poe cycle' of films. Of these
films, Court appeared in The Premature Burial (1962), The Raven
(1963) and The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), in each case
starring alongside Vincent Price - and giving him a hard time;
Court's 'Poe' roles found her playing conspiring and treacherous
women, and at her worst she was at her best...in the eyes of her
many fans.
In later years, Court took an interest in painting and the arts,
exhibiting in the USA and in Europe. more....
Ollie Johnston, leading
animator with Walt Disney, has died aged 95 (16 April 2008)
Johnston's first work was as an "in-betweener" - the
artist responsible for the drawings that appear between the
extremes of an action drawn by an animator - on Mickey's Garden
(1935), the second colour Mickey Mouse short. The following year,
he was promoted to apprentice animator, working under Fred Moore
on such shorts as Pluto's Judgment Day and Mickey's Rival.
Under Moore, Johnston became assistant animator on Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs (1937), responsible for drawing the dwarfs
(which Thomas was also working on).
By Pinocchio (1940) he had progressed to animator, and supervised
the Blue Fairy sequence. The same year he was in charge of the
Pastoral Symphony section of Fantasia before joining Thomas, who
had done preliminary work on Bambi. As well as the young Bambi
segments, Johnston (credited as supervising animator) developed
Thumper. Johnston was also responsible for the animation of the
young Bambi.
He drew the stepsisters in Cinderella (1950); Alice and the King
of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1951); and, two years later, Mr
Smee in Peter Pan. After the good fairies in Sleeping Beauty
(1959) and 101 Dalmatians, Johnston and Thomas did some of their
best work in The Sword in the Stone (1963), for which Johnston
was responsible for all the leading characters. The following
year Thomas did the dancing penguins in Mary Poppins; Johnston
drew the ones who were waiters. more....
Willoughby Goddard,
versatile actor who deployed his considerable bulk to impressive
effect on stage and on film, has died aged 81 (14 April 2008)
Widely remembered for his excessive corpulence on stage and
television, Willoughby Goddard spent over 40 years never trying
to disguise it. It brought him authority, variety, monotony and
joy. Whether he was genial or aggressive, alarming or soothing,
he could be cast in all sorts of moods. Sometimes he played up
self-consciously to his weightiness; sometimes it hardly
mattered. He could play judges, professors, mayors, landlords,
managing directors and chairmen; he could also play sundry
characters of no importance whatever.
On television he created first a fine impression as Professor
Mark Harrison in The Voices; and in the Adventures of William
Tell he put the shivers up watchers as the hero's splendidly
weighty main protagonist Landberger Gessler.
As Sir Jason Tovey in The Mind of Mr Reeder he was well cast; and
as the monstrous Lord Charley, who sought artistic grants from
Hattie Jacques as Miss Manger, it was said that “he knew his
business”.
With Charlie Drake in Drake's Progress Goddard found a strong
sense of fun, and one of his last appearances was as Professor
Siblington, last seen watching from the elegant spires of an
English college in Porterhouse Blue (1987). more....
John Hewer, actor, has died
aged 84 (20
March 2008)
The actor John Hewer won
worldwide fame playing Captain Birdseye in the long-running fish
finger TV commercials.
He played the role from 1967 until the late 1980s. The jovial,
bearded naval captain outlasted the Milky Bar Kid and Ronald
MacDonald to become the longest running "brand
personality" since food advertising began.
Hewer worked his way up to parts in the films The Dark Man (1951,
a melodrama in which his taxi-driver character falls victim to
Maxwell Reed's seaside murderer) and the thriller Assassin for
Hire (1951, as a violinist whose instrument and lessons are paid
for by his brother, a professional killer).
He then landed the title role in the BBC children's series The
Great Detective (1953), playing it for the first four episodes,
with Graham Stark taking over for the final two – curiously,
with no explanation for the switch.
At about the same time, Hewer took the role of John Parrish, the
bank clerk wrongly suspected of being involved in a heist, in the
first episode of the crime series Colonel March of Scotland Yard
(1955-56), which starred the horror actor Boris Karloff as an
eyepatch-wearing detective investigating eerie cases involving
criminals known by names such as the Abominable Snowman and the
Missing Link.
During his career, the actor also produced music-hall shows on
Southend Pier with the bandleader Henry Hall, and he was hired by
Canadian television to host the variety show The Pig and Whistle
(1967-77), set in a fictional, traditional English pub and
featuring British music-hall entertainment. more....
Barry Morse, Actor who
found fame as Philip Gerard, police chief in 'The Fugitive' has
died aged 89 (5 February 2008)
Barry Morse made his professional début in the People's Theatre
production If I Were King while at Rada and finished his time at
drama school by taking the title role in Henry V for a Royal
Command Performance in front of George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
Then, in 1937, he made his first television appearances in some
of the BBC's earliest broadcasts. He made his film début as a
stooge to Will Hay in the wartime espionage comedy The Goose
Steps Out (1942) and followed it with character roles in pictures
such as Thunder Rock (1942) and When We Are Married (1943).
Morse's West End début came in School for Slavery (Westminster
Theatre, 1942), which he followed with Crisis in Heaven (Lyric
Theatre, 1944) directed by John Gielgud. In 1951, Morse, his wife
and their two children emigrated to Canada, settling in Toronto
when CBC introduced the country's first television service the
following year, with Morse working as an actor, producer and
director.
Over the years, he won Canada's Best TV Actor award five times,
but he was also prolific on radio, most notably acting in and
producing the drama series A Touch of Greasepaint (1954-68), a
chronicle of actors down the years.
But he became known worldwide through The Fugitive, also
directing a 1967 episode, before moving back to London and
playing Mr Parminter, the secret service contact issuing
assignments to an American government agent played by Gene Barry,
in the British series The Adventurer (1972-73). more....
Allan Melvin, character
actor has died aged 84
(24 January
2008)
While working at a job in the sound effects department of NBC
Radio, Melvin did a nightclub act and appeared and won on the
Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts radio show. While appearing on
Broadway in Stalag 17, he got his break into television by
getting the role of Cpl. Henshaw on the popular The Phil Silvers
Show program. TV fans of this era usually best remember his role
as Henshaw, Sergeant Bilko's right hand man on that show.
During this period, in addition to his role on The Phil Silvers
Show, Melvin was often cast in slightly loud, occasionally
abrasive, but generally friendly second banana roles. Melvin was
also adept at "tough guy" roles; in an example of his
range as an actor, one episode of Sergeant Bilko featured Melvin
doing a recognizable impersonation of Humphrey Bogart.
The jowly, jovial Melvin spent decades playing a series of
sidekicks, second bananas and lovable lugs, including Archie
Bunker's friend Barney Hefner on "All in the Family".
But his place in pop culture will be fixed as butcher and bowler
Sam Franklin, the love interest of Brady family maid Alice
Nelson, who was played by Ann B. Davis. Melvin played the role
from 1970 to 1973. more....
British actress Pat
Kirkwood, star of stage and screen, has died aged of 86 (26 December 2007)
Pat Kirkwood's career spanned more than six decades and she
played the lead roles in the West End shows of Noel Coward, Cole
Porter and Leonard Bernstein. After appearing in a talent contest
on the Isle of Man she was invited to an audition with the BBC in
Manchester She made her professional debut, aged 14, as a singer
on the BBC radio programme The Children's Hour.
A year later, in April 1936, she made her first stage appearance
at the Royal Hippodrome, Salford, billed as The Schoolgirl
Songstress.
The following year she starred in her debut film - Save a Little
Sunshine.
After the success of the revue Black Velvet at the London
Hippodrome in 1939 she was hailed as "Britain's first
wartime star".
She became the first female to have her own television series
with The Pat Kirkwood Show in 1954 and also appeared in various
TV plays. In Our Marie (1953) she played the music hall star
Marie Lloyd; she also appeared in Pygmalion (1956) and The Great
Little Tilley (1956) as another music hall star, Vesta Tilley,
which was directed by Hubert Gregg and subsequently became the
film After The Ball (1957). In 1953, she was reunited with George
Formby on the panel of What's My Line but was seen on screen
feeding Formby questions to ask the contestants. more....
Anton Rogers, stage and
screen actor, has died aged 74 (3
December 2007)
Anton Rogers was a member of the helicopter crew that provided
the focus for the BBC comedy series The Sky Larks (1958). During
the 1960s and early 1970s Rodgers secured fairly regular
employment as a guest star in Lew Grade's contemporary thriller
series, including Danger Man (1964-65), The Saint (1967) and The
Champions (1968).
He was a Scotland Yard detective who teams up with astrologer
Anoushka Hempel in the light-hearted series Zodiac (1974),
another policeman in the comic mystery series Murder Most English
(1977), Lillie Langry's weak-willed spouse who has to turn a
blind eye while she conducts an affair with the Prince of Wales,
in Lillie (1978) and a country practice vet in Noah's Ark (1997).
Few of his TV series attained the status of true classics, though
Fresh Fields and May to December scored well in the ratings.
Fresh Fields was sufficiently popular for Thames Television to
reunite Rodgers and Julia McKenzie in their old roles of William
and Hester Fields, in a new setting, in French Fields (1989-91) more....
Verity Lambert, the
television and film producer, has died aged 71 (24 November 2007)
In 1956 she landed her first job in television, as a £7-a-week
secretary in Granada's press office. Sacked after six months, she
moved to ABC Television where she became production assistant to
the drama director Ted Kotcheff and worked on the production of
the Armchair Theatre series, overseen by the company's new head
of drama, Sydney Newman.
As production assistant in a "live" gallery, Lambert
had to take over as studio director in November 1958 when one of
the actors died on the set of the play Underground, just before a
scene in which he was supposed to appear. Meanwhile Kotcheff used
a commercial break to reorganise the cast and cover the loss.
At the age of 28, she became the youngest producer at the BBC and
the drama department's only woman producer when Doctor Who began
the day after President Kennedy was assassinated in November
1963.
After 18 months Lambert moved on to produce the first eight
episodes of the twice-weekly serial The Newcomers (1965-69),
about a London family adapting to life in a small East Anglian
town, and then supervised production on Adam Adamant Lives!
(1966-67). more....
Frank Cox, versatile
artist who, with his brother, was a stalwart of the variety
scene, has died aged 86 (22 November 2007)
Frank Cox was the identical
twin of Fred Cox who, as the Cox Twins, were one of British
variety's most enduring acts. Stalwarts of the RAF gang shows
during the Second World War, they played four instruments, sang,
tap-danced and performed acrobatics.
After the war and until their retirement in 2000 they were
regulars at the London Palladium, notably supporting Johnny Ray,
starred in summer seasons and pantomimes and made several films,
including the 1972 version of Alice in Wonderland with Peter
Sellers, in which they appeared as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
The twins had irresistible, ebullient personalities. Sporting
huge black frizzy hairstyles, they wore brightly coloured garish
suits (complete with red or yellow socks) and were liable to
burst into song at the drop of a hat. They were virtually
impossible to tell apart and in conversation one twin would start
a sentence while the other would finish it. In the 1960s they
complicated matters further by getting married on the same day to
the variety artistes Estelle and Pauline Miles, who were also
identical twins. more....
Moira Lister, actress who
excelled in sparkling comedy roles ranging from Shakespeare to
the moderns, has died aged 84 (29 October 2007)
As an actress, Moira Lister was once compared to the American
comedienne Lucille Ball, because of her way of turning glamorous
women into witty commentators on life. Whether it was in a play,
musical, film or television drama or even as a guest on such TV
shows as What's My Line?, Call My Bluff and Life Begins at Forty,
she stood apart with her slim figure, bright blue eyes and
delicate, upper-class voice. She was an accomplished actress
whose regal bearing found her often cast in patrician roles,
though she also had a splendid sense of humour and a versatility
that ranged from acclaimed performances in Shakespearean tragedy
to her award-winning display of farcical expertise in Move Over,
Mrs Markham.
In 1954, Moira first teamed up with Tony Hancock in the second
series of "Star Bill". She was brought into "Star
Bill" to replace Hancock's previous lady foil of the first
series, Geraldine McEwan. With considerable film experience
behind her, Moira's strong personality proved her to be an ideal
match for Hancock.
Her distinctive, husky voice made Lister a radio stalwart in such
series as Simon and Laura and A Life of Bliss, and in South
Africa her radio roles included the leading parts in Rain, The
Deep Blue Sea (she had earlier played a supporting role in the
film version) and The Millionairess. On television, she was a
sparkling critic of record releases in Juke Box Jury, and she was
a guest on such shows as Danger Man, Call My Bluff and The
Avengers.
For three years, 1967-69, she starred in her own series, A Very
Merry Widow. In 1971 she was the subject of This Is Your Life,
and her autobiography, A Very Merry Moira, was published in 1969.
more....
Deborah Kerr, star of From
Here To Eternity, has died aged 86 (19 October 2007)
Deborah Kerr was the unfadingly ladylike and prototypical English
rose whose red-haired, angular beauty and self-possessed
femininity distinguished more than 50 films in four decades of
cinema. She made serenity dramatic; and though her poise might be
ruffled at critical moments in scenes of passion (most famously
exemplified by her encounter on the beach with Burt Lancaster in
From Here to Eternity in 1953), her well-bred airs and social
graces made her a model of British womanhood in Hollywood. Her
best-known film was probably The King and I, in which she played
a haughty governess opposite Yul Brynner's Siamese monarch; and
her principal problem as an accomplished actress was to convince
Hollywood of her sensual potential. Although she herself was a
more spirited, relaxed and informal person than her image on the
screen suggested, producers were reluctant to cast her in
passionate roles. more....
Loss-making Sooty up for
sale after losing his magic (5 October 2007)
Sooty is going on sale. TV
rights to the mischevious puppet bear, who never speaks, are
being sold by his owners Hit Entertainment. The puppet, famous
for his magic tricks and water pistol, has been on British TV
since the Fifties, alongside his friends Sweep the squeaky dog
and Soo the panda. Hit Entertainment, which also produces Bob the
Builder, Pingu and Thomas the Tank Engine, is said to have lost
money after buying it in 1996 for £1.4 million from presenter
Matthew Corbett. A new series of Sooty was cancelled by ITV last
year. more....
Marcel Marceau, who
revived the art of mime and brought poetry to silence, has died
aged 84 (23 September 2007)
Wearing white face paint, soft shoes and a battered hat topped
with a red flower, Marceau played the entire range of human
emotions onstage for more than 50 years, never uttering a word.
Offstage, however, he was famously chatty. "Never get a mime
talking. He won't stop," he once said. A French Jew, Marceau
survived the Holocaust and also worked with the French Resistance
to protect Jewish children. His biggest inspiration was Charlie
Chaplin. Marceau, in turn, inspired countless young performers.
Michael Jackson borrowed his famous "moonwalk" from a
Marceau sketch, "Walking Against the Wind."
In 1949 Marceau's newly formed mime troupe was the only one of
its kind in Europe. But it was only after a hugely successful
tour across the United States in the mid-1950s that Marceau
received the acclaim that would make him an international star.
Marceau performed tirelessly around the world until late in life,
never losing his agility, never going out of style. In one of his
most poignant and philosophical acts, "Youth, Maturity, Old
Age, Death," he wordlessly showed the passing of an entire
life in just minutes. more....
Peter Graham Scott, award
winning film and TV producer and director, has died aged 83 (11 August 2007)
Scott was the producer behind many classic television series of
the 1960s and 1970s including The Avengers, The Prisoner, The
Troubleshooters and The Onedin Line; he was also a talented
director in television and films.
An energetic perfectionist, Scott was one of the pioneers of
television drama, joining the BBC as a trainee after the war
before moving to ITV when it launched in 1955. Scott had cut his
teeth with Associated-Rediffusion during ITV's early years,
directing, in Battle of Britain Week 1956, an acclaimed live
production of Richard Hillary's Second World War classic The Last
Enemy.
Scott secured, for cash, the television rights to The Quare
Fellow after an evening's heavy drinking with Brendan Behan in a
London pub; it was broadcast live in November 1958, one of many
plays Scott produced and directed during what he considered
"the best years of ITV".
Scott had begun his career as a film editor on Brighton Rock
(1947), starring Richard Attenborough, and later worked on other
films such as The Perfect Woman and Landfall (both 1949), Shadow
Of The Eagle (1950), The Small Miracle (1951) and River Beat
(1954). As a writer, Scott scripted Sing Along With Me (1952),
which he also directed, The Big Chance (1957) and, in 1979, the
ITV serial Kidnapped, which he also produced. His producing
credits also included The Citadel (1960), The Curse Of King
Tutenkhamun's Tomb (1980), Arch Of Triumph and Jenny's War (both
1985). more....
Peter Tuddenham, actor,
has died aged 88 (9 August 2007)
Peter Tuddenham's earliest television appearances included parts
in Clara, The Maid of Durham: Or Home Sweet Home (1955) and the
BBC's "Musical Playhouse" Ivor Novello productions The
Dancing Years (as Franzel, 1959) and Perchance To Dream (as Lord
Failsham, 1959). He also had several roles in soap opera, on
radio in Mrs Dale's Diary (as Dr Mitchell, who famously once sat
on Mrs Freeman's cat) and Waggoners' Walk, and as George Banham
in ITV's East Anglian vets serial Weavers Green (1966).
On television, Tuddenham was a regular as the pub landlord in
Backs to the Land (1977-78) and as William in Double First
(1988). He also guest-starred as priests in the sitcom Nearest
and Dearest (1968) and the P.D. James thriller A Mind To Murder
(1995), and played doctors in Quiller (1975), The Lost Boys
(1978) and Nanny (1981, 1982) and an auctioneer in Lovejoy
(1986).
At the age of 60, after spending more than half his adult life as
an actor, Peter Tuddenham became most familiar to television
viewers as the voices of three computers in the cult
science-fiction serial Blakes 7. more....
Phil Drabble, 'One Man and
His Dog' presenter, has died aged 93 (1 August 2007)
A countryman through and through, the writer and naturalist Phil
Drabble shared his love of nature and rural ways in dozens of
books but, most famously, as the original presenter of One Man
and His Dog, which provided the spectacle of working sheepdogs
demonstrating their skills at rounding up flocks in lush, green
fields and meadows, moving them around fences, gates and
enclosures while following their handlers' whistles and commands.
He had made his radio début with a feature on the Black
Country's bull-rings and bull-stakes for the BBC Midland Region
in 1947. He continued to make contributions for the next 13
years, especially to the rural programme Countrylover, before
presenting its successors, Countryside and In the Country,
himself.
Drabble's television baptism came in 1952, when he was invited to
show off his tame badger for a live broadcast and he was soon in
demand for children's programmes. Then, in 1961, he left his day
job to pursue writing and broadcasting full time and, three years
later, began a weekly column in the Birmingham Evening Mail that
ran until 1990.
One Man and His Dog, screened on BBC2, brought him national fame,
as well as more television work, beginning with the rural
magazine programme Country Game (1976-79), presented by Julian
Pettifer, then Angela Rippon, with Drabble as a contributor. more....
BBC to open up archive for
trial (19
April 2007)
The BBC is to open up its vast archive of video and audio in an
on-demand trial involving more than 20,000 people in the UK.
Full-length programmes, as well as scripts and notes, will be
available for download from the BBC's website.
The pilot is part of the BBC's plans to eventually offer more
than a million hours of TV and radio from its archive.
He said the corporation's end ambition was "one day enabling
any viewer to access any BBC programme ever broadcast via their
television", and highlighted the need to bridge the divide
between TV and content with online connections.
The archive trial will make available 1,000 hours of content
drawn from a mix of genres to a closed number of people. About 50
hours - of both TV and radio programmes - will be available in an
open environment for general access. more....
Terry Hall, ventriloquist,
has died aged 80 (11 April 2007)
Terry Hall entertained the baby-boom generation as the creator
and sidekick of Lenny the Lion. Traditionally, these sidekicks
had been boy puppets, such as Arthur Worsley with Charlie Brown
and Peter Brough with Archie Andrews, but Hall took advantage of
the booming television medium in the 1950s to tweak the format.
Making their BBC debut in 1956 alongside Eric Syke, Hall and
Lenny were an instant hit with children, who were captivated by
the idea of a talking lion that was, by turns, cowardly, bashful
and generally unleonine, and whose catchphrase - "Aw, don't
embawass me!" - became one of the best-known on the air.
Hall was invited to guest-star on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show
in the United States (1958) and returned home to take his puppet
to two more popular programmes, Lenny's Den (1959-61) and Pops
and Lenny (1962-63).
The Beatles made one of their earliest television appearances in
a May 1963 episode of Pops and Lenny, singing their first No 1
single, "From Me To You", and "Please Please
Me", as well as joining Hall and his puppet for a song
titled "After You've Gone".
The pair remained popular in summer seasons and pantomimes on
stage and as guest stars in television variety programmes
including Big Night Out (1965), David Nixon's Comedy Bandbox
(1966) and The Blackpool Show (1966). more....
George Sewell, the actor,
has died aged 82 (5 April 2007)
George Sewell had one of the best-known faces in Britain, thanks
to dozens of appearances on television and in films. With his
sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks, Sewell was as at
home playing shady villains as he was in police and thriller
roles, which dated from the early 1960s, when he appeared in
series such as Z-Cars, to the 1990s comedy The Detectives.
He appeared as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Craven in 25
episodes of Special Branch, a 1970s television drama series made
by Euston Films in which he was cast opposite Patrick Mower as
Haggerty. At the height of his Special Branch fame, his
appearance on This Is Your Life topped the television ratings in
December 1973. more....
Ivor Emmanuel, welsh actor
and Singer, has died aged 80 (23 July 2007)
Ivor Emmanuel was renowned for his rendition of Welsh song Men of
Harlech in the classic film Zulu.
He was born in 1927, in Pontrhydyfen, near Port Talbot, the same
village as fellow actor Richard Burton.
The Hollywood star helped give him his theatrical break, and he
became a popular TV name in the 1950s.
He will probably be best remembered for 1964's Zulu, showing the
British Army, many of them Welsh, defying an attack at Rorke's
Drift in South Africa. Roles on Broadway followed and he made
guest appearances on shows such as Morecombe and Wise and Benny
Hill. leading role in the Welsh language music programme Gwlad y
Gan (Land of Song) in the late 1950s helped give him a large
following. more....
Frank Maher, Film and TV
stuntman, has died aged 78 (20 July 2007)
As a stunt performer and co-ordinator in swashbuckling feature
films and 1960s television adventure series, Frank Maher made his
career out of being other people - notably "doubling"
for Errol Flynn and Burt Lancaster in the cinema and Patrick
McGoohan and Roger Moore on the small screen. His move into
television came with The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-59), one
of ITV's early adventure series, based on the folk legend, filmed
at Nettlefold Studios, Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey, and starring
Richard Greene in the title role. The programme was made by
technicians who had a background in the film industry, so it was
natural that some of those who had worked with them would be
given a chance in the burgeoning new medium. All the fight
sequences were carefully planned and written down before they
were shot and the close-in, one-on-one sword fights were
recreated, with weapons copied from those of the time preserved
in museums.
Maher subsequently acted and did stunt work in programmes such as
Man in a Suitcase (1968), The Champions (1969), Randall and
Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969), The Persuaders! (with Roger Moore
again, 1971) and Space 1999 (1976), before working as stunt
co-ordinator on the first two series (1978-79) of the
science-fiction serial Blakes 7, created by Terry Nation, who
invented the Daleks in Doctor Who. Maher also did some work on
the cult heist film The Italian Job (starring Michael Caine,
1969) after a stunt company was fired during shooting. more....
George Melly the jazz
singer, author and raconteur has died aged 80 (5 June 2007)
Melly leched, drank and blasphemed his way around the clubs and
pubs of the British Isles and provided pleasure to the public for
five decades. His involvement in jazz was born out of a romantic
nostalgia for a golden age of brothel music. Appearing in the
1950s with Mick Mulligan’s Magnolia band and later for
nearly three decades with John Chilton’s Feetwarmers,
"Good time George" followed a well-established routine
of singing numbers from the 1920s (his foremost influences being
Bessie Smith, Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton) interspersed
with camp asides and bawdy anecdotes. more....
Alan Chivers, one of BBC
television’s leading outside broadcast producers has died
aged 89 (5 June 2007)
Chivers was responsible for events from the Queen’s
Coronation in 1953 to the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980. During
the 1966 World Cup in England he was the executive producer of
the BBC/ITV consortium responsible for the TV coverage. By 1948
he was involved in the early TV outside broadcasts, first at
Alexandra Palace and then at Wembley, in the years when new
standards of programming, engineering and invention were set.
There was a brief flirtation with ITV in 1959 when he helped to
launch World of Sport, ITV’s answer to the BBC’s
Grandstand, but he returned to the BBC in 1962, as a producer,
then a senior producer and, for an unhappy spell, as head of
events. more....
Gordon Scott, Tarzan
actor, has died aged 79 (9 May 2007)
Gordon Scott played a string
of classic heroes in the 1950s and 1960s including Samson,
Hercules, Goliath, Zorro and Buffalo Bill in films where the
heroes relied largely on their own strength and agility, rather
than superpowers or an arsenal of military hardware. But for many
who grew up in the 1950s Scott's defining role was as Tarzan.
His physique enabled him to play the role of Tarzan in six films
between 1955 and 1960. His Tarzan was a barrel-chested, very
physical, slightly dim manifestation, though the earlier films
still managed to present him as a jungle version on the average
suburban American of the time, with wife Jane, son Boy and family
pet Cheeta. more....
Dick Vosburgh, comedy
writer, lyricist, broadcaster and film buff, has died aged 78 (21 April 2007)
Dick Vosburgh was an immensely talented writer, broadcaster and
lyricist who provided material for virtually every leading comic
performer in the UK, plus such American superstars as Bob Hope,
Dean Martin, Carol Channing and Peggy Lee. Vosburgh's quick wit
and invention put him much in demand as a gag writer, and stars
for whom he provided sitcoms and sketches included Stanley
Baxter, Frankie Howerd, Bob Monkhouse, John Cleese, Ronnie
Corbett, Lenny Henry and Roy Hudd. He contributed to film scripts
for Frankie Howerd (Up Pompeii and Up the Chastity Belt) and Bob
Hope (Call Me Bwana), as well as Carry On Nurse.
In 1953 he wrote his first radio show, Breakfast with Braden,
starring the Canadian humorist Bernard Braden.
From writing for radio programmes, including over 50 editions of
The Show Band Show, he moved into television, and his credits
over the following decades would fill several pages. They
included Alfred Marks Time (1956), Bresslaw and Friends (1961),
The Stanley Baxter Show (1963) and Frost Over Europe (1967),
starring David Frost, which won the Golden Rose at Montreux. more....
Dame Vera
Lynn celebrates 90th Birthday (20
March 2007)
Lords and ladies turned out to
pay their respects to Britain's Forces' Sweetheart Dame Vera
Lynn, who has just celebrated her 90th birthday. The House of
Lords hosted a special party sponsored by the Royal British
Legion in the first of half-a-dozen parties for a woman whose
singing inspired the nation during the darkest days of war.
As one of the guests told her: "You put a smile on
everybody's face, even in those terrible times. Our wireless was
always on."
A sprightly Dame Vera, who said she felt like she was aged 60,
was in chatty mood as she mingled with her friends. Even now she
is engaged in charity work for many causes, not simply those
involving ex-servicemen.
She said: "I don't know where the years have gone. It is
amazing what you can do for others. It is up to everybody to
utilise whatever talents they have to use to help others inasmuch
as they can. I hope I have spent my life well. I tried to do what
I could to help others." more....
Betty Hutton,
the original "Blonde Bombshell" has died aged 86 (14 March 2007)
She was once described as
"the noisiest girl in Hollywood". The actress and
singer made her name in the 1940s in a series of hectic musical
comedies, including The Fleet's In and The Miracle of Morgan's
Creek, but was probably best remembered for her starring role in
Annie Get Your Gun in 1940 in which she starred opposite Howard
Keel.
She followed it later that year with Let's Dance, in which she
starred opposite Fred Astaire. It flopped.
In 1948 Betty Hutton visited Britain for the premiere of her film
Dream Girl. When she appeared at the London Palladium, critics
described her as "a big strong, lively girl, always eager to
please" but complained that her voice was so loud "she
deafened the first two rows of the auditorium".
In 1952, after learning a trapeze act for her performance in
Cecil B De Mille's Greatest Show On Earth, Betty Hutton left
Paramount Studios and returned to The London Palladium. Hutton's
show remained essentially the same although, having learned the
trapeze, she now included some aerial acrobatics in her act.
more....
Ray Evans,
the Oscar-winning lyricist, has died aged 92 (23 February 2007)
Ray Evans wrote the words to
such familiar songs as Que Sera, Sera - which was a hit for Doris
Day - and Mona Lisa, which was very nearly not a hit for Nat
"King" Cole.
With his songwriting partner Jay Livingston, Evans wrote Mona
Lisa in 1950 for an Alan Ladd film called Captain Carey, USA; the
planned title for the song - Prima Donna - was changed at the
suggestion of Evans's wife, who preferred Mona Lisa.
They won their first Oscar for best song with Buttons And Bows,
from the comedy Western 'The Paleface' (1948); the jaunty number
was introduced by Bob Hope who, as the cowardly dentist
"Painless" Peter Potter, sang it to Jane Russell; later
Dinah Shore had a hit with it.
In later years Evans and Livingston wrote theme music for
long-running television series, including Bonanza and Mr Ed. Jay
Livingston died in 2001.more....
Derek Waring,
actor, has died aged 79 (23 February 2007)
Derek Waring was born Derek
Barton Chapple in Mill Hill, north London, in 1927, the son of
Wing Cdr Harry Barton Chapple, an electrical engineer who
assisted John Logie Baird in his early television experiments.
(Derek's elder brother, Richard, went on to become a sitcom
writer and BBC script editor, under the name Richard Waring.)
On television, Waring appeared in episodes of early ITV series
such as The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1957), The Adventures of
Robin Hood (1957, 1958), Ivanhoe (1958), William Tell (1959) and
No Hiding Place (1959), and was even seen modelling men's spring
fashions in Flair, a 1959 advertising magazine - a type of
programming finally banned three years later. He was marrried to
Dame Dorothy Tutin. more....
BFI archives
to be free to public (23 February 2007)
Items from the BFI archive will be made available free of charge
Britain's national film and television archive is to be opened up
in order for it to be accessed by the public.
Visitors to the British Film Institute (BFI), which is in London,
will be able to choose items from the collection and watch them
free of charge.
Items range from footage of the Queen's coronation to early
scenes from long-running soap Coronation Street more....
The original
Mr. Turnip is coming up for auction! (9 February 2007)
On March 15th 2007 Vectis Auctions - the world's largest toy
auctioneer - will be auctioning the Joy Laurey Collection
including the original Mr Turnip puppet prop together with
associated ephemera including several lots relating to Twizzle.
Including the Gerry Anderson and Joy Laurey original A.P.Films
hand written signed contract, 1957, plus other agreements between
A.P Films and the Laurey Puppet Company detailing the contract
concerning the making of Twizzle.
Also original film scripts by Mary Lee, hand coloured photostats
from the books by Roberta Leigh, finely painted in gonache, used
by Joy Laurey to create puppet personas for the TV series,
christmas cards, post cards - many signed, original BBC TV
Whirligig scripts, photographs, scrapbooks etc.Vectis website
Frankie
Laine, singer, has died aged 93 (8
February 2007)
Frankie Laine was the most successful of the black-influenced
white singers who came to prominence in the post-war era belting
out blues in American nightclubs; he became one of the country's
biggest stars, with a string of more than 70 hits and
international sales of more than 250 million.
Laine's soulful, masculine style and highly emotional delivery
dealt a blow to the gentler crooning styles of the day and paved
the way for later blues and rock and roll artists such as Johnnie
Ray and Elvis Presley.
From the 1950s Laine enjoyed a second career recording versions
of the title songs of Hollywood and television Westerns such as
Gunfight At OK Corral; 3:10 To Yuma; Bullwhip; Champion the
Wonder Horse and Rawhide. more....
Les Henry,
Harmonica player and comedian who contributed 'Cedric' to the
Three Monarchs' has died aged 86. (26
January 2007)
Les Henry was “Cedric”, the lugubrious comic turn in
the Three Monarchs, the hugely popular harmonica-playing trio who
topped variety bills in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s.
The trio was founded in 1946, with the musicians Eric York and
Jimmy Prescott, and as it gained fame in clubs and on radio in
The Forces Show, Henry developed the character of
“Cedric”. His shuffle, tiny black beard, brilliant
timing and squeaky voice turned them into a top-rating variety
act. They appeared more times than any other musical act at the
London Palladium, starred in revue and cabaret in London, Las
Vegas and South Africa, and notched up several Royal Variety
performances. In the 1960s they were an almost permanent fixture
with the Black and White Minstrel Show. It was Henry who
christened the trio the Three Monarchs — billed in variety
as “Kings of Harmonica”. Initially the act was purely
musical but the character of Cedric became so popular that extra
comic routines were added. As well as the harmonica the Monarchs
also played trumpet, drums, piano, guitar and saxophone. more....
End of an era
for iconic sports show
(26 January
2007)
Legendary BBC sports show Grandstand will end on Sunday 28th
January after 48 years of broadcasting. Grandstand first appeared
on 11 October 1958 on Saturday afternoon, with the remit "to
feature sports and events as they happen, where they
happen". It went head-to-head with ITV rival World of Sport,
presented by Dickie Davies, but viewers preferred tuning in to
the BBC on a Saturday. Past presenters included Peter Dimmock,
David Coleman, Frank Bough, Cliff Morgan, Des Lynam, Tony Gubba
and Steve Rider. more....
Barbara
Kelly, television personality, has died aged 82 (16 January 2007)
Barbara Kelly was one of showbusiness's brightest personalities
in the 1950s, often appearing with her husband, Bernard Braden;
she was probably best known for her appearances on the panel show
What's My Line? Barbara Kelly was in regular demand in radio
dramas and scored a hit in Male Animal in the West End, but soon
joined her husband on the radio variety show Breakfast with
Braden, which was so popular that in 1950 it was moved to a later
slot and renamed Bedtime with Braden.
They made their television debut on An Evening at Home With
Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly in 1951 but, though popular, it
ran for only one series.
In 1953 she joined What's My Line?, which featured Eamonn Andrews
as the chairman, and David Nixon, Gilbert Harding and Isobel
Barnett as the other contestants attempting to guess the
occupations of members of the public.
Her other television work included Kelly's Eye, Criss Cross Quiz
and Leave Your Name and Number as well as the sitcom B and B in
1968, where she again teamed up with her husband, and in which
their younger daughter Kim also appeared. more....
Yvonne De
Carlo, film star of the 1940s and 1950s, has died aged 84 (12 January 2007)
In the 1940s and early 1950s Yvonne De Carlo was Hollywood’s
favourite Arabian Nights heroine, a dark-haired beauty waiting
for a handsome leading man to loosen her chains. If her function
was to look decorative, rather than to stretch herself as an
actress, she carried it off with style.
But despite efforts to broaden her range she became typecast in
exotic roles and when these were no longer in demand, her career
floundered. Ironically, it was with another exotic character,
Lily in The Munsters, that she won a new following from a
generation who barely remembered her films.
In the 1950s she made two films in Britain: Hotel Sahara, where
she starred opposite Peter Ustinov, and The Captain’s
Paradise, in which she played Alec Guinness’s wife,
revealing a talent for comedy she was seldom able to display
elsewhere. In 1956 she was back in costume playing Sephora, wife
of Charlton Heston’s Moses, in Cecil B. de Mille’s The
Ten Commandments, and was a mulatto girl sold as a slave in
19thcentury Kentucky in Band of Angels, with Clark Gable.
But on television she had a big hit as the 156-year-old
Dracula-inspired Lily Munster opposite Fred Gwynne’s Herman
in the spoof horror series, The Munsters, which ran for two years
in the mid-1960s. She also appeared in several
made-for-television films. more....
Lila
Prentice, variety artiste, has died aged 98 (7 January 2007)
Lila Prentice was one half of
the rope-spinning, whip-cracking variety act El Granadas, which
played halls, theatres and miners' galas from the 1920s until the
1970s; they took part in the Royal Command Performance in 1946 at
the Palladium, an evening that included performances by Arthur
Askey, Sid Field, Tessie O'Shea and Terry Thomas.
Lila's partner was Cecil Prentice, a variety artist whom she
first met on stage in pantomime in Derby in 1928. He was a
stepbrother of Kay Smart, of Billy Smart's Circus.
Their stage act featured fancy rope-spinning, stock-whips,
unicycling, lassooing and baton-swinging.
There were numerous memorable occasions. Once Danny Kaye tried to
ride Peter's unicycle and promptly fell off; they appeared on
Blue Peter in its early days, and with Judy Garland at the London
Palladium in 1947 in a variety show that also featured Max
Bygraves, Dina Shaw and the Debonairs. more....
Slapstick
comic Charlie Drake dies at 81 (24 December 2006)
Actor and comic Charlie Drake will be best remembered for his
slapstick comedy and his catchphrase "Hallo, my
darlings!" He also enjoyed late success in straight theatre.
From being the uneducated son of a south London newspaper seller,
Charlie Drake went on to become to a multi-millionaire
entertainer and one of Britain's best-loved comedians. After
serving in the RAF in World War II, Drake turned professional,
becoming a noted knockabout comedian, and made his first
television appearance in the mid-1950s.
He was in the slapstick children's show Mick and Montmorency and
then several of his own shows, including The Worker.
Before long, Charlie Drake was one of television's most popular
stars. His catchphrase, "Hallo, my darlings," delivered
in his trademark high-pitched voice, was soon to be heard around
the country. Gradually the money started rolling in. Drake was
starring in films, back-to-back television series, appearing in
pantomimes and summer seasons around the country and regularly
topping the bill at the London Palladium.
At the 1968 Montreux festival his TV show, The World of Charlie
Drake, won the Charlie Chaplin award as the funniest show. The
programme included a comic sequence in which he played numerous
parts in a comic version of the 1812 Overture. Charlie Drake also
made a number of film comedies in the 1960s, most notably Sands
of the Desert, Petticoat Pirates and The Cracksman.
The 1980s saw Charlie turn to straight acting, with some success.
He was a perfectionist. He wrote many of his own scripts, and
would rehearse again and again until he'd got what he wanted.
And, on more than one occasion, he was injured during a slapstick
routine. When, in 1961, when he was knocked unconscious during a
television sketch, 2,000 people telephoned to see if he was all
right. more....
Joseph
Barbera, animation producer has died aged 95 (20 December 2006)
Barbera was, with his partner William Hanna, the only rival to
Walt Disney in the art of making animated cartoons; his creations
included Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, Scooby Doo and Yogi
Bear. They began their association at MGM's fledgling animation
unit in 1937. Hanna's precise comic timing and technical skills
were the ideal complement to Barbera's genius as a storyboard
artist and animator.
In 1957 Hanna and Barbera were told by MGM to disband their unit.
Instead the pair resigned and set up their own company (H-B
Enterprises, soon changed to Hanna-Barbera Productions) to make
cartoons specifically for television. In order to do this
successfully, they had to cut corners by developing ways of
creating animated pictures more quickly and cheaply, using less
detail and movement, more stock footage, and fewer drawings
– 300 for a minute of film rather than the 1,000 they
produced for MGM.
Hanna-Barbera's first offering for television was Ruff and Reddy,
a tale of a cat and a dog, but they made their fortune in 1958
with the first-ever animated children's television series, The
Huckleberry Hound Show. Its mildly satirical tone attracted
adults as well as children and the series was so successful that
one of its regular characters, Yogi Bear, was soon given his own
show. more....
Ronnie
Stevens, actor, has died aged 81 (15
November 2006)
Ronnie Stevens possessed the sort of lantern jaw and mobile
features that lend themselves to comedy, and enjoyed a versatile
and prolific career on television, in films and on the West End
stage. After making his film debut in Scarlet Web (1954) and his
television debut in Dick and the Duchess (1957), an American
sit-com set in London, he continued to take character roles on
television and in films into the 1990s.
His first appearances were in intimate revue, and he performed
frequently in Peter Myers shows in the West End alongside Joan
Sims, who became a life-long friend. He went on to play comic
character roles in some 40 films, including I'm All Right Jack
(1958, with Peter Sellers), Dentist in the Chair (1960, with Bob
Monkhouse) and Carry On Cruising (1962). In the 1970s and 1980s
he was a leading member of the Prospect Theatre Company, playing
the Fool in King Lear (1972) and Sir Nathaniel in Love's Labour's
Lost (1984). He was also a founder member, with Ian McKellen, of
the Actors' Company. On television he appeared in numerous drama
and comedy series, including The Goodies, Hi-di-Hi!, Yes, Prime
Minister, Goodnight Sweetheart, Rumpole of the Bailey and Hetty
Wainthropp Investigates. more....
Diana
Coupland, singer and actress, has died aged 74 (11 November 2006)
She began her career at the age of 11 when the BBC producer
Barney Colehan heard her sing and gave her a spot on one of his
radio shows.
By the time she was 14 she was singing full-time at the Mecca
Locarno in Leeds, and a year later moved with her parents to
London, where Mecca gave her a job as resident singer at their
ballroom in Tottenham Court Road.
During the 1940s she worked with many big name bands, including
those of Teddy Foster, Geraldo, Cyril Stapleton and Stanley
Black.
She established herself as one of the leading singers of the day,
with seasons at the Dorchester and Savoy hotels and bookings at
London's leading nightclubs. These led to appearances on BBC
Television: Diana Coupland starred in the series Hit Parade, and
continued to sing professionally until the 1960s.
But her career took an unexpected turn when Joan Littlewood cast
her as Sally in Wolf Mankowitz's musical Make Me An Offer (1959).
more....
Nigel Kneale,
Creator of Quatermass, has died aged 84 (2 November 2006)
During the 1950s and 1960s, the writer Nigel Kneale bestrode the
world of British television like a colossus. At a time when the
wildest science fiction, in books, magazines and on the big
screen, seemed in imminent danger of becoming scientific fact,
Kneale's clever and terrifying imaginings became obligatory
viewing for a TV audience which had only just recovered from the
shock of watching the Coronation.
Kneale wrote many television plays and serials, as well as film
scripts, including the ground-breaking and highly controversial
small-screen version of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four
(1954).
Kneale's greatest achievement as a melder of science fiction and
horror was undoubtedly Quatermass and the Pit, which kept people
out of the pubs while it was running. He cheerfully threw aliens
from Mars, pagan rituals, the "Horned God" and race
memory into the mix and scored a huge popular success. more....
William
Franklyn, suave TV and Film actor, has died aged 81 (31 October 2006)
William Franklyn, was probably best-remembered as the voice of
the "Schhh... You Know Who" Schweppes adverts. He did
his first TV work at Alexandra Palace in 1952 as the villain in a
John Slater serial before going to the Theatre Royal, Windsor.
From there his TV, film, and the theatre career blossomed. It was
during the 1960s that Franklyn landed the role in the adverts for
Schweppes tonic. During the '50s he appeared in episodes of Dick
and the Duchess, Quatermass II, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot,
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Presents, The Count of Monte Cristo and The
Scarlet Pimpernel amongst others. more....
ITC at the
NFT
On Saturday 4th. November 2006, the National Film Theatre in
London will be celebrating the release of Robert Sellers' new
book on ITC with two events looking back at Lew Grade's
groundbreaking company.
At 4pm Richard Holliss will interview Gerry Anderson on stage
about his career with particular reference to his work at ITC
(illustrated with clips). This will be followed at 6.30pm by
Robert Sellers' 'Gallop Through the Archives', an illustrated
look at the cult history of ITC with lots of clips and
contributions from those that worked both sides of the screen for
ITC. There are still (a few) tickets available for each event or
reduced priced joint tickets are also available. Further details
here http://www.bfi.org.uk/incinemas/nft/film/6935
Actress
Phyllis Kirk, famous for her role as the damsel in distress in
the 1953 3-D horror classic "House of Wax," has died at
age 79
(27 October 2006)
Phyllis Kirk is best known for her many television and film roles
throughout the 1950s. She appeared with Vincent Price in the 3-D
horror film House of Wax in 1953. Her most notable television
role was opposite Peter Lawford in The Thin Man (1957-1959),
where they played Nick and Nora Charles. She also appeared with
Jerry Lewis in his 1957 film The Sad Sack, with Robert Ryan,
Anita Ekberg, and Rod Steiger in the 1956 film Back from
Eternity. Kirk was also a regular on The Red Buttons Show. Kirk
appeared as a guest on some television programs, including an
episode of The Twilight Zone, and was a panelist on Mantrap in
1971.
Kirk then returned to the stage before leaving show business
altogether to enter public relations, working as a publicist for
CBS News, retiring in 1992. more....
Peter
Barkworth, actor who brought great subtlety to stage and screen
roles, has died aged 77 (26
October 2006)
Throughout his most fruitful decades — the late 1950s
through to the 1980s — he became one of the small
screen’s busiest actors, starring in a wide variety of
productions from the title role in the BBC’s Czar Nicholas
II, to playing the sleuth in Francis Durbridge’s The
Passenger.
When not before the cameras he was on stage, where he frequently
earned critical approval. In one memorable West End success early
in his career he played Bernard Taggart-Stewart in Roar Like a
Dove at the Phoenix Theatre (1957). It ran for more than 1,000
performances. Fifteen years later he was celebrated for his
uncannily accurate portrayal of Edward VIII in Crown Matrimonial
at the Haymarket, a role he was to repeat on television.
His stage reputation began building in the early 1950s in spite
of being roundly booed in his West End debut, in A Woman of No
Importance. An early success in 1956 was at the Lyric Theatre
where he played Captain Christopher Mortlock in South Sea Bubble
which came just before his Roar Like a Dove triumph.
Early television included appearances in the pioneer medical soap
opera Emergency Ward Ten. His first recurring character was in
the popular 1960s drama series The Power Game in which he was
cast as Bligh, a business executive with a drink problem. A
modest drinker himself, Barkworth got into the part by going home
and getting drunk several nights running. He discovered that far
from merely becoming slurred and unsteady in speech, drunks
“achieve moments of great clarity”. more....
Jane Wyatt,
actress, has died aged 96 (26 October 2006)
Jane Wyatt was a noted actress
on Broadway but became best known for her work in films and on
television.
Usually cast as what she described as the "good wives of
good men", she appeared in more than 25 pictures (most
famously opposite Ronald Colman in Lost Horizon in 1937) before
landing the role of Margaret Anderson in the sitcom Father Knows
Best in 1954; she later portrayed the mother of Mr Spock (Leonard
Nimroy) in the original series of Star Trek.
It was, however, Father Knows Best, first screened in 1954, which
made her name. She once remarked: "I did not want to be in a
TV serial. But there was nothing else on offer, and after my
husband pushed me I succumbed."
The programme charted the fortunes of a midwestern family, with
Jane Wyatt playing the mother of three children, two of them
teenagers. She came to be seen as the exemplary suburban
housewife, the New York Times observing that the show
"restored parental prestige on TV". Father Knows Best
was televised until 1963. Jane Wyatt won three consecutive Emmys
as best actress in a dramatic series in the years 1958-60. more....
Derek Bond,
the actor, has died aged 86 (26 October 2006)
Derek Bond enjoyed a brief
period of film stardom immediately after the Second World War but
found new prominence in middle age, when he was an outspoken
president of the actors' union, Equity.
In 1947 Bond played the lead in the film of Nicholas Nickleby,
with Sir Cedric Hardwicke in a supporting role. After Nicholas
Nickleby Bond played Captain Oates in Scott of the Antarctic and
a young lover in Uncle Silas, then appeared in the unsuccessful
Christopher Columbus and the comedy Tony Draws a Horse.
After going to Dublin in 1950, where he polished his technique in
Gaslight and Dial M for Murder, Bond found some falling-off in
the number and size of parts. He was happy enough in 1959 to
appear in Your Obedient Servant at the Richmond Theatre as a
"resting" actor who goes out charring, but he also had
to take such films as Secrets of a Windmill Girl.
He wrote a stage play called Akin to Death (1954) and a
television drama Unscheduled Stop, which in 1968 proved a fine
vehicle for James Villiers as an amusing drunk. During this time
he was sustained by television, which was growing as a medium, as
well as by the theatre. His wooden quality went well in such
parts as the wealthy peer in the short-lived soap opera 199 Park
Lane, a straight man in Tommy Cooper's Cooperama and the
intelligence chief in Callan. He also enjoyed the lead in touring
productions of The Deep Blue Sea and The Sleeping Prince, and was
in Murder at the Vicarage, The Mousetrap and No Sex Please, We're
British in the West End. more....
Canadian-born
television personality and songwriter, Jackie Rae, has died aged
84 (17 October 2006)
In 1958, Rae moved to London, and made a good start, hosting his
own variety show and appearing on Sunday Night at the London
Palladium. The following year, the well-groomed performer hosted
ITV's Spot the Tune. Contestants had to recognise a song from a
few notes of music, usually performed by Marion Ryan who added
the glamour; if they claimed, "I'll name that tune in
two", they were given two notes. It was an era of popular
quiz shows and its viewing figure of five million homes was not
far short of Double Your Money, Take Your Pick and Dotto. A
decade later he was compering 'The Golden Shot.' He also wrote
songs with Roger Cooke and Roger Greenaway.
Rae was a soft-voiced singer, best suited to romantic ballads.
Although he never had a hit record, he made several singles
including "More Than Ever" (1958) and "Theme From
a Summer Place" (1960). He took part in the 1961 Royal
Variety Performance. In 1959 Rae married Janette Scott, the
actress daughter of Thora Hird. more....
Sir Malcolm
Arnold, composer and trumpeter, has died aged 84 (25 September 2006)
Sir Malcolm Arnold had been composing since childhood, inspired,
he once said, by a chance meeting with Duke Ellington in a
Bournemouth tea room. Louis Armstrong was another influence. He
wrote something like 130 film scores, ranging from his first.
Avalanche Patrol, in 1947, to David Copperfield in 1969. Along
the way, he collected a Hollywood Oscar, for his score for David
Lean's film of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Other films
on which he collaborated were I Am a Camera (1955), The Inn of
the Sixth Happiness (1958), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), The
Angry Silence (1960), Tunes of Glory (1960) and Whistle Down the
Wind (1961).
He once claimed that he only wrote film music so that he could
conduct it himself and so gain experience in this area. He may
just have been teasing, because many of these scores were highly
effective. During this period he also composed three operas and
three ballets as well as a quantity of works for the concert
hall. more....
Peter Ling,
television scriptwriter and novelist, has died aged 80 (21 September 2006)
Peter Ling, television scriptwriter and novelist, has died aged
80. Peter Ling was one of British television’s most prolific
scriptwriters. He started out writing scripts for radio but then
moved over to television scripting the children’s show
Whirligig (1950). He also wrote the children's sitcom Happy
Holidays (starring Hattie Jacques and John Le Mesurier, 1954).
When ITV was launched, Ling became script editor of children's
programmes for the London weekday contractor
Associated-Rediffusion, responsible for shows such as Small Time,
which started that year, and the sketch show Rumpus Point (1955).
During his long career he wrote scripts for many successful
series, including Dixon of Dock Green, Sexton Blake, The Avengers
and Doctor Who. He also wrote episodes of the crime series Murder
Bag (1957-59) and Crime Sheet (1959), which introduced Detective
Superintendent Lockhart in the forerunners to No Hiding Place
(for which Ling did not write).
With Hazel Adair he created Compact (1962-65), a twice- weekly
BBC soap set in the offices of a women’s magazine, but the
pair’s most famous creation was ITV’s long-running soap
Crossroads (1964-88), starring Noele Gordon as the owner of a
Midlands motel.
Ling was also the originator of the BBC Radio 2 soap
Waggoners’ Walk, a series which reflected the swinging
Sixties and featured three young women sharing a flat in
Hampstead. more....
Ed Benedict,
animator for Hanna-Barbera, has died aged 84 (19 September 2006)
The animator Ed Benedict designed some of television's most
famous cartoon characters, from Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear
to Fred and Barney of The Flintstones. He was noted for drawing
heavily outlined figures, with unusual asymmetry and flat
geometric shapes - almost like Picasso in style. Benedicts
distinctive designs provided characters whose body movements were
kept to a minimum and lip movements reduced to a simple,
vowel-by-vowel cycle.
The Hanna-Barbera team soon had a hit with The Huckleberry Hound
Show (1958-62), featuring the slapstick adventures of a naïve
dog who turns up in a different disguise each week. It became the
first animated series to win an Emmy Award, for Outstanding
Achievement in Children's Programming (1959). more....
TV presenter
Raymond Baxter dies aged 84 (15 September 2006)
He presented "Tomorrow's World" for its first 12 years,
but also commentated on the Queen's coronation, Churchill's
funeral and Concorde's first flight. He was the BBC's first
motoring correspondent and covered 14 Monte Carlo Rallies. He was
the voice of the Le Mans 24 Hour race and of 30 Farnborough Air
Shows, as well as the annual British Legion Festival of
Remembrance, military displays of all kinds and, of course,
"Tomorrow's World." He was on air for for Concorde's
first flight in 1969 and, fittingly, for her last scheduled
arrival at Heathrow in October 2003 and was also the founder of
the Dunkirk Little Ships organisation. more....
Frank
Middlemass, character actor, has died aged 87 (12 September 2006)
Florid-faced, bewhiskered and with a rich fruity voice, Frank
Middlemass was one of Britain’s finest character actors. In
a career that spanned more than 50 years, he appeared in seasons
with the Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare companies, starred in
numerous TV dramas and was best known on radio as Dan Archer in
The Archers.
His television career began in the early 1950s in series such as
Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars, and he also starred in early live
TV dramas. By the 1980s he was one of television’s busiest
actors, appearing in a host of series including The Avengers,
Soldier Soldier, Dr Finlay, Miss Marple and others. In 1992 he
was one of the original cast of the crime series Heartbeat,
playing Dr Alex Ferrenby for 21 episodes. "I very much
regret being killed off in Heartbeat," he said. "It was
one of my favourite roles." In 1993 he played Clive Parrott
in the series A Year in Provence, opposite John Thaw.
Middlemass’s film appearances were few but they were usually
in distinguished productions such as Stanley Kubrick’s Barry
Lyndon (1975), in which he played Sir Charles Lyndon, and the
award-winning Second World War drama, One Against the Wind
(1991), starring Judy Davis. more....
Archie
Andrews is to make comeback (9 September 2006)
Legendary ventriloquist’s
doll Archie Andrews is set to return to the stage for the first
time in nearly four decades, after his new owner revealed he is
scripting a stage play charting the puppet’s life story.
Colin Burnett-Dick, who bought Archie at auction for £34,000
last November had already also found a new ventriloquist to
perform as part of the show - Eastbourne-based entertainer Steve
Haylett.
According to Burnett-Dick, the newly-announced production will be
“a celebration, a tribute, a walk down memory lane”
into the puppet’s past and will feature actors playing many
of the famous names who appeared on Archie’s radio show in
the forties and fifties, including Tony Hancock, Max Bygraves and
Julie Andrews.
He added: “We’re at the writing stage now. It’s
going to be an autobiographical journey. It starts at the auction
house where I bought Archie and will look back on his career up
to then with ventriloquist Peter Brough.”
The show will also include the performance of a complete episode
from the Educating Archie radio series. Burnett-Dick is now
looking for a producer for the show, which he hopes to have up
and running in 2007 more....
Carol Kaye, a
member of the famous Fifties and Sixties girl band the Kaye
Sisters, has died aged 71 (23
August 2006)
Carol joined the blonde trio - which was well known for close
harmony numbers - in 1955. When they split up, she became an
actress and understudied Doran Bryan who became her good friend.
Young people may not know who the Kaye Sisters were, but in their
day they were as famous as the Spice Girls.
Carol's career in showbusiness started when she was a youngster.
Then called Carol Mayall, she was one of Grace McKenzie's
Juveniles at a talent school.
She appeared in panto and revues, and toured the Continent and
North Africa as a youngster, with her first all-girl trio, the
Three Tunettes.
Then came the Kaye Sisters, who were not related at all. But
Carol, Shan and Sheila wore matching outfits and dyed their hair
blonde.
They became regulars on television programmes such as
"Sunday Night at the London Palladium", and also
appeared on Royal Variety Show. Their chart hits included
"Paper Roses".
The Kaye Sisters split after 21 years when Sheila married Bob
Wragg, one of the Dallas Boys - a male group also popular in the
Fifties and early Sixties - although Carol and Shan continued in
cabaret until 1976.
But the trio reformed in 1988 for a nationwide tour and appeared
at the Queen Elizabeth Hall alongside the Dallas Boys.
Carol became an actress and appeared in TV series such as
"County Hall". She had a short stint in
"Coronation Street" in 1983.
TV actress
Joyce Blair dies at 73
(22 August
2006)
Joyce Blair was best known for appearing in shows such as
Morecambe And Wise and The Benny Hill Show. She had been
diagnosed with cancer five years ago.
Blair is survived by a daughter, a son as well as her brother
Lionel.
She started her showbusiness career while still a child by
entertaining people in London air raid shelters during World War
II.
After cropping up briefly in long-running series The Adventures
Of Robin Hood, Blair's first major TV appearance was in talent
show New Look, which introduced stars including Roy Castle to the
screen.
Although more famous for her appearances in light entertainment -
often alongside her brother - she also had roles in drama series
such The Saint, Z Cars and The Last Days of Pompeii. more....
Patrick
Allen, dashing and industrious actor, has died aged 79 (8 August 2006)
Allen was well known for his resonant voice, which was a feature
of many television advertising campaigns from the 1960s - at one
time he was known as "The King of the Voice-Over".
Allen came to prominence in the early 1960s in the television
series Crane, in which he played a Morocco-based adventurer and
smuggler who, with his sidekick (Sam Kydd), eluded the
investigations of the local police inspector (Gerald Flood)
whilst enjoying the attentions of a voluptuous barmaid (Laya
Raki). Allen also achieved popularity on the small screen as the
eponymous hero of Brett (1971), a drama about a business tycoon.
He was nothing if not versatile: he gave a powerful performance
as Thomas Gradgrind in Hard Times and appeared as Auchinleck in
Churchill and the Generals. He had parts in Bergerac and The
Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Trial of Lady Chatterley and The
Dick Emery Show, and featured as narrator for the first series of
Blackadder. He was the voice-over artist for the comedy series
The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and for Vic Reeves Big Night
Out. more....
Peter
Hawkins, inventive TV voice-over artist, has died aged 82 (15 July 2006)
Spotted by the presenter and puppeteer Humphrey Lestocq, Peter
Hawkins joined the children's variety show Whirligig (1950-56),
appearing in front of the camera and providing voices for two
puppets, the obnoxious Mr Turnip and the mischievous parrot
Porterhouse.
It was also Hawkins' inventive voice-play that made The Flowerpot
Men (1952-54) so distinctive. Hawkins improvised Bill and Ben's
scripted lines in a gibberish fashion that has been likened to
the technique employed by the nonsense-spouting comedian Stanley
Unwin - an icicle was an "ickle-kickle", for instance -
while giving Bill a high-pitched squeak and Ben lower tones to
differentiate them. "Flobbadob" was the pair's word for
"flowerpot". Hawkins called their language
"Oddle-poddle" and, although concerns were voiced about
it holding back children's development, The Flowerpot Men became
one of the best-loved programmes from the so-called Golden Age of
television and continued to be repeated for two decades.
Hawkins followed The Flowerpot Men by becoming one of the voices
in The Woodentops (1955-58), the adventures of a family of wooden
dolls living on a farm, also in the Watch With Mother slot.
When Captain Pugwash (1957-66) came to television, Hawkins was
responsible for all the voices, from the blustering pirate and
his work-shy crew on the Black Pig to the various rogues and
vagabonds they encountered on the high seas, such as Cut-Throat
Jake. Pugwash's creator, John Ryan, devised a form of animation
using cut-out puppets with cardboard levers to move their eyes,
mouths and limbs, as well as to rock the boats. "Almost as
important as the pictures is the sound," explained Ryan.
Hawkins was also in demand to dub voices in English-language
versions of foreign animation, most notably Hergé's Adventures
of Tintin (1962-63), 50 fast-moving, five-minute episodes based
on the newspaper comic strip created by the Belgian writer-artist
Georges Remi, featuring the boy reporter and his faithful dog
Snowy, along with their seafaring friend Captain Haddock.
With David Graham, Hawkins shared the original voices of the
Daleks (1963-67), who made their dramatic entrance in the
science-fiction serial's second, seven-episode story, written by
Terry Nation and set on the planet Skaro. The pair's voices were
processed electronically at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to give
a distinctive sound and the Daleks quickly became the Doctor's No
1 adversaries, helping to make the programme popular with
viewers. Indeed, many children could be seen going round with
saucepans on their heads at the time. Hawkins and Graham also
voiced the 1965 film spin-off Doctor Who and the Daleks. Hawkins
then became the first voice of the Cybermen (1966-68), the shiny,
cybernetically augmented humanoids, with their distinctive sound
created by fitting him with a dental plate containing a
microphone, originally designed for people who had undergone
laryngotomies.
When John Ryan, the Captain Pugwash creator, launched The
Adventures of Sir Prancelot (1972), about a heroic knight and his
household setting off to the Holy Land for the Crusades, Hawkins
provided all the voices. He was also heard as Zippy in the first
series of Rainbow (1972) and, among dozens of productions, later
narrated SuperTed (1982-86, commissioned by the Welsh channel
S4C) and the Spot the Dog sequel It's Fun to Learn with Spot
(1990).
Although seen in front of the camera less frequently over the
years, Hawkins appeared in three series of the sketch show Dave
Allen at Large (1972-75), playing characters such as a
cone-headed bishop, Friar Tuck and the captain of a Mexican
firing squad.
Independent obituary
Daily Telegraph
obituary
Comedian Red
Buttons dies at 87 (14 July 2006)
Red Buttons' career spanned 60 years and took in all forms of
performance from comedy and theatre to television and cinema.
Famed for his red hair, his career began in the 1930s on stage
before he landed his own television programme, The Red Buttons
Show, in 1952. It ran for three seasons, making him a household
name. A move into cinema brought him a 1957 Oscar win for best
supporting actor as Sgt Joe Kelly in the film Sayonara, starring
Marlon Brando. His last screen appearance was in a recurring
guest role in hospital drama ER in 2005, for which he was
nominated for an Emmy. His success in Sayonara led to other film
roles including The Longest Day, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
and The Poseidon Adventure.
Red Buttons' career spanned 60 years and took in all forms of
performance from comedy and theatre to television and cinema. In
later years, he appeared in TV shows such as The Love Boat and
Knots Landing. more....
Don Lusher
OBE, virtuoso jazz trombonist, has died aged 82 (8 July 2006)
Don Lusher was a cornerstone of the Ted Heath band and had many
features both in ballads and faster numbers. One of the most
exciting and best known was on his own composition "Lush
Slide", a combination of breathtaking trombone dexterity in
a blazing orchestration.
After the war, his skills gained him easy entry into many top
bands. He joined Joe Daniels in 1947 and between then and joining
Heath in 1953 he worked for Lou Preager, Maurice Winnick, the
Squadronaires, Jack Parnell, Woolf Phillips and Eric Delaney. He
also led his own bands and played in Jack Parnell's ATV
orchestra.
The Don Lusher Big Band began in 1974 and toured internationally
with various musical directors including Robert Farnon, Nelson
Riddle and Henry Mancini. more....
Peter Bryant,
actor turned BBC producer, has died aged 82 (1 July 2006)
Bryant was a regular in The Grove Family (1954-57) as Jack Grove,
the eldest son and a National Service conscriptee. He reprised
his role in the first ever film spin-off from a British
television series, It's a Great Day! (1955). Seemingly similar,
but more ambitious, was The English Family Robinson (1957), Iain
MacCormick's four-part series on colonial rule; Bryant was in its
last instalment, with Peter Wyngarde as an Indian, while Champion
Road (1958) was a Northern-set "serial" with a young
Prunella Scales.
After playing a reporter in A Farthing Damages (BBC, 1959), a
single play starring suave Alan Wheatley as a suspect
spiritualist, Bryant turned his attentions to radio, first as an
announcer, then as a script editor, eventually as head of the
BBC's Drama Script Unit.
In 1967 he returned to television, now on the other side of the
camera. He became story editor, on Doctor Who, before becoming
its producer that year with "The Tomb of the Cybermen".
Patrick Troughton was the Doctor, and Bryant remained with the
series until Troughton's penultimate story two years later. One
of his final acts as producer was to cast Jon Pertwee as
Troughton's replacement.
After Special Project Air (1969), an early-Sunday-evening series
that formed part of BBC1's first week in colour, he produced Paul
Temple (1969-71), starring the debonair Francis Matthews as
Francis Durbridge's amateur sleuth, long popular on radio. more....
Elkan Allan, Journalist
and television producer, has died aged 83 (29 June 2006)
Elkan Allan was an extraordinary mixture of journalist,
television producer, entrepreneur and innovator. In 1945, Allan
was starting his career in broadcasting, creating and writing the
questions for BBC Radio's first quiz shows, Quiz Time and Quiz
Team. He then had spells as features editor of John Bull
Magazine, and assistant editor of Illustrated, before moving into
television as a presenter for the BBC's Armchair Traveller in
1953.
In 1962 he became Rediffusion's Head of Entertainment. There he
saw the opportunity to bring live pop music to television for the
first time by creating and producing Ready, Steady, Go! It was
this seminal pop show, with its catchphrase "The weekend
starts here", which caught the buzz of Sixties Britain and
became an icon of its time while the BBC was still relying on
Juke Box Jury. An undeniable part of the show's success was
Allan's choice of the unknown, untried Cathy McGowan as one of
its presenters. The 19-year-old typist from Streatham came to
represent the new possibilities for all teenagers and her
appointment was typical of Elkan Allan's imagination and ability
to see beyond the norm.
When ITV got under way, Allan's ingenuity and eye for the new was
perfect. At Rediffusion, where he was first a reporter, then
editor of the current affairs programme This Week, he is said to
have given David Frost his first job in television. more....
Aaron Spelling, actor and
television producer, has died aged 83 (26 June 2006)
Aaron Spelling was the most successful and prolific television
producer in history, responsible for inflicting upon viewers such
series as Charlie's Angels, Dynasty, Starsky & Hutch, SWAT,
The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Melrose Place and Beverly Hills
90210, all of which epitomised trashy glamour and were
inordinately popular.
He started out directing plays in the Dallas area before heading
for Hollywood and starting out as an actor.
He made his début as a desk clerk in the digs of a murdered
model in the film noir Vicki (1953), the first of his nine
pictures, and appeared in episodes of legendary television series
such as Dragnet (1953, 1954, 1955), I Love Lucy (1955), Alfred
Hitchcock Presents (1955) and Gunsmoke (1956).
But, with an ambition to write, he sold his first script, Twenty
Dollar Bride (1957), to Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre
and subsequently contributed to other anthology shows such as
Playhouse 90 (1958), Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1958), The
Dick Powell Show (1961) and Zane Grey Theater (1958, 1959, 1961),
as well as three 1957 episodes to the classic western series
Wagon Train.
Telegraph obituary
Independent obituary
Hugh Latimer, radio, TV
and stage actor has died aged 93 (24
June 2006)
Hugh Latimer' was a handsome, unambitious actor familiar to West
End playgoers and television viewers for several decades. In
parallel with his busy stage career, Latimer appeared in the film
spin off from the wireless series PC 49 and in Mrs Dale's Diary,
playing Bob Dale in the latter.
He was in television's Dixon of Dock Green and The Adventures of
Robin Hood, Warship and Hunter's Walk, as well as The Dickie
Henderson Show and Two in Clover, with Sid James.
After making his film debut in Corridor of Mirrors (1946) he
appeared in Stranger at the Door (1951), The Last Man to Hang
(1956) and the crime story The Gentle Trap (1960). more....
Julian Slade, composer and
lyricist who co-wrote Salad Days, the irresistible musical whose
success outshone all his later creations has died aged 76 (21 June 2006)
The name of the lyricist and composer Julian Slade will always be
linked to Salad Days, the musical he co-wrote in 1954 with the
actress Dorothy Reynolds as an end-of-season show for the Bristol
Old Vic. The success made Slade rich — and hugely benefited
the Bristol Old Vic Theatre — and though several subsequent
musicals reached the West End none came remotely near it in
popularity. Free as Air followed in 1957, then Follow that Girl
(1960) and a decade later Trelawny (1972). This last, starring
Ian Richardson, Hayley Mills and Timothy West, opened the week
before Jesus Christ Superstar, but Slade’s characteristic
style of writing had already fallen out of fashion. more....
Alec Bregonzi, actor in
'Hancock's Half Hour' has died aged 76 (9 June 2006)
Alec Bregonzi was a character player who became one of the
stalwarts of British television and radio. He will be
particularly remembered for his contributions to the Tony Hancock
shows (he was in 22 of the 63 television episodes) and for his
support of such other comedy stars as Benny Hill, Arthur Askey
and the Two Ronnies.
In 1957 he made his first appearance in the television series
Hancock's Half Hour, in an episode titled "The Continental
Holiday". Memorable roles in the 22 playlets in which he
appeared included his exasperated pilot in "Air Steward
Hancock", a young juror in "Twelve Angry Men"
annoyed by Hancock's procrastination, a library client
disconcerted by Hancock's desperate search for the page which
reveals the killer in the book he has been reading, in "The
Missing Page", and the character "Fred" in the
Archers-type radio show from which Hancock has just been sacked,
The Bowmans. more....
Allan Prior, playwright,
television scriptwriter and novelist, has died aged 84 (6 June 2006)
With more than 300 television
scripts to his name Allan Prior may have supplied more words for
the small screen than any other writer. During the 1950s he wrote
two or three radio plays a year and moved into television, where
his early work included plays and adaptations for the ITV
Armchair Theatre series, a BBC serial, Starr and Company, another
serial, Yorky, with Bill Naughton, and episodes of the ITV series
Deadline Midnight. By the time he was approached to write for Z
Cars he was an experienced, reliable and highly professional
writer.
The Z Cars format was devised by Troy Kennedy Martin, who took
his inspiration from the American police series, Highway Patrol.
Prior also wrote 37 episodes of the Z Cars spin-off, Softly
Softly, which ran for ten years from 1966. When Charlie Barlow,
the bullying detective played by Stratford Johns, was given his
own series, Barlow at Large, Prior, once more, was the
scriptwriter. But although he later wrote for two other police
shows, The Sweeney and Juliet Bravo, his work was so varied that
he never ran the risk of being typecast in one genre. more....
Billy McComb, Influential
entertainer and world-class magician, has died aged 84 (18 May 2006)
Billy McComb was one of the world’s top cabaret magicians, a
brilliant, inventive performer who was known for his stylish
presentation and off-beat comedy patter. He began working
professionally as a magician and quickly made a name for himself
in London nightclubs and theatres. He appeared regularly on
television, made small cameo film appearances and in 1951
supported Bob Hope in variety at the Prince of Wales Theatre. By
the mid-1950s he was acknowledged as one of the country’s
finest magicians and he was in demand as an adviser to magic
shows worldwide. more....
Val Guest, film director
and screenwriter, has died aged 95 (15
May 2006)
The amazing thing about his
career was the wide range of themes and styles: he switched from
broad comedy to situation comedy to crime and detective
thrillers, from studio-bound productions to location dramas, from
period musicals to science-fiction tales, from pop musicals to
soft porn, from cinema to television series. It is impossible to
think of another British film creator who can approach his
record.
His '50s films included: Miss Pilgrim's Progress; The Body Said
No; Mr Drake's Duck (1951) based on a radio sketch, "The
Atomic Egg", by Ian Messiter. Penny Princess (1952); Life
with the Lyons (1953) and The Lyons in Paris (1955); The Runaway
Bus (1954), the first film to star the radio comedian Frankie
Howerd; Men of Sherwood Forest (1954); Dance Little Lady (1954)
featured young Mandy Miller as a child ballerina. They Can't Hang
Me (1955); Break in the Circle (1955); The Quatermass Xperiment
(1955) was adapted from BBC TV's first huge success, an original
science-fiction serial by Nigel Kneale. The sequel - Quatermass
II followed in 1957. It's a Wonderful World (1956); Carry On
Admiral (1957) which was from Ian Hay's play Off the Record and,
according to Guest, gave a rival producer the whole idea of the
"Carry On" series.
The Abominable Snowman (1957); Camp On Blood Island (1958); Up
the Creek (1958); Further Up the Creek (1958); Yesterday's Enemy
(1959); Expresso Bongo (1959) and a revival of the Crazy Gang
after a 30-year hiatus, Life Is a Circus (1959). more....
Jennifer Jayne, the
actress has died aged 74 (13
May 2006)
Jennifer Jayne appeared in many of the ITC productions from the
'50s, including William Tell (as Tell's wife Hedda), Ivanhoe, The
Adventures of Sir Lancelot and Robin Hood and also in other shows
such as Martin Kane Private Investigator, The Invisible Man and
Dial 999. She also made an appearance in the airline series Garry
Halliday. Her TV career continued throughout the sixties when she
worked with the cinematographer Freddie Francis, particularly on
two of his directing credits, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and
the Man in a Suitcase episode "Which Way Did He Go,
McGill?". In both of these she was paired with Donald
Sutherland. more....
Mary Cook, head of
entertainments at the Nuffield Centre, has died aged 93 (2 May 2006)
Mary Cook was described by the jazz pianist and presenter Steve
Race as "the great unsung heroine of British show
business"; as head of entertainments at the Nuffield Centre,
near Piccadilly Circus, and of the BBC Auditions Unit from 1947,
she was responsible for launching the careers of some of the
biggest stars of the 20th century. In 1944 Mary Cook took over as
head of entertainments at the Nuffield Centre that had opened the
previous year in the disused Café de Paris, off Leicester
Square. She proved to be brilliant at spotting talent. Peter
Sellers, Harry Secombe, Benny Hill, Tommy Cooper, Tony Hancock,
Michael Bentine, Frankie Howerd and Ronnie Corbett were among
those who got their first breaks at the centre during Mary Cook's
time there. more....
After 48 years, the final
score looms for Grandstand (25
April 2006)
Sitting down to a Saturday afternoon of TV sport will never be
the same again as the BBC has announced that it is to axe
Grandstand, after 48 years, as part of the corporation's strategy
to survive in the digital age. Since Grandstand was launched in
1958, its theme tune, format and popular presenters have made it
an institution.
The programme is the most high-profile casualty of plans to help
the BBC keep pace with changing viewing habits. more....
Richard Bebb, actor and
connoisseur of the recorded voice, has died aged 79 (20 April 2006)
Richard Bebb was an erudite actor on stage, screen and radio
whose deep interest in the history of acting turned him into a
distinguished collector and student of the recorded theatrical
voice. In 1950 he began working regularly in radio and
television. He shared the narration with Richard Burton in the
original wireless production of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk
Wood, and appeared in more than 1,000 broadcast plays.
A prolific TV and film actor he often played doctors or
upper-class figures. He made his TV debut in 1951 playing
Octavius to Walter Hudd’s Julius Caesar and appeared in a
string of drama series including Dangerman, Softly, Softly, Z
Cars and Dixon of Dock Green. For several years he played Dr
Harvest in the ITV lunchtime soap, Compact. He was Dr Orlov in
Anna Karenina (1977) and Dr Stanhope in The Barchester Chronicles
(1982). In recent years he was a regular face (and voiceover) in
the Poirot series. more....
Myron Healey, western
actor, has died aged 83 (3
April 2006)
Many character actors are known by name only to enthusiasts, but
Myron Healey was so prolific that it is particularly surprising
that he falls into that category - he is estimated to have
appeared in over 160 feature films and twice that many television
shows. With his deep voice and wily smile, he was often cast as
the villain, particularly in westerns.
He became established as a regular performer on television,
having made his small screen debut in the series The Lone Ranger
(1949-57). His numerous credits included such westerns as The
Gene Autry Show, Cheyenne, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke and Bonanza,
plus other shows such as Perry Mason, Sea Hunt and The Incredible
Hulk.
He is particularly remembered for two roles in western shows -
his taking over from Douglas Fowley as "Doc" Holliday
in the popular series starring Hugh O'Brian, The Life and Legend
of Wyatt Earp (1958-59), and his portrayal of a sadistic sergeant
who gives Robert Horton 20 lashes with a bullwhip in an episode
of Wagon Train titled "The Traitors" (1961). more....
Ivy Wallace, the author of
Pookie The Flying Rabbit books, has died aged 90 (1 April 2006)
Ivy Wallace became a publishing phenomenon in the 1950s and 1960s
with a series of children's books chronicling the adventures of
Pookie, the flying rabbit who leaves his home in the Bluebell
Wood to seek his fortune with a red spotted bundle tied on a
stick; in the 1990s she became one of the few writers to be
rediscovered in her own lifetime. more....
Channing Pollock,
celebrated magician, has died aged 79 (26 March 2006)
Channing Pollock performed one of the most sophisticated and
elegant magic acts in the world. A debonair figure, dressed
immaculately both on stage and off, he set the standard for
producing doves from thin air. As he made literally hundreds of
doves appear from nowhere he seemed to be shaping them from his
own hands. Magicians throughout the world copied his act but
never equalled his artistry. In the mid-1950s he came to Britain
where he headlined on several occasions at the London Palladium,
sometimes billed as “the most beautiful man in the
world”. When asked how he developed his stage image he said:
“Fear made me look sophisticated!”
He also went on to guest star in American TV shows such as The
Beverly Hillbillies and Bonanza. more....
John Crawley, BBC
'complaints' editor, has died aged 96 (22 March 2006)
On 23 September 1955, a grieving nation of radio listeners read
of the heroic death of Grace Archer dashing into a blazing stable
to rescue a horse. This soap operatic news story caused far more
press comment - and far more leading articles - than there were
about the formal opening of Independent Television the evening
before. The man behind this piece of inter-media gamesmanship was
John Crawley, at that time in charge of BBC publicity. Others had
devised the idea, but it was Crawley who arranged to invite all
the radio correspondents to an afternoon pre-hearing of the
Archers episode, to hold them there long enough to prevent a leak
to the evening papers and to ensure that they had something
compulsive to write about while their television colleagues were
attending the ITV banquet in Guildhall. By 1970 he had worked his
way up the rungs of the BBC ladder to become Chief Assistant to
the Director-General, Charles Curran. more....
Moira Redmond, vivacious
actress known for her work on popular TV series, has died aged 77 (21 March 2006)
She was a redhead of beauty and vivacity who never quite achieved
stardom. She popped up in guest roles in almost every popular
television crime series of the late 20th century, from No Hiding
Place and Dixon of Dock Green to The Sweeney, from The Avengers
and Danger Man to The Return of the Saint, but seldom more than
once in each. The one title she graced three times was the
B-movies series, the Edgar Wallace Mysteries, of the early 1960s.
On the loftier slopes of television drama she created several
important parts, notably that of Leonie, the hero's faithless
wife, in David Mercer's extraordinary 1962 BBC comedy of madness,
A Suitable Case for Treatment, sharing the honours with Ian
Hendry, Jack May, Anna Wing, Jane Merrow and Guy the Gorilla,
whose scenes the director Don Taylor pre-filmed at the London
Zoo.
Telegraph Obituary
Times Obituary
John Junkin, actor and
scriptwriter, has died aged 76 (8
March 2006)
Born in Ealing, West London, in 1930, Junkin worked as a teacher,
lift attendant and labourer before turning to writing
professionally. After meeting Spike Milligan, he joined the team
on the zany sketch show The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d (1956), which
included writers such as Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Johnny
Speight, with Eric Sykes as script editor. It ran for five series
until 1956. Junkin teamed up with Freeman and Nation to write the
radio sitcom The Floggits for Elsie and Doris Waters. Junkin
wrote more conventional humour for two series of The Ted Ray Show
(1958-59), starring the popular comedian who had made his name in
music hall.
Telegraph Obituary
Independent Obituary
Times Obituary
Peter Philp, writer and
antique dealer who made the one-man TV show Collectors' Club, has
died aged 85 (6 March 2006)
For many years from the 1970s Peter Philp wrote witty and highly
informative columns in The Times, distilled from one of his
principal careers, antique dealing. Not only was he the doyen of
the trade in Cardiff, where he was the third generation in the
family business, but he had also been the writer, director,
lighting man, designer and presenter of the original TV antiques
programme, the very much one-man show Collectors’ Club,
first broadcast in 1958. more....
Dennis Weaver, actor in
the classic western Gunsmoke, has died aged 81 (27 February 2006)
Weaver was best remembered as
the slow-witted deputy Chester Goode in the series and also the
New Mexico deputy solving New York crime in McCloud.
When Weaver first auditioned for the series, he found the
character of Chester "inane". He wrote in his 2001
autobiography, 'All the World's a Stage', that he said to
himself: "With all my Actors Studio training, I'll correct
this character by using my own experiences and drawing from
myself."
The result was a well-rounded character that appealed to
audiences, especially with his drawling, "Mis-ter
Dil-lon."
At the end of seven hit seasons, Weaver sought other horizons. He
announced his departure, but the failures of pilots for his own
series caused him to return to Gunsmoke on a limited basis for
two more years. The role brought him an Emmy in the 1958-59
season. (The series was known as Gun Law in the UK).
Telegraph Obituary
Independent Obituary
Al Lewis, Grandpa in The
Munsters, has died aged 82 (6
February 2006)
American television viewers had also known Lewis as Officer Leo
Schnauser in Car 54, Where Are You? a comedy set in a Bronx
precinct that aired from 1961 to 1963, and which also starred
Fred Gwynne, and later for humorous cameos on such shows as Lost
in Space, The Night Stalker, and Here's Lucy, with Lucille Ball.
Lewis also took roles in theatre and television shows such as
Decoy (1954). He worked on hundreds of radio shows, but his break
came when Phil Silvers gave him a showy cameo on The Phil Silvers
Show. The Munsters followed. He never escaped the role, but never
complained. "It pays the mortgage," he said. Lewis
would for decades make guest appearances in character at film
conventions and autograph shows. more....
Henry McGee, character
actor and straight man, has died aged 76 (2 February 2006)
McGee was a character actor
best known for his role as straight man to the television comics
Benny Hill and Charlie Drake. He had only to "feed"
their clowning to raise laughter, but he did so with immaculate,
farcical solemnity. Few actors knew how to keep so straight a
face in front of such sustained absurdity. From 1965 McGee forged
a memorable partnership with Drake in the television series The
Worker, in which he played the hapless Employment Exchange
official Mr Pugh; one job failure after another would cause him,
quivering with rage, to haul Drake over the counter by his
lapels.
Later McGee began his 20-year association with Benny Hill, often
serving as the announcer on Hill's television show, delivering
the introduction: "Yes! It's The Benny Hill Show!".
Among other television comics whom McGee "fed" were
Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Reg Varney, Eric Sykes, Terry
Scott, Dick Emery, Jimmy Tarbuck, Ted Rogers, Max Wall and Lance
Percival. Other series included Up the Workers, Rising Damp, The
Goodies, The Late Mr H, and A Penny for Your Dreams. more....
John Woodnutt, character
actor, has died aged 81 (31 January 2006)
John Woodnutt was one of the most prolific character actors from
the golden age of television drama, his long, thin face well
suited to expressing disapproval, particularly as cold officials
or implacable villains.
He made one of his earliest television appearances in One (1956),
"a story of the foreseeable future", broadcast live on
the still new ITV. But he became more familiar in a succession of
adventure serials shown in early evenings as part of the BBC's
children's television slot, usually on Sundays. He was an evil
spy in The Black Brigand (1956) from Alexandre Dumas, while
Queen's Champion (1958) was written and produced by Shaun Sutton,
later Head of BBC Drama. The cast also included Patrick
Troughton, Patrick Cargill, the future "Q" Desmond
Llewellyn and a very young Jane Asher. Just four months later,
Woodnutt was back, in a Cornish swashbuckler, The Rebel Heiress
(1958), and was then strangely cast as a Native American in a
western, The Cabin in the Clearing (1959). more....
Bengo the Boxer Pup is set
to return to television (16 January 2006)
Maverick
Entertainment who brought
back Muffin the Mule in 2005 have agreed a deal with the estate of William
Timym, illustrator of the
series. He also drew
Bleep and Booster, the cartoon characters who entertained Blue Peter viewers in the 1960s, who are also set to
return to the small screen.
Trevor Duncan, composer of
television and light music, has died aged 81 (5 January 2006)
His credits include music for
the 'Quatermass' serials of the 1950s, 'A For Andromeda' and 'The
Planemakers', the theme for the BBC television serial 'The Scarf'
(The Girl From Corsica), 'Doctor Finlay's Casebook' (March From A
Little Suite) and many other light music titles. more....
Sunny Rogers, exuberant
sidekick and confidante to Frankie Howard, has died aged 92 (5 January 2006)
Sunny Rogers was the long suffering stooge, feed and pianist to
Frankie Howerd for 35 years. A diminutive figure with a sparkling
smile, she bore the brunt of the comedian’s onstage insults
with remarkable finesse: “Poor old soul. She’s past it,
you know — that is, if she ever ’ad it! She’s deaf
— aren’t you dear? Deaf! I said deaf!”
Audiences adored her and she was much respected among her peers
for her own considerable comic timing. “Far from being a
poor old soul,” said Roy Hudd, “she was very glamorous
and knew exactly what she was doing on stage with Howerd. She
could feed a line or throw a glance at him that would bring the
house down.” more....
Michael Latham,
documentary film-maker, has died aged 73 (4 January 2006)
He was responsible for some of the most influential factual
television programmes of the last four decades. In the late 1950s
he joined the BBC's Outside Broadcast Unit and in 1960 he covered
the marriage of Princess Margaret to the Earl of Snowdon. Latham
and Snowdon became friends and worked on a number of television
projects together, including Love of a Kind, directed by Snowdon,
about the British and their pets.
By the early 1960s Latham had joined BBC Features. It was a time
of great innovation and new freedoms, and he leapt at the chance
to stimulate debate with his programmes. Diligent and painstaking
in his research, with a particular talent for scriptwriting, he
approached each new project with a meticulousness and enthusiasm
which was to inspire many other documentary film-makers. more....
Belita, glamorous star of
the stage, screen and ice rink, has died aged 82 (4 January 2006)
She dazzled audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Belita
starred in several of Langdon’s ice shows at Empress Hall in
the 1950s. These included Babes in the Wood (as Robin Hood); Jack
and the Beanstalk; the celebrated White Horse Inn on Ice with the
great comic Max Wall; Wildfire with the singer Frankie Vaughan;
and London Melody in which the comedian Norman Wisdom also
featured. She also toured with her own show, Champagne on Ice, in
England, appearing with it at the London Hippodrome for the
impresario Bernard Delfont. She also made an appearance at Eagle
Court in a water show with the Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller. more....
Maurice Dodd, scriptwriter
of 'The Perishers', has died aged 83 (3 January 2006)
In 1959 Bill Herbert, Cartoon Editor of the Daily Mirror (who had
served with Dodd during the Second World War), asked him to help
out as scriptwriter on "The Perishers", a cartoon strip
about a group of "perishing" kids led by a
freckle-faced boy called Wellington, who wore Wellington boots
and a deerstalker hat. Launched in February 1958 as a British
answer to the American Charles Schultz's popular
"Peanuts" strip, it first appeared in the Manchester
edition of the Daily Mirror with a storyline by Ben Witham (who
went on to write jokes for the "Useless Eustace"
cartoon feature) and drawings by Dennis Collins. Dodd soon set up
a partnership with Collins - creating scripts and rough layouts
while Collins produced the finished drawings - and created a host
of new characters, including Wellington's pet Old English
Sheepdog, Boot, who first appeared in 1959. more....
Phil Tate, who has died
aged 83, led a popular dance band in the post-war years. (15 December 2005)
In 1950 Tate took up a
residency at Hammersmith Palais. His band, which shared the
billing with Lou Preager's orchestra, featured the unique blend
of three flutes and five saxophones. He began recording ballroom
dance music for the Oriole label and, with the launch of
commercial television in 1955, made regular Friday night
appearances on the Associated Rediffusion show Palais Party. Tate
hosted the weekly radio show Non-Stop Pop on the BBC Light
Programme, in which he interviewed current pop stars, including
the Beatles. He also made regular television appearances with the
band on the BBC's Come Dancing. more....
Waldo Maguire, broadcaster
who became the first Ulsterman to hold the post of BBC
Controller, Northern Ireland has died aged 85 (30 November 2005)
.....Demobilised in 1945, Maguire was invited to join the BBC
Latin American Service: languages came easily to him. He
transferred to Radio News the next year, worked his way up the
ranks, moved to Alexandra Palace, the home of television news, in
1955, and was made editor, TV news, in 1962. This was a period of
great technical and managerial bustle, with the balance of power
in the corporation steadily shifting as the newer medium
attracted the mass audience. Among other big events for which he
was responsible was the news coverage of President Kennedy’s
assassination in 1963. more....
Archie Andrews dummy sells
for £34,000 (23 November 2005)
A private collector has paid £34,000 for the original Archie
Andrews dummy used by ventriloquist Peter Brough in the 1950s
radio show, Educating Archie. The dummy sold for more than double
the £15,000 estimate at Taunton auctioneers Greenslade Taylor
Hunt on Tuesday, where it was sold by Brough's family. more....
Ralph Edwards, creator of
'This Is Your Life', has died aged 92 (21 November 2005)
Ralph Edwards was among the first broadcasters to realise the
financial importance of a television franchise for a popular
idea. Every time Eamonn Andrews or Michael Aspel surprised a
subject with the "big red book"on This Is Your Life,
the credits had to acknowledge Edwards's role as creator and
licensee.
He came up with the idea for This Is Your Life for US radio in
1948 with the purpose of telling the life story of some notable
citizen. The television version, which began in 1952, was based
more on celebrity and the subjects included Bob Hope, Marilyn
Monroe and Laurel and Hardy.
In 1955 Eamonn Andrews, the host of What's My Line?, was booked
to host the UK edition, but the press leaked that the first
subject would be the footballer Stanley Matthews. When the day of
the first show came, Andrews assumed that Matthews would still be
the subject, and he was stunned to see instead Ralph Edwards, who
then hosted an edition on Andrews's life. more....
Actress Avril Angers has
died aged 87 (11 November 2005)
Avril Angers was one of the most zestful, charming and reliable
character comediennes in the post-war London theatre; she also
appeared in television series such as Dad's Army, All Creatures
Great and Small, Are You Being Served?, Minder, Coronation Street
and The Tomorrow People.
Her comic persona flourished on stage and television,
particularly in provincial pantomime and in television
partnerships with comedians like Benny Hill, Arthur Askey,
Frankie Howerd, Terry-Thomas and Les Dawson, and in shows such as
Dad's Army and Coronation Street.
She started broadcasting for the BBC radio service in 1944. It
was when she was in Cairo with the troops that Douglas Moodlie
saw her as a future radio personality, and Variety Bandbox gave
her her big chance; followed by more than a year with the Carroll
Levis radio show.
She had a topical musical slot called Look Back with Angers on
the BBC radio show Roundabout, from which she was upset to be
"given a rest" in 1959. From the 1930s through to the
1950s, she was a fixture as a cartoon character in Radio Fun, in
a comic strip entitled The Adventures of Avril Angers more....
Geoffrey Keen, film and
television actor, has died aged 89 (7
November 2005)
Geoffrey Keen specialised in playing tetchy authority figures.
During the 1950s and 1960s, if ever an actor was required to
portray an authoritarian headmaster, strait-laced chairman or a
commanding officer, Keen was high on the wanted list.
He established himself as one of the busiest character actors in
the profession, often averaging more than five films a year. The
joke in British film studios was that Keen seemed to pop up in
every home-grown film ever made, an indication of how memorable
his performances were.
Among Keen’s 100 film credits were Genevieve (1953), Doctor
in the House (1954), The Long Arm (1956), Fortune is a Woman
(1957), The Spiral Road (1962) — his first taste of
Hollywood, he appeared with Rock Hudson — and Doctor Zhivago
(1965). His most memorable small screen role was his portrayal of
Brian Stead, a ruthless oil company chairman, in Troubleshooters.
more....
Actress, Jan Holden, has
died aged 74 (28 October 2005)
Jan Holden was a stage actress known for her performances in
light comedy, and also appeared in popular television series of
the 1950s and 1960s.
Her television credits in the 1950s included the television
series Fabian of the Yard and Douglas Fairbanks Presents. She was
also in the successful detective series The Vice, playing some 10
different characters in the show until 1961. In that year she
played the personnel officer in Harper's West One, an ATV black
and white television series about life in a large Oxford Street
store. There were 32 one-hour episodes, all broadcast live. She
also appeared in episodes of The Avengers, The Saint and Are You
Being Served? and was the magazine editor to Maureen Lipman's
agony aunt in the sitcom Agony.
She was married to the actor Edwin Richfield, who played was
Armando in the ITV show The Buccaneers. more....
Little Rascal, Gordon Lee,
has died aged 72 (25 October 2005)
The former child actor Gordon
Lee was known as "Porky" in the "Our Gang"
film comedies - subsequently rechristened The Little Rascals for
television - produced by Hal Roach from 1922 to 1938, and in the
continuation of the series produced at MGM until 1944.
"Porky" - joined the series with Little Sinner (1935)
and remained until 1939's Auto Antics. In all, he appeared in 42
of the films. Although by no means too old to continue, Lee had
begun to grow much taller and slimmer, thus belying the
"Porky" tag (his eventual adult height was 6ft 4in).
During his time with the Gang, Lee was identified by the
exclamation "O'tay" - or "OK", as rendered
through the minor speech impediment that he came to outgrow - and
as part of an unofficial double act with another of the tinier
children, the black actor Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas. more....
COI Public Information
Films available on the Web (25 October 2005)
To celebrate their 60th birthday, for the first time on The
National Archives' website you can view complete public
information films from the 20th Century. The first selection of
films from 1945 -1951 features some fascinating events from
Britain's post-war history. For more information and to view the
films, follow this link : more....
Michael Gill Director and
producer of Kenneth Clark's 'Civilisation' has died aged 81 (24 October 2005)
He started out in television in 1958, as an arts producer in BBC
Schools Programmes, and then went to Monitor, edited by Huw
Wheldon. Monitor was the seed-bed that gave television and cinema
the talents of Melvyn Bragg, Patrick Garland, Jonathan Miller,
Ken Russell and John Schlesinger. Gill brought in John Berger,
and during the next five years the pair made many programmes,
riding around London together with Gill on the back of Berger's
motor-bike, arguing in Soho restaurants, and creating films
"out of a dialogue between writer and director; I could not
imagine working in any other way". more....
New Muffin Children's
programme ranked no. 1
(18 October
2005)
Peak Entertainment Holdings
today reported that Muffin the Mule was ranked the number 1
pre-school program in the United Kingdom. The findings were
derived from the BARB/DGA local survey. The survey included the
top 25 pre-school programs, targeting children between the ages
of 4 to 6 years old residing in multi-channel and free-to-air
digital homes. Viewing channels included CBeebies and Nick Jr.,
with Muffin reaching 21.66 percent of their local viewing
audiences. "Muffin the Mule has successfully built an
effective presence as the program of choice for our local
markets," said Phil Ogden, Managing Director of Peak
Entertainment Holdings Inc. "After 60 years, the BBC's
classic children's favorite Mule has proven that the old ones
definitely are the best. We have broadened our reach by knowing
our audience's consumption, knowing that our viewers are
searching for the most educational and stimulating programming
available for their children." more....
Comedy actor, Ronnie
Barker has died aged 76 (4
October 2005)
For more than 20 years Ronnie
Barker was one of the leading figures of British television
comedy. He was much loved and admired for his appearances in the
long-running series The Two Ronnies, with Ronnie Corbett, as
prison inmate Fletcher, in the series Porridge, and as Arkwright,
the bumbling, stuttering, sex-obsessed shopkeeper in Open All
Hours.
It was during the 1950s that he broke into radio. He was in 300
editions of The Navy Lark as A B Johnson (also known by the
nickname 'Fatso').
Ronnie Barker first worked with Ronnie Corbett in The Frost
Report and Frost on Sunday, programmes for which he also wrote
scripts. In 1971 they teamed up for the first Two Ronnies.
BBC Obituary...
Telegraph Obituary
Independent
Obituary...
Times Obituary...
Little Rascal, Tommy Bond,
has died aged 79 (28 September 2005)
The "Our Gang"
comedies were one of the most successful series of shorts during
the 1920s and 1930s. Starring a bunch of mischievous toddlers,
the films were notable in featuring working-class children and
for casting the boys and girls, black and white, as equals.
Later, in the Fifties, they entertained a whole new generation
when released to television as The Little Rascals. One of the
most memorable of the team was Tommy Bond, who joined the series
at the age of five as a soft-spoken peripheral member of the
gang, but became a prime figure when he reappeared later as a
hissable bully named "Butch". There were 221 "Our
Gang" movie shorts, the series successfully making the
transition from silent to sound. Bond made his début in Spanky
(1932), a showcase for chubby "Spanky" McFarland, but
made a particularly strong impression the following year in Mush
and Milk. more....
Actor Ronald Leigh-Hunt
has died aged 88 (24 September 2005)
A smooth supporting actor,
Ronald Leigh-Hunt was one of the most familiar faces of postwar
British cinema. He made more than 50 films, many of them B-movie
thrillers in which he was usually cast as a doctor or a policeman
and on television he was best known for roles as King Arthur in
The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956) and as Colonel Buchan in
the long-running children’s series Freewheelers (1968).
Rarely out of work throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Leigh-Hunt
played supporting roles in a string of films as well as appearing
in television series such as The Saint, Dixon of Dock Green, The
Avengers and Z Cars. Elegantly dressed on screen and off, he was
known in theatrical circles for his glorious voice and impeccable
manners. more....
Actor Derek Aylward has
died aged 82 (6 September 2005)
During the 1950's, Derek
Aylward concentrated on the new medium of television, in the live
days with the BBC as the only channel. He had made his début in
1947 in a play, Blow Your Own Trumpet, as a character called
Dick. He became a regular, as a scout named Brayton Ripley, in
The Cabin in the Clearing (1954), a BBC western serial for
children, and guested in the now unintentionally hilarious Fabian
of the Yard (1954), and a No Hiding Place (1959) that was
recovered in 1999 as part of the British Film Institute's
"Missing Believed Wiped" initiative.
One of his best-remembered roles was in Quatermass II (1955), as
a nice young public relations man who perishes after falling into
a vat of alien slime; he worked for Rudolph Cartier in Anna
Karenina (1961), supporting Claire Bloom in the title role and
Sean Connery as Vronsky, and the subsequently wiped Rembrandt
(1969), as Banning Cocq, with Richard Johnson. Classic serials
included Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (1959), as Godfrey
Ablewhite, with Patrick Troughton, plus some popular
swashbucklers: William Tell (1957), Ivanhoe (1958) and The
Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956). There were two appearances
during Dixon of Dock Green's long run, and Aylward played an
incompetent professor's assistant in a one-off sci-fi comedy,
Bellweather Nine (1959). more....
Actor Terence Morgan has
died aged 83 (31 August 2005)
In the cinema, Terence Morgan
played a string of charming rats before switching to television
as Elizabeth I's seafaring adventurer in Sir Francis Drake.
Typical of ITV's early swashbucklers, such as The Adventures of
Robin Hood, the 26 half-hour programmes (1961-62) were popular
Sunday-afternoon entertainment in British homes and one of the
television executive Lew Grade's many series to be sold abroad,
including the profitable American market.
Starring with Morgan was Jean Kent as Queen Elizabeth - and two
recreations of the Golden Hind. A full-scale model was built for
scenes shot at Elstree Studios while another, seaworthy replica
for location filming in Cornwall was reconstructed from a
neglected motor fishing vessel, found on the mudflats near
Colchester, that had seen active service during the Second World
War as a harbour launch but most recently as a mission ship with
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
The series followed Morgan in his role as the first Englishman to
sail round the world, taking on the Spanish on the high seas and
bringing home glittering riches. more....
N J Crisp, TV dramatist,
playwright and novelist has died aged 81 (18 August 2005)
Norman James Crisp had a long
career as a successful writer for television. In the mid-fifties
he had short stories accepted by Reveille, John Bull and the
Saturday Evening Post, and a television play, People of the Night
(about a radio cab company, 1957) broadcast by the BBC. He went
on to write scripts for the BBC soap opera Compact (1963-64), set
in the offices of a women's magazine, many Dixon of Dock Green
episodes between 1965 and 1975 and The Expert (1968-69, 1971,
1976), which combined George Dixon and Dr Finlay by following the
day-to-day activities of a forensic scientist, Dr John Hardy
(Marius Goring).
Even during the five-year run of The Brothers, the prolific Crisp
wrote scripts for Colditz (1972-74), the wartime prison-camp
drama produced by Glaister. The pair then devised Oil Strike
North (1975), about the crew and their families on a North Sea
oil rig, for which the creators spent two years researching in
Scottish coastal towns and on rigs and supply vessels.
In a different vein, Crisp scripted the feature-length television
drama The Masks of Death (1984), starring Peter Cushing as
Sherlock Holmes and John Mills as Dr Watson, and the horror film
Murder Elite (1985), featuring Ali MacGraw. more....
Jack Tripp, pantomine
dame, has died aged 83
(6 August
2005)
Tripp was one of the most popular pantomime dames of the post-war
period; a master of drollery and pathos, and a stylish, if
eccentric, dancer, he was once described by the Stage as
"the John Gielgud of pantomime dames".
His talents as a comic actor were not confined to the pantomime,
but he will forever be associated with turning the role of dame
into an art form. He played the part some 35 times, in the
tradition of such classic dames as George Lacy and Douglas Byng.
Never crude or over made-up, and always daintily dressed in
lace-trimmed gingham, bloomers and immaculate white pinafores, he
had a range of comic expressions - from a wide grin and a grimly
pursed mouth to archly raised eyebrows - that said more than any
smutty remark. more....
Derek Hilton, Coronation
Street theme music composer has died aged 78 (1 August 2005)
He also supplied incidental
music for the series. Having begun at Granada Television as a
pianist, Hilton rose to become Granada's musical director,
writing 241 television themes. As a conductor and arranger, he
worked with some of the biggest names in showbusiness, Shirley
Bassey, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis and Tom Jones among them. He
contributed to Criss Cross Quiz; All Our Yesterdays; Mr Rose; The
Caesars; Paris 1900; Cribb; Murder; The Odd Man; Spoils of War;
Inheritance; A Family at War; A Kind of Loving, and to many
others shows. more....
A brand new TV adventure beckons for Muffin the Mule this September as he makes an eagerly awaited return to the BBC, his first TV home. Maverick Entertainment has been commissioned to produce an initial 26 x 10 minute episodes of 2D animation and is investing £2 million into Muffin’s TV makeover. Aimed at pre-schoolers, Muffin will be presented as a fun loving problem solver and will be joined in Muffinham by nine friends, including Peregrine the Penguin, Louise the Lamb and Oswald the Ostrich who were all original puppet characters in the 1940s TV show. The charming, humorous and vibrant production remains faithful to the characteristics of the original and will undoubtedly appeal to all generations. more....
Magazine publisher Future is to
expand its childrens' portfolio with a launch this year -- of Muffin the Mule Magazine in October 2005.
Muffin the Mule Magazine is licensed from Peak Entertainment, and
its launch coincides with the 60-year-old character's return to
TV on BBC One and CBeebies for 26 episodes.
It is Future's first magazine pitched at the pre-school market
and will be published every three weeks priced £1.75.
Editor Cavan Scott said: "Muffin was the first ever
character created by the BBC and the new TV show and magazine
will follow in the BBC's tradition of quality family
entertainment."
Betty Astell,
early television variety artist has died aged 93 (29 July 2005)
During the early days of television, Betty Astell was one of
those whose face flickered on the screen as the pioneering John
Logie Baird conducted experiments in the new medium. On 22 August
1932, when the BBC began its "30-line" transmission
with Baird's equipment, speeches by the great and the good were
followed by a programme of light entertainment that included
Astell singing and dancing. She married Cyril Fletcher and, after
the war, they both wrote and starred in the film comedy A Piece
of Cake (1948). They also appeared on television in episodes of
the sketch show Kaleidoscope (1949) and their own BBC sketch
special Cyril's Saga (1957), written by Bob Monkhouse and Denis
Goodwin. Switching to ITV, they starred in The Cyril Fletcher
Show (1959), a six- part series of comedy sketches scripted by
Johnny Speight. Monkhouse and Goodwin also wrote a radio sitcom
for Astell and Fletcher. Mixed Doubles (1956-57) featured them as
a married couple, with Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray - another
show-business pair - playing their neighbours in south London. more....
Actor Michael
Medwin receives OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours (11 June 2005)
Army Game star Michael Medwin
has been awarded an OBE in the Birthday Hounours List. He played
Corporal Springer in the series and has appeared in many films
and TV series since. He played Don Satchley in the TV series
Shoestring and produced the Gumshoe TV series of 1971. more....
Billy Smart
Jr. has died aged 70 (24 May 2005)
Billy Smart Jr. was the
youthful star of Billy Smart's Circus in the 1950s and 1960s,
when his father's fairground empire was one of the largest in
Europe; at the height of its success, Billy Smart's Big Top could
hold 5,500 people, and the show involved hundreds of animals,
vehicles and entertainers, as well as a 15-piece orchestra and
its own touring train. Smart took part in many of the regular
television shows of Smart's Circus from the early 1950s and
contiued until 1983. They were shown first on the BBC, when
viewing audiences reached the highest figures recorded for any
light entertainment show, and later by Thames Television. more....
Elisabeth
Frazer, who played Sergeant Bilko's girlfriend, has died aged 85 (17 May 2005)
Elisabeth Fraser played brassy
blondes in films alongside such stars as Frank Sinatra and Burt
Lancaster; but she was most arresting as the girlfriend of the
crafty Sergeant Bilko in the American television series of the
1950s. As Sergeant Joan Hogan, the colonel's secretary at Fort
Baxter, Kansas, she represented an essential alliance for the
wisecracking master sergeant, played by Phil Silvers, warning him
in advance of any attempts to use his vehicles for military
purposes. more....
Johnnie
Stewart, Juke Box Jury producer, has died aged 87 (5 May 2005)
In 1937 Stewart joined the
sound effects department for BBC radio drama. On returning to the
BBC after the war, he produced several music programmes including
Sing It Again and BBC Jazz Club.
In 1958 Stewart transferred to BBC Television and produced Juke
Box Jury, hosted by David Jacobs; in 1963 he produced a 90-minute
television special, Terry-Thomas Says How Do You View,
capitalising on the comedian's appearance in the big-budget film
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. The disc jockey Jimmy Savile hosted
the very popular Teen and Twenty Disc Club on Radio Luxembourg,
and, in 1963, the BBC producer Barney Colehan thought his format
could be adapted to television. He recorded a pilot with Savile
and, in subsequent discussions, it was decided to make it a chart
show, produced by Johnnie Stewart. Stewart came up with the
title, Top of the Pops. more....
Dixon of Dock
Green back on duty (2 May 2005)
Classic BBC TV police drama
Dixon of Dock Green is to make a comeback - but this time as a
series on Radio 4.
The show will star Lawless actor David Calder as George Dixon and
Casanova's David Tennant as Andy Crawford. A series of six
programmes will be broadcast in June and will be based on the
original TV scripts. The BBC One series, starring Jack Warner,
ran from 1955 to 1976 and was one of the most popular shows of
its day, watched by over 14 million people. Set in the East End
of London, Dixon of Dock Green focused on the everyday routine
tasks of local police, troubled mainly by low-level crime.
Compared to contemporary police dramas, the show was gentle and
slow-paced, summed up by the comforting central character of
Dixon with his catchphrase "Evenin' all". David Tennant
will play George Dixon's sidekick Andy Crawford. more....
Composer,
trumpeter and arranger Robert Farnon has died aged 87 (24 April 2005)
Bob Farnon composed many light
music cameos for Chappell Music Publishers, primarily for use as
background music in newsreels etc, but many of these pieces were
recorded by Bob's and other orchestras, and often became familiar
through their use as radio and TV signature tunes. Among his very
well known compositions are 'Portrait Of A Flirt', 'Jumping
Bean', 'Journey Into Melody', 'Melody Fair', 'Westminster Waltz'
and 'Manhattan Playboy'. more....
Sir John
Mills, one of Britain's best-known and best-loved actors, has
died at the age of 97 (23 April 2005)
He starred in more than 100
films since the early 1930s including Great Expectations, War and
Peace, and Ryan's Daughter - for which he won an Oscar. A 1929
appearance as Hamlet at the Old Vic Theatre in London established
him as one of the most talented actors of his generation. His
role in Goodbye Mr Chips in 1939 first brought him to
international stardom. Patriotic roles in such films as Ice Cold
in Alex, Above Us The Waves, Dunkirk, Scott of The Antarctic and
Tunes of Glory brought him more accolades. He also displayed a
deft touch for whimsical comedy in an adaptation of H G Wells'
novel The History of Mr Polly and portraying a proud Northerner
in The Family Way. He said the Oscar in 1971 for playing a
village idiot in David Lean's Ryan's daughter was the highlight
of his career. Roles followed in films ranging from
science-fiction fantasy Quatermass, historical epic Gandhi and
Madonna's Who's That Girl? more....
Benny Hill
show comic writer, Dave Freeman, dies aged 82 (1 April 2005)
Comedy writer Dave Freeman was instrumental in the success of
Benny Hill. He co-wrote and appeared in The Benny Hill Show in
its early days and also worked with Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howerd
and Tony Hancock.
He also wrote for sitcoms including Bless This House and Terry
and June as well as scripting two Carry On films. more....
First ITV
Weatherman, Laurie West, has died aged 96 (26 March 2005)
Laurie West was an early
television weatherman in the days before the technological
wizardry of computer graphics. He became the first independent
television weatherman for the London area in 1955. Instead of the
Met Office weather chart, he invented a device consisting of maps
drawn onto a series of horizontal three-sided metal bars which
allowed him to change the map by turning a handle. He also
developed the idea of using small mobile symbols of the sun,
clouds, rain and snow, which could be attached by magnets to the
map. Always smartly dressed, West himself never appeared on
television without a fresh flower in his buttonhole. By the
mid-1960s he had made nearly 3,000 broadcasts. He retired in
1968. more...
Oliver
Whitley, former MD of BBC External
Broadcasting, has died aged 93 (24 March 2005)
Oliver Whitley, a former Managing Director of External
Broadcasting and Chief Assistant to the Director-General, was
regarded by many as the keeper of the BBC's conscience. In 1949
Whitley returned to the BBC as Assistant Head of the Colonial
Service and then rose steadily through a succession of posts in
the World Service. After nine years he moved to Broadcasting
House to take charge of staff recruitment, training and
promotion. In 1964 he became the Chief Assistant to the
Director-General, Sir Hugh Greene. more....
Actor, David
Kossoff, dies aged 85
(24 March
2005)
David Kossoff was a versatile
actor well remembered for his role as Alf Larkin in the
television series The Larkins, and a charming exponent of Jewish
humour, manners and aspirations.
Apart from his cosy retelling of Bible stories, he was best known
on the small screen for his successful collaboration with Peggy
Mount on The Larkins. But although the programme was a hit, and
though he also had memorable roles in films such as A Kid for Two
Farthings and The Bespoke Overcoat, it was the theatre which was
closest to his heart. more....
New BBC Four
series features '50s TV (16
March 2005)
BBC Four has launched its
website for TV On Trial - a week-long search to discover which
was Britain's greatest TV decade, starting Sunday 27 March 2005.
Roy Hattersley praises the decade of the Queen's coronation,
while the Observer's TV critic Kathryn Flett wonders what was so
great about the 50s.
Programmes showing in full: Fabian of the Yard,
Double Your Money, Life with the Lyons, Can You Tell Me?
link....
Singing star
Kathie Kay, 86, dies (9 March 2005)
Big band singing legend Kathie Kay, who belonged to a well-known
Glasgow family, has died at the age of 86.
Her big break came in the 1950s when she was made resident singer
on Billy Cotton's Band Show, which later switched from radio to
television. more....
Sci-Fi
frightener set for live TV (4
March 2005)
The BBC is to screen a live production of Fifties sci-fi classic
The Quatermass Experiment. It will be the BBC’s first live
drama programme in more than 20 years. The Quatermass Experiment
was originally broadcast in 1953 and was so frightening that
audiences were said to have fainted in front of their TV sets.
BBC4 will condense the original six episodes into a two-hour
special to be broadcast on April 2.
Only two of the six original Quatermass episodes, which were
filmed live, remain in the BBC archives – the others have
been lost. The BBC followed up the series with Quatermass II
(1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1957).
The lead role of Professor Quatermass has yet to be cast. more....
Leonard
Miall, BBC US correspondent and Head of Television Talks, has
died aged 90 (25 February 2005)
A great institution like the BBC is made by people. Leonard
Miall, who was involved with the BBC from 1939 into the new
century, must rate as one of its outstanding public servants. He
was a star in his own right as a reporter, he was the head of a
production department in television that still influences the
standards of current-affairs broadcasting, he was an ambassador
for the BBC and then went on to be one of its historians. more....
Gerard
Glaister, TV drama producer, has died aged 89 (16 February 2005)
Gerard 'Gerry' Glaister
demonstrated an opportunity to draw in audiences from the
beginning: The Dark Island; Maigret (1960-1963), which won a
Bafta for best series, and, above all, Dr Finlay’s Casebook
(1962-1971) were all successful. The Revenue Men involved Customs
and Excise. In 1968, The Expert was based on his uncle’s
forensic work. Two years later, Codename was a gripping thriller.
But all were eclipsed when The Brothers, a series set in a road
haulage firm began in 1972. In the same year, Colditz became one
of the highest-rated series ever shown, and towards the end of
the decade Glaister repeated its success with Secret Army, which
dealt with a Resistance escape route in Belgium (and was later
sent up by ’Allo ’Allo!). Howards’ Way, set in a
boatyard, captured perfectly the tone of the Thatcherite 1980s
and proved popular, but by 1991 the formula failed to work so
well when it was transferred to the world of horseracing in
Trainer. more....
Actor Basil
Hoskins has died aged 75 (11 February 2005)
Basil Hoskins was a character
actor in the romantic mould and dedicated his career, which
spanned nearly half a century, to the theatre. To earn a living
he had, somewhat against his will, to work in television. In
Emergency Ward 10, Hoskins was the flirtatious Dr Lane-Russell;
and, when he wanted to return to the theatre, it proved difficult
to write him out.
Lane-Russell had already been up before the General Medical
Council, so the scriptwriters had him propose to a staff nurse
who turned him down, driving him to find work in a public health
department.
Hoskins did, though, still appear in television dramas, among
them The Prisoner, Clayhanger, New Avengers, The Return of
Sherlock Holmes, The Blackheath Poisonings and Cold Comfort Farm.
His film credits included Ice Cold in Alex, The Millionairess,
North-West Frontier, Lost in London and Heidi. more....
Jack Kine
Pioneer of television special effects has died aged 83 (29 January 2005)
Jack Kine was a true pioneer
of television. As the co-founder in 1954 of the BBC Visual
Effects Department along with Bernard Wilkie, he worked on many
landmark productions, inventing techniques that stood the
burgeoning industry in good stead for decades to come. Their
baptism of fire was 'Running Wild' with Morecambe and Wise in
1954, quickly followed by Rudolph Cartier's epic production
'1984'. They learnt fast and quickly: on 'Quatermass II' (1955)
the amorphous monster was hurriedly put together after Cartier
finished one morning session with the announcement that
"after lunch we shoot the creature". Although shows
were predominantly live, some pre-filming was allowed for
'Quatermass and the Pit' (1958/59), for which Kine designed the
hideously plausible Martian creatures. Their remit covered every
genre including comedy (Dad's Army, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em),
drama (Z-Cars, Maigret) and education (Blue Peter and Tomorrow's
World). They weren't backroom boffins, but an integral part of
the studio team, establishing a rapport with cast and crew alike.
The television Visual Effects Department became the biggest of
its kind in the world, with a bevy of talented designers blowing
things up with aplomb. BBC bureaucracy would not allow joint
heads of department, so Kine became the titular chief, assuming a
more administrative role, whilst Wilkie continued on the workshop
floor. He was great company, full of stories and proud of his
work without being arrogant. more....
Johnny
Downes, Crackerjack! producer dies aged 84 (25 January 2005)
Johnny Downes, who died in
December 2004, was the originator of Crackerjack, the BBC's first
live children's television programme.
Made up of sketches, competitions, corny jokes and pop star
guests, at the height of its popularity it began with the words
"It's Friday, it's five to five, and it's Crackerjack".
The studio audience screamed in response, sending adult fingers
instinctively toward the off-switch.
Apart from Crackerjack, Downes produced such BBC shows as Peter's
Troubles (1953), Peter Cavanagh (1955), Ignorants Abroad (1958),
Leave It To Pastry (1960), The Valiant Varneys (1964), Jennings
(1966), Oh Brother! (1968) and Michael Bentine Time (1972).
The series he produced included Playbox and Studio E (both 1955),
The Lenny The Lion Show (1957), and a cult show for adults, Call
My Bluff, from 1965. He came out of retirement in 2001 to produce
and direct Boom Boom! The Best Of The Original Basil Brush Showy
Bluff, David Nixon’s shows, Child’s Play and The Basil
Brush Show. He devised Crackerjack in 1955, just two years after
the BBC recruited him. more....
Cyril
Fletcher has died aged 91 (2
January 2005)
Cyril Fletcher delivered odd
odes in strangulated Cockney tones and was a surprising hit with
television and radio audiences in a broadcasting career spanning
more than sixty years. With his distinctive nasal twang and his
contagious bonhomie Cyril Fletcher was one of Britain's most
popular comedians.
In the post-war years, he was a regular in three series of the
classic 1950s panel game What's My Line? and appeared in
the first religious series, Sunday Story. He and his wife
starred in Bob Monkhouse and Denis Goodwin's BBC sketch special Cyril's
Saga (1957) and in the six-part series The Cyril Fletcher
Show (1959), scripted by Johnny Speight. Fletcher was also a
regular member of the panel in the BBC radio show Does the
Team Think? As well as delivering his distinctive ditties,
Cyril Fletcher was also, in his time, a cabaret artist, gardening
expert and proud countryman. more....
British Film
Institute to catalogue its TV advertisement collection for public
access (30 November 2004)
It has been announced that the National Film and Television
Archive (NFTVA), part of the British Film Institute, is embarking
on the enormous task of cataloguing its extensive collection of
between 70,000 and 80,000 adverts. The project has been given a
healthy kick-start with a six-figure sponsorship from Coca-Cola
UK, which is also donating its entire 50-year-old archive of
1,200 British commercials to be restored and archived for public
access. more....
Novelist
Arthur Hailey has died at the age of 84 (26 November 2004)
He was known for his
bestselling page-turners exploring the inner workings of various
industries, from the hotels to high finance.
In 1956, Arthur Hailey scored his first writing success with a TV
drama, "Flight Into Danger," which later became a
motion picture and a novel, Runway Zero-Eight. Since then, as a
novelist and one of the great storytellers of our time, he has
acquired a worldwide following of devoted readers and his books
are published in twenty-seven languages. more....
Eddie
Straiton, the first of the "TV vets", has died aged 87.
(10
November 2004)
Eddie started a regular
television feature in 1957, giving advice to farmers on animal
health and welfare topics on Farming Today. His engaging
personality, Scottish accent, down-to-earth advice and
straightforward methods brought him immense popularity with his
audience. He went on to broadcast widely, and write a series of
popular veterinary books (by "the TV Vet") on farm
animals and domestic pets. The books themselves had a much more
attractive format than conventional veterinary texts of the time.
They were translated into many languages and sold almost a
million copies worldwide. more....
Howard Keel,
actor and baritone, has died aged 87 (9 November 2004)
Howard Keel was one of the
biggest stars of MGM musicals in the 1950s, with a powerful, if
only partially trained, baritone voice that lent itself to lusty
singing westerns, ranging from Annie Get Your Gun (1949) to
Calamity Jane (1953) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
In later life Keel enjoyed a second career in television, playing
the role of Clayton Farlow, husband of Miss Ellie, in the
long-running series Dallas, which eventually closed in 1991. more....
BBC told to sell
access to archives (20 October 2004)
The BBC has helped drive the take-up of digital radio but should
consider making programmes from its vast radio archives available
to private sector companies, a government commission says. The
report on the publicly funded broadcaster's five digital channels
-- 1Xtra, BBC Asian Network, 6 Music, BBC7 and Five Live Sports
Extra -- comes less than a week after a separate
government-commissioned report criticised the BBC's digital
television channels for providing poor value for money.
The digital radio report from former Channel Four executive Tim
Gardam comes as parliament reviews the BBC's governing charter.
At a time when the BBC's independence from government oversight
is in doubt, Gardam also warned that "the lack of any formal
relationship between the BBC governors and (media regulator)
Ofcom ... is a problem."
Gardam recommended that commercial radio companies be able to buy
programmes from the BBC Radio archive, and that the BBC should
consider a joint venture with the commercial sector for archival
programming in the future.
The BBC is pursuing a separate initiative to open its audio and
video archives to the public. more....
John Hardwick
the puppeteer has died aged 67 (6
October 2004)
He started out by helping Bob
Bura to stage Punch and Judy shows on Southsea beach. In 1956, he
and Bura were taken up as marionette puppeteers by the BBC Puppet
Theatre and it was there, while working on the Rubovian Legends,
that they met Gordon Murray. They also helped Jan and Viasta
Dalibor manipulate the puppets on Pinky and Perky. Their first
animated films were cinema advertisements, and they later made
animated inserts for Blue Peter, Pops & Lenny, and Hey Presto
It's Rolf (Harris). The pair went on to create the classic
children's television programmes, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and
Chigley. more....
Independent Obituary
The Venerable
Francis House has died aged 96 (18 September 2004)
He was Archdeacon of
Macclesfield from 1967 to 1978, but his most substantial
contribution to the life of the church was made immediately after
the war, when he was head of religious broadcasting at the BBC,
then assistant general secretary of the World Council of
Churches.
During his time at the BBC (1947-55), House initiated a
revolutionary change in the Corporation's approach to religious
broadcasting, influenced by the arrival of television and by the
recognition that Britain was no longer a churchgoing nation in
which Christian values could be taken for granted. more....
The BBC could
be forced to share its radio archive with its commercial radio
rivals, if a move suggested by media regulator Ofcom goes ahead. (17 September 2004)
The BBC's radio archive
contains more than 750,000 programmes from the corporation's
82-year history.
Ofcom chief executive Stephen Carter suggested the BBC sell
programmes to commercial stations "to enhance their offering
to the listening public".
This would also help the take-up of digital radio in the UK, he
said. more....
Margaret
Kelly, founder of the famous Bluebell Girl dancers, has died at
the age of 94. (13 September 2004)
As a child, Margaret Kelly was adopted by a poor Irish family.
When the family doctor admired her bright blue eyes, he
affectionately called her “bluebell” and her nickname
stuck.
Margaret Kelly started dancing at 14 and toured Europe with an
English ballet troupe. At the age of 19, she was a dancer with
the Folies Bergere in Paris. She started her first dance troupe
in Scotland; they were known as the Hot Jocks
The first Bluebell Girls appeared on stage in 1932. They were
noted for their beauty, height (averaging 5 foot 11 inches) and
professionalism. Kelly had a reputation for her strict
supervision of her girls but, equally, she was also highly
protective of them.
When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Margaret Kelly - whose
husband Marcel was Jewish - was held at a camp in Besant. After
the war, her Bluebell Girls continued to enchant audiences
throughout the world with troupes on stage in Paris, Hong Kong,
Rio de Janeiro and Las Vegas.
Mararet Kelly's life was later dramatised for the popular British
television series "Bluebell" in 1986, which starred
Carolyn Pickles as Miss Bluebell. more....
Stage and
television actor Glyn Owen has died aged 76 (11 September 2004)
Glyn Owen was probably best
known for his role as Jack Rolfe in Howard's Way. His career
spanned 50 years and early on he played Dr Paddy O'Meara in
Emergency Ward 10, one of the first big soap operas on
television. In the '50s, he also appeared in The Trollenberg
Terror, William Tell and The Invisible Man. His starring roles
included Richard Hurst in The Rat Catchers and Hugo in Richard
the Lionheart in 1962. In the 1960s, he was seen in The Saint,
Thorndyke and Trouble Shooters. More recently he appeared in
popular television shows such as Casualty, Heartbeat, Doctor Who
and Survivors. more....
Daily Telegraph
Obituary
Sad news
about Charlie Drake (1September 2004)
Until recent weeks, Charlie
Drake was living with his brother in Crystal Palace, London. But
a few weeks ago, he suffered a stroke, the result of which is
blindness. After treatment at Kings College Hospital, he has now
been admitted to Brinsworth House, Twickenham - the retirement
home for show business performers.
John Barron,
the character actor has died aged 83 (7 July 2004)
Barron was best known for his
portrayal of CJ, the maniacal head of Sunshine Desserts in The
Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
In the early 1950s he performed studio drama for the BBC; these
were the days in which a "repeat" meant merely that the
play was filmed live on Sunday, and once again on Thursday. This
early grounding proved invaluable, and throughout his career
Barron was never off the small screen for long.
He made early television appearances in Fly Away Peter,
Emergency-Ward 10 and (as the Dean) in All Gas and Gaiters. more....
Anthony
Pragnell, stalwart of ITA has died aged 83 (18 June 2004)
Tony Pragnall was a stalwart
of the Independent Television Authority from its beginnings. He
served the Independent Television Authority (later the
Independent Broadcasting Authority) for almost 30 years of quiet
professionalism. When the ITA was formed in 1954 he was picked to
be one of the small band who, under Sir Robert Fraser, would
launch this venture. First as Assistant Secretary, then as
Secretary, and then as Deputy Director General (Administrative
Services), Pragnell was increasingly a key man in the engine
room. more....
TV 'Cowboy'
Ross Salmon has died aged 80 (12 June 2004)
After service as a pilot in
the Navy, when he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,
Ross Salmon became an entertainer and author, remembered for his
"cowboy" character. He appeared on early BBC children's
television, originally on Shirley Abicair's programmes before
launching his own series.
His character was a "real" cowboy, informing children
about what being a cowboy was all about, things like how to
recognise different animal footprints, or how to whittle, the art
of horse management, how to make and use a lasso, etc.
He set up an American Western style ranch called the "Lazy
S" at Longdown in Devon and introduced a breed of hardy
cattle.
There were a series of Ross Salmon books and annuals, printed in
the 50's.
He was a broadcaster for the BBC for over 30 years, covering
sport (principally rugby and cricket as I recall) for BBC South
West. more....
TV Drama head
Shaun Sutton has died aged 84 (18 May 2004)
Shaun Sutton was a tireless
champion of quality television whose good fortune was to preside
over what is regarded as the golden age of television drama.
Joining the BBC in the very early Fifties, one of his earliest
jobs was writer of the children's television programme Saturday Special, he also starred in 'The Cabin in the
Clearing' as Silas
Sutherland in 1954 and went on to produce six of the later
episodes of 'Billy Bunter of
Greyfriars School'.
As Head of BBC Television's Drama Group from 1969 to 1981, Sutton
was the executive ultimately responsible for an era which
produced Pennies From Heaven; Play for Today; Softly Softly; I
Claudius; The Pallisers and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He loosed
a huge outpouring of BBC 2 "classic" serials, ranging
from The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R to Testament of
Youth. more....
Whirligig Magician
Geoffrey Robinson OBE has died aged 90 (6 May 2004)
Probably best known for his
appearances on the BBC Children's TV programme in the 1950s, With
his fawn coloured lovable docile rabbit called 'Whirly', Geoffrey
Robinson made well over 50 appearances in the Whirligig
programme, appearing every other week. Over a period of some
three or more years he performed over four hundred tricks in all
and some wonderful magic. He was appointed treasurer of the Magic
Circle in 1973 and held the appointment until 1987. In 1978,
perhaps his greatest honour was to be awarded the OBE for
services as Secretary to The National Hospitals for Nervous
Diseases.
Norris
McWhirter has died aged 78 (19 April 2004)
He was co-founder, with his
twin brother Ross, of The Guinness Book of Records. In the
Fifties he worked with BBC radio as a sports commentator,
including the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He then switched to
television as part of the corporation's commentary team for four
successive Olympic Games: Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964), Mexico
(1968) and Munich (1972). more....
Broadcaster Hubert
Gregg mourned (29 March 2004)
Hubert Gregg was a unique broadcaster. As a musician he was
responsible for memorable songs such as 'Maybe It's Because I'm a
Londoner', and in Radio 2's Thanks for the Memory, he painted
pictures of a bygone era with wit and style. He appeared in '50s
TV series including Robin Hood (as Prince John) and 'Colonel
March of Scotland Yard' as well as Radio series such as Auntie
Rides Again in 1955. more....
Dennis
Bardens, Writer and founding editor of 'Panorama' has died aged
92. (18 February 2004)
Panorama was first broadcast on 11 November 1953. Bardens was
billed as Editor, and contributed a fascinating item to the first
edition about brainwashing and the way a number of British
prisoners of war returning from Korea had been won over to
Communism. But Panorama was not at first a great success, and
after six months Bardens left to work first for the Foreign
Office, and then, when the new network began broadcasting two
years later, for ITV. more....
Rikki Fulton,
the Scottish comedian has died aged 79 (29 January 2004)
Rikki Fulton was a Jock-of-all-trades who mastered every medium
in the entertainment business, playing every kind of role from
pantomime dame on stage to private detective on radio.
He was the laconic compere of The Show Band Show (1953), a Light
Programme showcase for Cyril Stapleton and his musicians and in
July 1958 he received the first of many accolades - a booking for
that year's Royal Variety Performance, in a predominantly
Scots-flavoured cast which included Duncan Macrae and Stanley
Baxter. An edited version of the show was broadcast on radio a
few days later, and Fulton obtained more national exposure in
1959 on ITV when Bernard Delfont's Sunday Show, transmitted from
the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, introduced him as
"the new comedy personality".
There followed two Saturday night specials on BBC television in
1960 and 1961, The Rikki Fulton Show, scripted by its star, and
with the comedy actress (and Fulton's first wife) Ethel Scott as
his principal foil. more....
Andy Pandy's
coming to say his first words in 54 years (22 January 2004)
Throughout 54 years clambering
in and out of his wicker basket home, the clown-suit-clad puppet
has maintained a profound silence. Soon, however, Andy Pandy and
Looby Lou and Teddy, his equally tight-lipped friends in the
puppet show, will find their voices for the first time since the
programme began as part of the BBC's Watch With Mother series in
1950.
The marionette will break his half-century of silence in a stage
production featuring the three characters which opens next month
at London's Peacock theatre.
The news of Andy Pandy's venture into speech follows claims by
the actor Tom Conti, the narrator of the BBC's new colour version
of the classic series, that the updated programmes are littered
with double meanings and sexual innuendo. The shows, now
nicknamed Randy Pandy according to Conti, feature scenes such as
Andy blowing on a wooden horn, which he finds "rather
hard".
But parents alarmed that the character's talking stage
counterpart will use the gift of speech to make lewd suggestions
to Looby Lou or even to swear fruitily at Teddy need not be
alarmed. Andy Pandy's opening gambit to youngsters watching the
show, produced by BBC Worldwide Events and Children's Showtime,
and also featuring the TV puppets Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men,
will be the distinctly low-key greeting: "Hello, my name is
Andy Pandy, have you come to play?"
Actor
Dinsdale Landen, a veteran of British stage, TV and film, has
died aged 71 (29 December 2003)
Dinsdale Landen, the stage and television actor, was one of the
most original, gifted and hilarious exponents of light comedy or
farce in the post-war West End theatre.
Short-built, thick-set, round-faced, wide-eyed, fat-cheeked and
resonant of voice, Landen had a line in nervous husbands,
faltering suitors, idle academics and eccentric bumblers which
was not only brilliantly observed but also executed with
precision and a degree of panache. His TV debut came when he
played Pip in a 1959 adaptation of Great Expectations. more....
The British
entertainment world is mourning comedian Bob Monkhouse, who has
died aged 75 (29 December 2003)
As well as his long career as a talented, slick comedian and
occasional straight actor, Bob Monkhouse was probably best known
as a host of popular TV game shows.
Bob Monkhouse became a TV regular in the early 1950s. 'Fast and
Loose' was Monkhouse's first regular TV show, a live sketch show
written with comedy partner Denis Goodwin. Beginning in 1954, it
starred the pair alongside other comedy actors including June
Whitfield, and ran for two series on the BBC.
Monkhouse also played a character called Bob in 'My Pal Bob' a
two-series sitcom, but the domestic characters and scenarios were
entirely fictional. Goodwin starred as Bob's "friend,
partner and chief victim" while Terence Alexander appeared
as Terry, Bob's drunken neighbour. The show ran in 1957 and 1958.
The first of Monkhouse's many quiz shows was called 'Do You Trust
Your Wife?'. It was a version of a US game show hosted by Johnny
Carson where he would ask contestants: "Would you like to
answer this one yourself, or do you trust your wife to answer
it?" more....
The actor
Alfred Lynch has died aged 72 (27 December 2003)
Alfred Lynch first came to prominence in that period of the late
Fifties when working-class realism and kitchen-sink drama were
coming to the fore on stage and screen as never before.
For television's fondly remembered Sunday night anthology
Armchair Theatre, he played one of three sailors on shore leave
in Liverpool in Alun Owen's No Trams to Lime Street (1959). Often
referred to as the British equivalent of On the Town, it had
songs by Ronnie Scott and Marty Wilde. Lynch also starred in the
BBC's series Hereward the Wake (1965) as the 11th-century freedom
fighter battling the Duke of Normandy. Sadly, it is one of the
shows the BBC is believed to have wiped. more....
Actor David
Hemmings has died aged 62 (4 December 2003)
One of David Hemmings' first
TV parts as a child actor was in the 1950's childrens series
Billy Bunter. Hemmings became one of the icons of the swinging
60s appearing in the cult films Blow-Up and Barbarella but later
focused on directing and producing TV shows like A-Team, Quantum
Leap and Airwolf. He returned to acting in recent years with
roles in films like Gladiator, Last Orders and Gangs of New York.
more....
Dai Francis,
the singer, has died aged 73 (28 November 2003)
Dai Francis was a star of The
Black and White Minstrel Show, George Mitchell's song and dance
spectacular which beat Fred Astaire and the Kirov Ballet to win
the Golden Rose (for Best Television Show in the World) at the
first Montreux Festival in 1961 and dominated television variety
for two decades, regularly attracting audiences of 15 million.
With his fellow bass-baritone Tony Mercer and tenor John Boulter,
Francis was one of the Minstrels' excellent trio of lead
vocalists. Although he is best remembered for his renditions of
Al Jolson, his joie de vivre and energy were such that he gave an
instant lift to any scene in which he appeared. more....
Actor Robert
Brown has died aged 85
Brown was born
November 12, 1918 in the Hebrides Islands, Scotland and appeared
in numerous television shows and nearly 60 films. Brown first
appeared alongside future Bond co-star Roger Moore in 1958 in the
television series "Ivanhoe"
playing his trusty sidekick Gurth.
He went on play Admiral Hargreaves in "The Spy Who Loved
Me" and later portrayed "M", the head of MI6 in
four films: Octopussy, A View To A Kill, The
Living Daylights and Licence To Kill.
He has appeared in over fifty movies, from which the most
memorable ones include: Carol Reed's "The Third
Man" (1949), William Wyler's "Ben-Hur"
(1959), Peter Ustinov's "Billy Budd" (1962)
and Michael Anderson's "Operation Crossbow"
(1965).
Brown's last role came in 1992 with a small role in the
television movie, "Merlin of the Crystal Cave." more....
Jack Elam,
the actor has died aged 84 (24 October 2003)
Elam was the all-purpose
"baddie" of dozens of classic Westerns, including The
Man from Laramie; Once Upon a Time in the West; High Noon and
Gunfight at the OK Corral.
Elam appeared in more than 130 films, and in numerous television
series, including Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Laramie, Cheyenne, Rawhide,
Have Gun - Will Travel, Bronco, The Rifleman, Lawman, Zorro and
Tales of Wells Fargo though he was always better-known as a face
than as a name. Tall, weatherbeaten and effortlessly sinister,
his grinning, wild appearance was enhanced by a wandering left
eye, left sightless and adrift after a childhood fight. In
Hollywood circles he was known as "the Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly". more....
David Lodge,
the film and TV actor, has died aged 82 (21 October 2003)
He was first seen on screen in José Ferrer's Second World War
adventure Cockleshell Heroes (1955), as one of the group who
break the blockade of Bordeaux by using cockleshell canoes to
attach limpet mines.
Other early films included Private's Progress (1956), The Battle
of the River Plate (1956) and The Long Arm (1956), a taut
thriller that was the last Ealing film actually made at Ealing
Studios. Lodge was seen on screen with Peter Sellers for the
first time in the amusing black comedy The Naked Truth (1957, as
a policeman), followed by Up the Creek (1958), the satire on
unions I'm All Right Jack (1959), Never Let Go (1960), Two Way
Stretch (1960), The Dock Brief (1962), A Shot in the Dark (1964),
Casino Royale (1967), Hoffman (1969), Return of the Pink Panther
(1974) and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978).
Lodge appeared in over 100 films in total, other notable titles
including I was Monty's Double (1958), The League of Gentlemen
(1959), Oh! What a Lovely War (1969, as a recruiting sergeant),
The Railway Children (1970) and Mutiny on the Buses (1972). His
last film was Edge of Sanity (1989), a bizarre reworking of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde in which Anthony Perkins, as Jekyll, discovers
a formula that turns him into Jack the Ripper. more....
Sheb Wooley,
singer-songwriter/actor has died aged 82 (16 September 2003)
In 1958 Wooley became a
regular member of the cast of Rawhide, the western television
series about a cattle drive, starring Eric Fleming and Clint
Eastwood. Playing the role of Pete Nolan, Wooley remained with
the series for several years, writing some of the later scripts.
He recorded an album, Songs from the Days of Rawhide (1961) and,
in a similar vein, Tales of How the West Was Won (1963). His most
well-known song however was "Purple People Eater" which
topped the US charts for six weeks and sold over three million
copies. more....
Versatile actor Ben
Aris dies aged 66 (15 September 2003)
As a youth he appeared on
television (in the Muffin the Mule series) and on the radio, as
one of the "Ovaltinies". His roles ranged from
Rosencrantz in Tony Richardson's boisterous production of Hamlet
to the dancing instructor Julian Dalrymple-Sykes in Hi-De-Hi!,
but theatregoers may best remember him for a role he created in
the West End, the diffident Geoffrey, the only male member of a
provincial tap-dancing class, in Richard Harris's hit comedy
Stepping Out. more....
Actor Rand
Brooks has died at the age of 84 (5 September 2003)
Rand Brooks, the actor who
played Scarlett O'Hara's ill-fated first husband in Gone with the
Wind and who gave Marilyn Monroe her first screen kiss, has died.
Brooks also appeared as sidekick Lucky Jenkins in a string of Hopalong Cassidy westerns
and played Cpl Randy Boone in the 1950s TV series The Adventures
of Rin Tin Tin before quitting acting in the 1960s to start up an
ambulance business in suburban Los Angeles. more....
Veteran
broadcaster Peter West dies aged 83 (2
September 2003)
The veteran sports broadcaster Peter West, for many years the
face of BBC cricket, has died. He commentated on Test matches in
England every year from 1952 to 1986, about 150, and for many
years was the anchorman, giving the summary at the end of the
day.
For more than 30 years West also gave commentaries on rugby union
and tennis at Wimbledon. And he was at five Olympic Games. West
joined Come Dancing in 1957 and stayed with the show for 15
years. more....
Kent Walton
dies aged 86 (29 August 2003)
Kent Walton has died aged 86,
He will be remembered as a Radio Luxembourg DJ, as presenter of
the 'Cool For Cats', 'Thank your Lucky Stars' and 'Discs a Gogo'
Rock and Roll programmes in the '50s
and '60s and as a wrestling commentator on ITV where his
catchphrase was always "Have a good week ... till next
week".
When Kent Walton was asked in 1955, "What do you know
about wresting?" he replied "Nothing", yet five
days later he was giving a stylish commentary on his first
wresting match on 'World of Sport'. more....
Dyke to open
up BBC archive (24 August 2003)
Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to
give the public full access to all the corporation's programme
archives. The service, the BBC Creative Archive, would be free
and available to everyone, as long as they were not intending to
use the material for commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added. more....
Early
Panorama producer dies at age of 72 (19 August 2003)
David Webster was fortunate to
have pursued a BBC career as a producer and editor in the 1950s
and the 1960s when the television arm of the organisation was
expanding.
At the BBC, Webster first came to prominence as a globe-trotting
producer on the BBC's flagship programme Panorama, at that time
anchored by Richard Dimbleby and with such distinguished
reporters as Robert Kee, John Morgan, Ludovic Kennedy and Robin
Day more....
Rolf to
celebrate 50 years on TV (3 August 2003)
Artist and TV presenter Rolf
Harris is to celebrate his 50th anniversary in television with a
golden jubilee concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. The
Australian star is expected to perform orchestral versions of
some of his best known hits, such as Two Little Boys and Jake the
Peg.
The event, which will be held on 29 September and raise money for
the Prince's Trust, will be shown on BBC One.
Harris said: "The show at the Royal Albert Hall will be
drawn from everything I've done over the years, both musically
and artistically, which will be a fantastic experience. "I
can't believe how quickly the years have flown since my first
television appearance here in 1953," he said.
Harris will also draw and paint live during the concert. Harris
has presented a wide range of programmes since the 1950s, and
today is best known for Rolf on Art and Animal Hospital. more....
Comedian Bob
Hope has died at the age of 100 (27
July 2003)
Despite being born in England,
Bob Hope was the most American of comedians. His deft delivery of
the one-liner made him the best known comedian since Charlie
Chaplin. He was born Leslie Townes Hope at Eltham in south-east
London in 1903, the son of a stonemason and a former concert
singer. He later changed his name to Bob, because "it
sounded brisker".
In the 1950s he appeared on the small screen in such series as
"The Jack Benny Show" and "I Love Lucy". more....
Buddy Ebsen
has died aged 95 (7 July 2003)
Buddy Ebsen played Jed
Clampett, head of the backwoods family in The Beverly
Hillbillies, one of the most popular television series of the
1960s. Prior to this Disney had cast him as George Russel, the
hero's rowdy sidekick in the television saga Davy Crockett
(1954). America suddenly went Crockett crazy, and the television
episodes were stitched together to make two profitable feature
films more....
Michaela
Denis has died aged 88 (4 May 2003)
She was, with her husband
Armand, a pioneer of wildlife programmes on television.
Their first British television series, Filming Wild Animals, was
shown in 1954, the same year in which David Attenborough embarked
on Zoo Quest. One television series followed another: Filming in
Africa (1955); On Safari (1957-59 and 1961-65), Michaela and Armand Denis
(for ATV, 1955-58) and Safari to Asia (1959-61). more....
Muffin Trots
back after 60 years out to grass (15 April 2003)
Muffin the Mule was the first
children's TV character, making his BBC premiere on 20 October
1946. Hugely successful in the 50s and 60s and now very much part
of English heritage, he is due to return to the screens in late
2005 or early 2006, just in time for his 60th birthday. Maverick
Entertainment, who bought
the rights to Muffin in January, will initially produce
twenty-six, 10 minute episodes, in partnership with the BBC and
production will commence later this year. The revival is likely
to see him reunited with some of his old friends including the
bossy penguin Mr. Peregrine Esquire, a shy Louise the Lamb,
Oswald the Ostrich and Willie the Worm. more....
Dame Thora
Hird dies aged 91 (15 March 2003)
The much-loved actress was
known to millions for starring in sitcoms like 1960s favourite
"Meet the Wife", playing Thora Blacklock, and "In
Loving Memory" playing Ivy in the late 1970s. She joined
"Last of the Summer Wine" in 1985, starring as the
gossiping Aunt Edie Pegden. A deeply religious woman, she was a
natural choice to present such Sunday television programmes as
"Praise Be". She also wrote several successful books.
In the 1950s, she played very many film parts but her earliest
recorded TV role at that time was in "The Adventures of
Robin Hood" in 1955 when she played "Ada" in the
episode "Husband for Marian". more....
Adam Faith
has died of a heart attack at 62 (8 March 2003)
In 1956 he formed a skiffle
group with friends called The Worried Men. His big break came
when the band was playing in Soho, when he was spotted by
television producer Jack Good - director of the BBC pop show 6-5
Special. He adopted his stage name, Adam Faith, and went on to
enjoy chart hits including number one singles What Do You Want
and Poor Me. more....
Chris Brasher
CBE, presenter on the "Tonight" programme, has died at
the age of 74. (28 February 2003)
Brasher won an Olympic gold
medal in 1956 in the steeplechase. He also acted as pace-maker
when Roger Bannister became the first man to break the
four-minute barrier for the mile in 1954. He became a TV
personality when he presented on the Tonight programme. By 1969,
he had been made head of general features television at the BBC,
a key appointment at a time when colour television was being
introduced. He resigned after four years, and went off to pursue
his orienteering, his business interests and some independent
productions. Inspired by the success of the New York marathon,
Brasher co-founded the London marathon which was first run in
1981. more....
Barry
Bucknell, TV's original DIY expert in the 1950s and 1960s has
died, aged 91. (21 February 2003)
Barry Bucknell passed on his
tips in a programme called Do It Yourself, which later became
Bucknell's House. The half-hour programme was broadcast on BBC TV
and was a forerunner to the wide range of homes and interiors
shows which fill the schedules today. He later went on to design
the immensely popular Mirror dinghy. more....
Dick Simmons,
Star of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon dies aged 89 (20 February 2003)
Dick Simmons was most closely
identified with the role of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, which
ran on television from 1955 to 1958. Aided only by his black
horse Rex and his malamute dog Yukon King, Preston
single-handedly enforced law and order each week on the Canadian
frontier, ending each show with the words, "Well King, this
case is closed." Simmons also directed several of the
30-minute episodes. more....
Cyril Shaps,
character actor and voice-over artist has died aged 79 (24 January 2003)
Cyril Shaps made his first
screen appearances as Bibot in the popular ITV swashbuckling
series The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1955). He was also in demand as a
voice-over artist. He took over from George Murcell as the
Austrian inventor Professor Popkiss, the arch-enemy Masterspy and
other characters in the early Gerry Anderson puppet
science-fantasy series Supercar (1962), and was one of the voices
of Mr Kipling in the "exceedingly good cakes"
commercials. more....
Raymond Baxter
belatedly awarded an OBE (31 December 2002)
Raymond Baxter, from
Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, presented Tomorrow's World,
before co-founding the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. Mr
Baxter joined the RAF in 1940 and has been honoured for his work
to preserve the memory of those who crossed the Channel to save
thousands of British soldiers during the war. more....
James Coburn
has died aged 74 (19 November 2002)
James Coburn, the actor, never
quite ranked in the top flight of Hollywood stars, yet his
powerful performances in several classic films, such as The
Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and Pat Garrett and Billy the
Kid rightfully ensured his status as a minor screen legend.
Following appearances in the TV Western series Bonanza, Gunsmoke
and Wanted: Dead or Alive, Coburn's first film role was in Budd
Boetticher's Western Ride Lonesome (1959) as a villain. Other
supporting parts in Westerns followed, until in 1960 he was
picked for The Magnificent Seven. more....
Musician
Lonnie Donegan has died at the age of 71 (3 November 2002)
Best known for novelty songs like My Old Man's a Dustman, Lonnie
Donegan enjoyed a worldwide reputation among musicians as exalted
as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Van Morrison. During the
early 1950s skiffle, with its guitar-driven rhythm, tea-chest
basses and washboard percussion, was hugely popular and Lonnie
Donegan was its biggest star, notching-up 28 top-30 hits.
Donegan's enthusiastic espousal of skiffle, blues, gospel and
American folk music was instrumental in igniting the 1960s
British blues revival.
As the skiffle craze waned at the end of the 1950s, Lonnie
Donegan recorded new material, fun songs like Does Your Chewing
Gum Lose its Flavour? and My Old Man's a Dustman. more....
Bill and Ben
author dies aged 88 (21 September 2002)
Hilda Brabban, who has died
aged 88, wrote the first stories about children's characters Bill
and Ben, the denizens of the potting shed who became popular
favourites in the 1950s as part of BBC Television's Watch With
Mother series.
Hilda Brabban wrote three Bill and Ben stories which were
broadcast on the children's radio programme Listen with Mother in
1951. The television version, adapted by Frieda Lingstrom,
appeared a year later.
She received only one guinea for each of her three original
stories. more....
Music man
George Mitchell has died aged 85 (27 August 2002)
He was the driving musical
talent behind The Black and White Minstrel Show, the most popular
light entertainment television series of the 50s and 60s. The
Mitchell Minstrels - the men blacked up, the women a winsome
line-up of leggy showgirls - achieved record-breaking success
under Mitchell's understated and unassuming direction. A
fast-moving song and dance spectacular, the show featured George
Mitchell's arrangements of 20th century song-book standards and
show tunes, as well as traditional minstrel fare such as Oh
Susanna or Camptown Races. more....
Versatile
character actor Peter Bayliss has died aged 79 (2 August 2002)
He was one of the most
original, charming and versatile actors on the post-war British
stage. Never short of work, he appeared in numerous television
programmes and series, and in films. Capable of playing
characters considerably older than himself, Bayliss was noted for
his be-whiskered manner, flowing moustaches or copious sideburns,
which gave his wheezings and comic croakings an authority to
which his patrician voice - humming, murmuring, hesitant, or
breathing heavily - added depth. His television credits included
appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York in 1957, and Pc
Codge in Dixon of Dock Green, as well as parts in successful
series such as Crown Court, The Avengers, Lovejoy, Minder, and
The Sweeney. more....
Actor Maurice
Denham has died aged 92 (26 July 2002)
After making his name on the wireless in the 1940s with comic
voices in ITMA (It's That Man Again) and Much Binding in the
Marsh, he went on to appear in all sorts of films, from Huggett
comedies to horror melodrama, and to become a commanding presence
on television.
His ear for accent and dialect, and his gift for inventing voices
was astonishing. He used to say that this came from his days at
the BBC with Tommy Handley in ITMA - as Lola Tickle, the char,
and as the announcer on Radio Fakenberg - and with Kenneth Horne,
Sam Costa and Richard Murdoch in Much Binding in the Marsh.
"They were always playing themselves," he said,
"so I played everyone else." more....
Gerald
Campion whose career never quite recovered from the success he
enjoyed as TV's Billy Bunter has died at 81 (11 July 2002)
Gerald Campion was
not the obvious choice to play the lead in the BBC series Billy
Bunter of Greyfriars School. In 1952 he was 29, only 12
stone and a father of two. When offered the part Campion was very
reluctant to take it, but his strained financial cicumstances
meant that he couldn't refuse. The show ran for ten years and
proved popular with adults and children alike and was transmitted
twice each week with Campion performing the show live both times.
He went on to run several restaurants and hotels in the UK and
retired in 1991 to France. more....
Classic
comedy stalwart Pat Coombs dies, aged 75 (27 May 2002)
Miss Coombs, who never
married, became one of the busiest actresses in the business
after first appearing on TV in Hancock's Half Hour in 1956. She
was working until two weeks ago when she starred with Roy Hudd
and June Whitfield on the BBC Radio Four sitcom "Like
they've Never Been Gone". Her most recent TV appearance was
as Marge Green in EastEnders. more....
Comedian
Johnny Hackett has died aged 71 (21 May 2002)
Johnny Hackett who made
several appearances on Sunday Night at the London Palladium in
the 1960's has died after a serious illness.
Norman
Vaughan dies at the age of 79 (18 May 2002)
Entertainer Norman Vaughan has
died in hospital, where he was receiving treatment after being
injured in a traffic accident. He will be remembered as a host of
Sunday Night at the London Palladium where he coined the
catchphrases "Swinging!" and "Dodgy!". He
later also hosted The Golden Shot and was noted for his Cadbury's
Roses ads. more....
The Army Game
showing on Granada Plus (29 April 2002)
Episodes of "The Army
Game" along with "Mr Digby Darling" are being
transmitted on Granada Plus on Sunday mornings.
Dave King has
died at the age of 72 (17 April 2002)
Dave King, one of the most
popular UK television performers of the 1950s and early 60s, has
died after a short illness. In 1955, the BBC gave him his own
show, in which he performed sketches and spoofs of Hollywood
films. In 1959, he tried his luck as an entertainer in the US,
but the experiment came to nothing. On returning to the UK, he
found his style of comedy had fallen out of favour, and turned to
straight acting. He has appeared in many popular TV series since.
more....
Comedian and
writer Barry Took dies at the age of 73 (31 March 2002)
Barry Took wrote for TV and
radio during the 1950s and '60s. He co-wrote many of the episodes
of the TV series "The Army Game" with Marty Feldman
which ran from 1957-61. He also co-wrote "Beyond Our
Ken" for the radio with Eric Merriman and later "Round
the Horne" which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams.
more....
Andy Pandy
returns this week in a new animated series (31 March 2002)
The new series starts on
Thursday 4th. April on CBeebies channel at 08:55 with repeats on
BBC 2 at 10:00 and 13:00
Puppet Maker
Jack Whitehead has died aged 88 (28
March 2002)
After the war he founded a travelling show, the Whitehead
Puppets, for which he designed and carved the puppets himself. He
performed in the early days of BBC Television on such programmes
as Muffin the Mule, and in the puppet cowboy series called Four
Feather Falls. He also made scenery and sets, and branched out
into special effects, working on series such as The Invisible
Man. more....
Kenneth
Wolstenholme has died aged 81 (26
March 2002)
He was the voice of football
on the BBC for almost a quarter of a century. He entered
broadcasting in Manchester and commentated on his first televised
match in 1948 and contributed to TV's Sports Special in the
1950's, although he was far better known as a radio reporter at
the time. more...
Lone Ranger
director dies at 86 (18 March 2002)
William Witney, an influential
director of dozens of Westerns, has died in California. He
directed hundreds of TV shows such as The Lone Ranger, Lassie,
Wagon Train and Bonanza. more....
Spike
Milligan, Last of the Goons, dies at 83 (27 February 2002)
One of Britain's most
respected performers, he was known to millions as one of the
founding members of The Goons. Together with Peter Sellers,
Michael Bentine and Harry Secombe, the quartet helped redefine
comedy programmes for a generation. He went on to star in the Q
series of television shows and also wrote several books,
including Adolf Hitler, My Part In His Downfall. more....
Jennings
follows Potter's success with TV return (24 February 2002)
Talkback Productions is
negotiating to serialise the adventures of the fictional
schoolboy who first surfaced on a BBC Children's Hour radio play
in 1948. For decades Jennings was Britain's most popular scholboy
and became a successful TV series in the 1960's. The author of
the Jennings books, Anthony Buckeridge now 89, is said to be
delighted.
Bugs Bunny
cartoonist Chuck Jones dies (23 February 2002)
Chuck Jones, the Oscar-winning
animator who penned such cartoon classics as Bugs Bunny, Wile E
Coyote and Road Runner, has died, aged 89. Film studio Warner
Brothers announced that he had died yesterday. Mr Jones died from
heart failure at his home in Corona del Mar, near Los Angeles,
his family added.
His work encompassed some 300 films and many cartoons of his own
creation such as the amorous French skunk Pepe Le Pew. more....
Jeremy Hawk
has died aged 83 (25 January 2002)
Jeremy Hawk had an acting
career that spanned more than 60 years and his face was familiar
to millions of television viewers for his role in comedy sketches
as the straight man to Benny Hill. Later he fulfilled a similar
role for Arthur Askey, Norman Wisdom and Sid Caesar. On
television, he first found fame on Granada's Criss Cross Quiz,
for which he was quizmaster on three shows a week from 1957 to
1962. more....
'Professor'
Stanley Unwin passy-way age ninety-fold (14
January 2002)
Comedian Stanley Unwin, who
won fans with his own zany language, has died aged 90.
Professor Unwin, as he was affectionately known, found fame by
twisting words into a nonsense language, which he called
Unwinese, on radio and later TV in the 1940s and 1950s. more....
Vintage TV writer
slams alleged 'covert ban' on old-style 'British' sit-coms (10 January 2002)
Veteran comedy writer, Vince
Powell - once the king of the TV sit-coms, and famous for
blockbuster TV shows, like 'Never Mind The Quality, Feel The
Width', and 'Nearest And Dearest' - is furious that the
funny-business, typical of writers of his genre, has been given
the elbow, by today's new breed of TV executive. more...
Grove Family
"Dad" dies (20 December 2001)
One of Britain's earliest
television soap stars, Edward Evans who played Dad in The Grove
Family has died aged 87. When the BBC producer John Warrington
originally considered Evans for The Grove Family (1954-57), he
thought that the actor would be perfect in the role of a nosy
neighbour but, after auditioning him, Warrington realised that he
had his lead character and built the rest of the new television
family around him. He also appeared later in many television
programmes including Compact and Coronation Street. more....
Pugwash Theme Tune
composer dies (13 December 2001)
The man who provided the theme
tune for the classic children's television programme Captain
Pugwash, has died nearly 50 years after being paid 30 shillings
for his work. more....
Peggy Mount has died
aged 85 (14 November 2001)
She specialised in playing
grotesquely comic harridans such as the tough cockney matriarch
Ada Larkin in the early ITV sitcom, The Larkins, who was
constantly fighting with her husband, Alf (David Kossoff). But
although the battleaxe became her forte, she gave strong
performances in a number of classical roles, which suggested that
beneath the brazen, brawny exterior was an actress of some
subtlety and tenderness. more....
Andy Pandy's coming to
play again! (28 October 2001)
The Blue and white
striped outfit and floppy hat are the same, but when Andy Pandy
returns to TV in Spring 2002 viewers will notice a few changes.
Gone are the strings, and Andy and his friends Looby Loo and
Teddy will no longer live in a wicker basket but will have their
own houses. The 26 x 10 min. shows will be narrated by Tom Conti.
Elton Hayes has died
aged 86 (29 September 2001)
On television Elton Hayes
appeared in The Minstrel Show (forerunner of The Black and White
Minstrel Show) and BBC Caravan Time, and sang and acted in
several television plays. more....
Sooty is on his way to
the Antarctic (10 September 2001)
A Sooty glove puppet, which
has already travelled around the world as a mascot with the
Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989/90, is now reported as
being on his way to the Antarctic with the current British Army
Antarctic Expedition. more....
Arthur Worsley the
ventriloquist has died aged 80 (20 July 2001)
Arthur Worsley was, in his
heyday, described as the greatest ventriloquist in the world.
Worsley and his talkative dummy Charlie Brown appeared regularly
on British television from the 1950s to the 1970s. more....
Arthur Worsley Sound Clip
Eleanor Summerfield
dies at 80 (16 July 2001)
Eleanor Summerfield, who has
died aged 80, was an intelligent and subtle comedy actress. With
her arched eyebrows and irrepressibly cheerful nature, Eleanor
Summerfield was widely in demand, not merely as an actress, but
also on radio and television panel games. more....
The 100 Greatest Kids
TV Shows (21 August 2001)
On Monday 27th August 2001 at
20:30 on Channel 4, Jamie Theakson presents a nostalgic journey
back into the recesses of youth with this run-down of the best
kids' TV entertainment over the years - as voted for by the
British viewing public. As well as being a roll-call of the
kiddies' classics, the programme recounts the stories behind the
shows, including all those rumours about hidden 'adult'
references and behind-the-scenes bust-ups.
Looby Loo
is Coming to Play! (5 July 2001)
A re-make of the classic
children's programme Andy Pandy will include rag doll Looby Loo,
it was confirmed today. A BBC spokesman dismissed speculation
that Looby Loo would be missing from the line-up of the 1 million
pound animated version. Andy Pandy's comeback after 31 years
follows the successful return of another Watch with Mother
favourite, Bill and Ben. more....
Gerry
Anderson awarded MBE in Queen's Birthday Honours (16 June 2001)
Gerry Anderson has been
awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) in the Queen's
Birthday Honours list which was announced today. The award comes
in recognition of his 55 year career in the British film and
television industry, and his immense contribution to popular
British culture through his Supermarionation and live-action
television creations. more....
Perry Como dies at 88
(13 May 2001)
US crooner Perry Como has died
in his sleep at his Florida home after a long illness. Como's
songs, including Catch a Falling Star and Magic Moments, helped
pioneer TV musical variety shows in the '50s. more....
BBC to close its
visitor centre (4 May 2001)
The BBC Experience,
which allows people to try their hand in front of the camera by
presenting the weather forecast or reading the news, is to shut
despite visitor numbers going up. Since opening as part of the
BBC's 75th. anniversary in 1997, it has attracted more than
300,000 visitors. The attraction has never broken even, despite
an admission charge and the prospect of an expensive
refurbishment and pressure on space at Broadcasting House has
made the BBC decide on its closure.
Scottish entertainer
Jimmy Logan dies (13 April 2001)
Tributes have been paid to
veteran Scottish entertainer Jimmy Logan following his death from
cancer at the age of 73. more....
Sir Harry Secombe has
died
(11 April 2001)
Sir Harry Secombe, the
entertainer from Swansea famed for his work with The Goon Show,
has died aged 79. more....
Bill and Ben
to go on show (25 March 2001)
The original string
puppets for the Fifties children's TV series Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men go on display today at the Museum of
London until 17
April. Alongside them will be the new Flowerpot Men, made of
steel and Latex. This is expected to be the last public
appearance of the originals.
Muriel Young
dies (23
March 2001)
Muriel Young,
presenter of TV children's programmes such as Small Time in the
1950s and 60s, has died aged 77.
It'll Never
last... 70 Years of British Television (23 Feb 2001)
BBC Radio 2
are currently transmitting this series on Tuesday evenings at
2100-2200
The series traces the evolution of television in six parts
presented by Alan Whicker.
Dale Evans dies (7 Feb
2001)
Dale Evans, wife of
Roy Rogers, has died aged 88. She appeared in many Western shows
with her husband and her horse Buttermilk. more....
Peter Haigh dies
(18 Jan 2001)
The announcer and
broadcaster Peter Haigh has died. He will be fondly remembered as
a BBC announcer and the presenter of the Movie-go-Round programme
on BBC Radio and also Come Dancing and Picture Parade on
television in the 1950's. more....
Jimmy Shand dies (23 Dec 2000)
The Scots bandleader Jimmy
Shand has died aged 92. Amongst his many television appearances
with his Band, he will be remembered for the BBC series "The White Heather Club" in the 1950's. more....
Destruction
of our Television Heritage (12 Dec 2000)
On Friday 8th
December Haringey Council (owners of Alexandra Palace), published
a document setting out its intention to have the Alexandra Park
& Palace Acts 1900 - 1985 revised in order to grant a lease
on the building as a whole or in part. This does not sound very
dramatic but the outcome will result in the destruction of the
television studios.
Follow this link to read the full details. more....
Flowerpot Men
to return to BBC1 on 4 Jan 2001 at 15:45 (22 Oct 2000)
Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men, who first charmed young
television viewers almost half a century ago, are returning to
our screens with a new look and without puppet strings. Updated
for the 21st century, the pair, who spoke in gibberish known as
"flobbadob", have been redesigned by the BBC for a
26-episode series beginning on 4th. January 2001. It will be
accompanied by merchandising spin-offs including toys, games,
videos and a Bill and Ben magazine. John Thompson narrates the
new version.
Puppet man
Ivan Owen dies (19 Oct 2000)
The man who
provided the voices of several puppet characters in the 1950's,
including Yoo Hoo the Cuckoo in Billy Bean and his Funny Machine and also Fred Barker from Smalltime, has died after a long battle with cancer.
Ivan Owen, who was 73, later created Basil Brush along with Peter
Firmin, for a children's puppet show in 1964. more....
If you have any comments or further information of interest, please e-mail news@whirligig-tv.co.uk