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TV News Whirligig '50s TV and Radio news feed 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: they appeared 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.... 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....   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....   News Archive - Click here

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