Feed Editor 18 Jun 2010 09:07:15 GMT Whirligig presents news items about the programmes which were broadcast to our televisons and radio sets back in the Fifties in the UK. There are also news items about the stars and celebrities of that era and links to other websites of relevent interest. News of what is new on the Whirligig website is also available here. http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk Copyright (c) 2008 Whirligig.TV, All rights reserved en-gb http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/whirligig.gif http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk Whirligig Logo In March 1954 Avis Scott became a BBC TV in-vision announcer, replacing Noelle Middleton and was immensely popular with viewers. However, her good looks and charm were to be her downfall as in January 1955 she was sacked for being "too glamourous and sexy." She also starred in several movies in the early 50's including Waterfront with Richard Burton and in the West End she was featured in Noel Coward's Present Laughter 1947-1948 as well as Dear Murderer and Lady from Edinburgh, both in 1946. She moved to Hollywood and worked in Television until her retirement in the early eighties. 18 Jun 2010 09:07:10 GMT F3A65734-B4A2-49C2-8AB5-2E719E8C00F1 Robert Hudson, a radio broadcaster of impeccable professionalism in the best traditions of the BBC, was for many years a well-known voice at important cricket and rugby union matches and an exemplary commentator on State occasions. Having obtained a postwar degree from the London School of Economics he shone sufficiently at a BBC audition in 1946 to become a freelance commentator on cricket and rugby. He also covered the Boat Race three times and became the master of the state occasion. He broadcast from 31 countries, covering six royal tours by the Queen between 1961 and 1967, four state visits and four independence ceremonies. Public events that he described for radio included 21 successive Trooping the Colour ceremonies, 16 Cenotaph Remembrance Day services, four state openings of Parliament, the Queen Mother's 80th birthday service, the royal weddings of Princess Margaret (1960), Princess Alexandra (1963), Princess Anne (1973) and the Prince of Wales (1981), and the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill (1965), the Duke of Windsor (1972) and Field Marshal Montgomery (1976). For television he covered the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet, the first and last nights of the Proms, the funeral of Dag Hammarskjöld and President John F. Kennedy's meeting with the Pope in 1963. He also presented Songs of Praise, Pick of the Week, Down Your Way, Christmas Bells on Christmas Morning, every year from 1965 to 1981, and, on more than 200 occasions, the Today Programme on Radio 4. 7 Jun 2010 08:37:50 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7145092.ece 78A68991-3905-4769-9DA9-3F59D5829E7C During the mid-1950s, she appeared on television and in variety, tearing up phone books, lifting a steel table in her teeth, bending and breaking iron bars and nails and throwing obese men over her shoulder. Billed as "The Mighty Mannequin", she showed no outward sign of her considerable muscle power: with her 22in waist, she described herself as "an iron girl in a velvet glove", dressing like a showgirl and interspersing her feats with a slightly fey rhyming patter about the drawbacks of being so strong. In 1949 she gained national attention when she appeared in a freak show entitled Would You Believe It? which toured the country. Considerable success in the London music halls and tours of America followed, and she appeared in a number of British summer shows. At Christmas 1958 she performed before the Royal Family at Windsor Castle, where she snapped a 10in nail which the Duke of Edinburgh had been able only to dent. On her way to the Pier Theatre, Shanklin, in 1960, she was stopped by a policeman on the Isle of Wight ferry and asked to explain the presence of several hundred telephone directories in the back of her car. At the height of her fame Joan Rhodes was viewed by the British public with a kind of stupefied fascination. She became the object of music hall jokes and cartoons in Punch. 3 Jun 2010 08:28:15 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/7798678/Joan-Rhodes.html AFA4619D-5776-4A3B-9646-1D0470EB24AB Carol Marsh earned her big screen break when she was chosen from more than 3,000 applicants to play Rose, the mousy, wide-eyed waitress in the film noir classic Brighton Rock (1947). After Brighton Rock she dyed her hair platinum for the title role in Alice in Wonderland (1949). In the same year she was in three comedies: Marry Me, Helter Skelter, and The Romantic Age, in which she appeared with Mai Zetterling and Petula Clark. She was the fragile, delicate yet ghoulishly determined Lucy, Christopher Lee's ill-fated victim, in the 1958 Hammer production of Dracula, the first colour version of Bram Stoker's classic. In the 1951 film of Scrooge, with Alistair Sim in the title role, Carol Marsh played the old skinflint's sister Fan, who dies giving birth to his nephew, Fred. Her career continued into the 1960s with films such as Man Accused and parts in television dramas, among them The Adventures of Sir Lancelot and Dixon of Dock Green. In the 1970s she appeared in the record-breaking West End play The Mousetrap. She had made her television debut in 1950 in The Lady's Not For Burning, starring Richard Burton and Alec Clunes. She was Miranda in a children's version of The Tempest, and Alexandra in Little Foxes (both 1951). She featured in the 1959 Trollope serial The Eustace Diamonds, playing Augusta Fawn, and was Mrs Blacklow in the Arnold Bennett serial Lord Raingo of 1966. She was busier on radio, and was a member of the BBC Drama Rep at intervals between 1966 and 1979. 1 Jun 2010 10:14:17 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7790849/Carol-Marsh.html AF9FF344-848B-47A4-967F-6678DCF5C2CD Put under contract by Warner Brothers after being spotted on television while still a teenager, he made his film debut in Rebel Without a Cause alongside James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. He played opposite Dean again in Giant (1956) and was strongly influenced by Dean's brooding style. He always regarded Dean as the most talented and original actor he worked with. They became close friends and Dean's death in a car crash in 1955 at the age of 24 affected him deeply. Much of his subsequent work was in westerns, from Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) to The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967) Hang 'em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Dennis Hopper was triumphantly to capture the spirit of the youth revolution of the '60s in the film that became iconic of the spirit of Sixties counter-culture, Easy Rider (1969). As scriptwriter (with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern) actor (with Peter Fonda) and director, of Easy Rider, Hopper was the controlling genius of a film that could so easily have degenerated into chaos as it pursued him and Fonda as a couple of drop-outs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles on a ragged odyssey across America (on the way giving Jack Nicholson his first big screen break). 31 May 2010 09:16:47 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7786470/Dennis-Hopper.html AB212E1C-EB26-44CF-9743-7F3ECDFDD43A Ray Alan was a technically brilliant voice-thrower who, alongside his superbly snobbish, drink-soaked creation Lord Charles, became the most famous ventriloquist in Britain during the Sixties and Seventies. Alan was inspired to create Lord Charles (family motto: Semper Inebriate) in 1960, while watching a drunken aristocrat in the audience at the Satire Club off Jermyn Street. "I saw this chap sitting at a ringside table," Alan recalled, "dinner suit on, delightful young lady with him, and there he was patting her knee and pouring her champagne and saying: 'By Jove, you lovely thing, oh you lovely little thing.' And I thought what a wonderful character. Lord Charles made his first television appearance in 1961 on the BBC pastiche music hall show The Good Old Days. Such was Alan's success with Lord Charles that they appeared together on the programme more frequently than any other act. With his frequent rejoinder "Silly ass", Lord Charles would introduce viewers into the cosy, Wodehouseian world of the peerage. Alan's natural ability quickly helped him take over as the nation's favourite ventriloquist from Peter Brough, whose radio show, Educating Archie, had been a big success in the Fifties. Alan was technically a much better "vent" than Brough, who was well suited to radio in that his lips moved when he did his act - which proved fatal when he attempted to transfer to television. in 1958 he made his television debut on Toytown, alongside the hero of which, Larry The Lamb, Alan introduced a new character reflecting the dawning space age: Mikki the Martian. Though Lord Charles was his star turn throughout the Sixties, Alan also performed in that period with his two best-known characters for children (of which he was particularly proud), a small boy and his pet duck known as Tich and Quackers. 24 May 2010 22:06:41 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7760738/Ray-Alan.html 13900072-DBE3-4388-B2A2-9729744AFCD5 Roland Fox was a BBC Parliamentary correspondent and only the second to hold the post; he covered the last years of Churchill's premiership and the heated Suez debates, the first televised State Opening of Parliament, and accompanied Harold Macmillan on his "Wind of Change" tour of Africa. There was no guidance, no training and no autocue; he often read straight from his notes on to the air, anticipating the next morning's press by many hours. When Winston Churchill resigned in 1955, there was a newspaper strike, so the story was broken by the BBC's Parliamentary staff. When regular television news bulletins began in July 1954, it often meant a long taxi journey to Alexandra Palace in north London, allowing Fox some time to learn his lines by heart on the way. Later the Westminster studio was adapted for television. On one occasion the studio lights suddenly failed in the middle of Fox's piece. He knew what he wanted to say and gamely continued in total darkness to the end of his live report. He never had any editorial supervision; all that was required, he said, was that he come out on time. 16 May 2010 17:50:47 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7720792/Roland-Fox.html 43930D36-BC4E-43ED-B0D7-3254CFC438F0 Although she did not regard herself as a jazz singer, she had a formidable sense of rhythm and an easy-going style which went well in a jazz context. As a film actress she had notable success in Stormy Weather (in which she sang the title song) and Cabin In The Sky. Her refusal to play demeaning roles, or to allow her light complexion to be darkened with make-up, made enemies in Hollywood but in the long run brought her great public respect. Lena Horne starred on Broadway in Jamaica in 1957. She toured internationally, appearing several times at the London Palladium and the London Casino. She also recorded many albums, ranging from jazz and blues to Rodgers and Hart songs such as The Lady is a Tramp. Altogether she appeared in some 15 films, among them I Dood It (1943) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946). The last, Death of a Gunfighter, came out in 1969, after which she retired to Los Angeles to grow cacti. 16 May 2010 17:50:05 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/7706158/Lena-Horne.html C7B70A7C-96E2-444C-92ED-86E7BFBB4A5C In 1958, Provine played a female gangster in The Bonnie Parker Story: this was essentially a B-movie and had none of the quality of Bonnie And Clyde (1967), but Provine shone in her role. This was followed by inconsequential parts in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and Wagon Train, but she played opposite Lou Costello in the comedy, The 30 Foot Bride Of Candy Rock (1959): Provine played the 30 foot bride. Roger Moore and Provine co-starred in a TV series about prospectors, The Alaskans (1959-60). Provine's big break came with another TV series, The Roaring 20s, in which she played the flapper, Pinky Pinkham. This light-hearted escapism about cops, gangsters and showgirls in Chicago in the 1920s was very successful and co-starred Donald May and Gary Vinson. Provine appeared in the comedy extravaganza It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), as Jack Lemmon's wife in Good Neighbour Sam (1964), with Hayley Mills in That Darn Cat! (1965) and she was back to being a flapper in Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965). Provine was to play the film star, Jean Harlow in Harlow (1965), but, at the last minute, the director Alex Segal decided that Carol Lynley had a greater dramatic range. 6 May 2010 15:22:14 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7115134.ece 0630E8C8-651C-49C1-9C3C-13DA1F8BD69E For 44 years he gave a very definite Scottish identity to the BBC's coverage of the Edinburgh Tattoo. His musical voice brought a feeling of home-grown passion to the events on the Esplanade. That voice captured the excitement and solemnity of many occasions, starting with the Queen's Coronation in 1953, when Fleming was outside Westminster Abbey. He also provided the television commentary for the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother and numerous other state occasions. Another annual duty was the Ceremony of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London. Fleming was able to find the correct intonation for any event and make it suit the occasion. Fleming was a renowned actor and did prestigious seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was closely connected with the epic drama The Three Estates, which he first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in Tyrone Guthrie's celebrated production in 1953. In 1953, he joined the BBC to commentate on the Coronation and proved a natural: unflappable and always ready with some information when things were delayed. Also in 1953, he gave a sympathetic reading of the title role of Jesus of Nazareth: particularly challenging as it was the first time the face of Christ had been acted on television. The 12-part series, shown over Easter, displayed Fleming's acting skills to excellent effect. One of his more unusual assignments was to front the BBC's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest from Edinburgh in 1972. Fleming's contribution to outside broadcasts for the BBC was immense. He commentated on two royal weddings and ten funerals, and the enthronement of two Popes and three Archbishops. One of his last broadcasts was on Radio 4 in 2007, when he was in a dramatisation of Walter Scott's Heart of Midlothian. 20 Apr 2010 15:53:59 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7102225.ece E4DCF1AC-3011-4CBB-AFF0-587BF99E42B0 He became familiar to English television viewers courtesy of the BBC and The White Heather Club, a hugely popular Scottish country dance and music show which ran from 1958 to 1968 and, at its peak, drew an audience of 10 million. The White Heather Club featured stars such as Andy Stewart, swathed in lace and tartan, singing Donald Where's Your Troosers? and Kenneth McKellar with poignant renderings of Song of the Clyde, Bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle and other stirring numbers. In between, dainty girls in white blouses and laced pumps, and young men with kilts and fixed smiles, would whisk and whoop each other through the Dashing White Sergeant or the Eightsome Reel to the strains of Jimmy Shand and his Band. After abandoning the operatic stage, in 1954 McKellar signed with the Decca record company. Over a period of 25 years he recorded some 45 LPs, ranging from oratorio to Burns songs, achieving massive sales all over the world. During the 1950s McKellar became well-known in Scotland through radio, singing Scottish songs, light opera and popular songs on his own series, A Song For Everyone, for the BBC. At the same time, he began trying his hand as a songwriter and was responsible for such ballads as The Tartan, which has been covered by some 40 artistes and The Royal Mile, which was heard by more than four million people during the televised opening of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. In 1966 McKellar was chosen to represent Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest, singing A Man Without Love. It was not a happy experience. Despite widespread predictions that he would win, he was placed ninth, a result he attributed to the fact that the Scandinavian nations had "made a mockery of the whole contest" by voting for each other. 11 Apr 2010 19:36:40 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/7579002/Kenneth-McKellar.html A2AA73B6-0579-4665-B23A-45B24F198846 His supreme triumph came in 1953, when his 39 wickets at 17.48 apiece in five Tests enabled England to reclaim the Ashes for the first time since the Bodyline series of 1932-33. The other nine bowlers used by England that summer managed only 52 wickets between them. In the first Test in 1953, at Trent Bridge, on a pitch that was far from vicious, Bedser returned figures of seven for 55 and seven for 45, in the process overhauling Sydney Barnes's record of 189 Test wickets for England, which had stood since 1914. Later that summer, in which he celebrated his 35th birthday, he established a world record for Test bowling when he surpassed Clarrie Grimmett's total of 216 Test wickets for Australia. He also became the first England bowler since Barnes to take 100 wickets against Australia. Alec Bedser continued to play for Surrey until 1960, frequently captaining the side in Peter May's absence. He played a vital part in Surrey's run of seven consecutive championships from 1952 to 1958, particularly in 1957, when he temporarily recovered full fitness. He served on the England board of selectors from 1961 to 1985, and as chairman from 1968 to 1981. 5 Apr 2010 08:33:06 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7554683/Alec-Bedser.html 2DD9742E-70FE-4E76-9084-28B308CF8A92 Martin Benson made his greatest mark during a busy acting career as Kralahome, the Grand Vizier in The King and I, whom he played in the long-running London stage production and then in the 1956 Hollywood film with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. But on starting out in films it was his hard face, elegantly tailored figure and mastery of foreign accents that earned him a natural place on the wrong side of the law; it was said he was first choice for a role if Herbert Lom was unavailable. After the war Benson decided against returning to a 10s-a-week job in pharmacy and quickly found work in The Adventures of PC 49 (1949); I'll Get You for This (1951); Wide Boy (1952); Escape by Night (1953); Soho Incident (1957); and Assassin For Hire (1958). He stayed on in Hollywood after The King and I but was unimpressed at being cast in 23 Paces to Baker Street, which placed Sherlock Holmes's house on the edge of the Thames, and returned home to appear in Interpol, The Flesh is Weak, Istanbul and many more in the burgeoning world of British television. From 1958 he spent an enjoyable two years in Sword of Freedom as the murderous Duke de Medici, opposite the dashing Edmund Purdom as a painter and swordsman in 15th-century Florence. He was an impressive resident defence counsel in The Verdict is Yours. He also could be regularly spotted in episodes of The Saint, The Troubleshooters, The Champions, The Bill and Last of the Summer Wine. 30 Mar 2010 09:19:19 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7535928/Martin-Benson.html 2B96E32F-91D7-4826-BBAB-CFC5E4EBE57C For millions of television viewers, Harry Carpenter's boxing match commentary was an essential ringside ingredient. After wartime service in the Royal Navy as a Morse code operator, he worked on several newspapers before joining the Daily Mail as boxing columnist. In 1949, Carpenter offered his services to the BBC as a boxing commentator, but because there was no relevant footage to hand at his audition, he had to provide a commentary for a football match instead. He heard nothing for months, until the head of outside broadcasts, Peter Dimmock, phoned him to ask whether he could fill in as commentator for an amateur boxing night. Harry Carpenter proved himself adept at commentating on a host of other sporting events, but it was always boxing with which he was most closely associated. His first fight commentary for the BBC was in 1949 and in the next decade, he was responsible for the first live commentary from behind the Iron Curtain in 1957 and the first via satellite from the United States. For much of the 1970s and 80s, Carpenter co-hosted the Sports Personality of the Year programme, having first contributed in 1958. He was "flattered and pleased" that he was asked to pay tribute to the Sports Personality of the Century, Muhammad Ali. 22 Mar 2010 22:44:40 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7499831/Harry-Carpenter.html 9F9A94A9-62A4-4756-B429-6DE80A35FF14 Fess Parker, the Texas-born actor, became a star of early television playing American frontier folk hero Davy Crockett and later portrayed Daniel Boone. His role as Crockett made him a household name in the mid-1950s and inspired a generation of young American baby boomers to don his trademark coonskin cap. His life would change at the age of 29, in 1954, when Walt Disney hired him to star in a three-episode miniseries about Crockett, the "King of the Wild Frontier" whose life became an American folk legend. The three episodes were enormously popular with viewers, catching the Walt Disney Co by surprise and spawning one of TV's first pop culture frenzies - inspiring the sale of coonskin caps, buckskin clothes, toy rifles, books and other memorabilia. The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," which recounted that the hero "kilt him a bear when he was only three," went to the top of the pop charts and stayed there for 13 weeks. Although the series was meant to end with Crockett's death at the Alamo, its unexpected success prompted Disney to crank out two more episodes and a feature film. Parker returned to the frontier in 1964 as the star of "Daniel Boone," a hit NBC series about another early American folk hero and adventurer that ran until 1970. 19 Mar 2010 17:52:11 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7480920/Fess-Parker.html FD00F778-F1C8-42AC-8E83-D75C5CE4BF15 Peter Graves appeared in a multitude of films and television shows during a career which spanned nearly 60 years, but will be remembered principally for his roles as a spymaster in the TV series Mission: Impossible and as a pilot in the spoof disaster movie Airplane! Peter's elder brother was James Arness, who found fame as Matt Dillon in the television series Gunsmoke; and when Peter followed him to Hollywood he decided to call himself Graves - the surname of his maternal grandfather - to avoid any confusion. He first came to public attention in the 1950s television series Fury, about the adventures of a boy and his horse, and in 1953 won plaudits for his portrayal of a Nazi spy in Billy Wilder's prisoner-of-war drama Stalag 17. In 1955 he appeared in John Ford's The Long Gray Line; Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter; and Otto Preminger's The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell. Graves's television appearances included Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988), and Fantasy Island (1978-83). He also presented a number of programmes about science and, for the Arts and Entertainment Network's Biography series, was narrator on programmes about the lives of famous figures such as Winston Churchill and Sophia Loren. 16 Mar 2010 17:03:18 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7450747/Peter-Graves.html 4B0717E4-C0C7-45B2-A4B4-AE3B2C9EE75D Paddie O'Neil was a supremely versatile comedy actress and singer with a career spanning five decades; she often appeared in shows that featured her husband, the theatrical all-rounder Alfred Marks. In the late 1940s she met Marks, an up-and-coming comedian, when they both appeared in a summer show in Brighton. In 1950 the BBC, which was trying to find a successful comedy format for its fledgling television service, starred them in a sketch series, Don't Look Now, with a young Ian Carmichael. The following year, Paddie O'Neil made her first movie, 'Penny Points to Paradise', a low-budget comedy that was one of Peter Sellers's earliest films. By now Marks and she had fallen in love and they were married in the West London synagogue. They scored their first major television success with Alfred Marks Time (1956-59). Each week, Paddie O'Neil sang a duet with Ray Ellington, who had become well-known for his appearances on BBC Radio's The Goon Show. Marks and O'Neil were again teamed for Val Parnell's spectacular London Palladium pantomime Humpty Dumpty (1959-60), with Harry Secombe in the title role. They played the King and Queen of Hearts. Paddie O'Neil appeared in her second feature film in 1965: The Early Bird, starring Norman Wisdom. Other movies followed: The Adding Machine (1969); Fanny Hill (1983); and The Little Match Girl (1987). 11 Mar 2010 08:35:24 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7416199/Paddie-ONeil.html 88A16672-2242-452F-8040-1C1A6E5A7E24 In October 1956, Malcolm Vaughan was due to appear on BBC TV's Off The Record to promote his new release, "St. Therese Of The Roses". The invitation was withdrawn a few days later after a BBC committee had determined that the record was unsuitable for broadcast because "the lyric is contrary both to Roman Catholic doctrine and to Protestant sentiment." The resulting controversy helped to sell records, and with airplay on Radio Luxembourg the sugary wedding song climbed to No 3, stayed on the charts for five months and sold half a million copies. Early in his career Vaughan appeared, using his real name Malcolm Thomas, as the voice of Dennis the Dachshund in a television production of Larry The Lamb. Vaughan had many hits in the 1950s with "To Be Loved", "More Than Ever (Come Prima)" and "Wait For Me", and sang the theme song from the Kenneth More film about the sinking of the Titanic, A Night To Remember (1958). Strangely, Vaughan did not make an album until Hello in September 1959. Vaughan worked as a double act with Kenneth Earle throughout the 1960s but they never realised their ambition of making comedy films like Morecambe and Wise. It would have been better for Vaughan's career if he had continued making records and capturing the same market as Matt Monro. The duo split up in 1972 with Earle becoming an agent and Vaughan touring in productions of The Good Old Days. 25 Feb 2010 15:42:41 GMT http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/1909495.html 77867680-4497-44CE-954F-839227BCA092 As an actor, the bald, bewhiskered Jeffries showed a facial mobility and excellent comic delivery that turned him into one of the best-known bumbling figures in British cinema; and however brief his appearances, he was always an asset in films that ranged from The Colditz Story and The Quatermass Xperiment to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Trials of Oscar Wilde. Jeffries won his first West End engagement, as Major ATM Broke-Smith in Dorothy and Campbell Christie's Carrington VC (1953), with Alec Clunes in the title role. The following season saw him on the London stage as The Father in Peter Hall's production of Lorca's Blood Wedding and The Doctor in Jean Giraudoux's The Enchanted, both at the Arts Theatre. Jeffries was soon attracted to the cinema, starting his film career in Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1949). But he made his first real impression as one of the prisoners-of-war in Guy Hamilton's The Colditz Story (1954). In one year alone he acted in nine different films. In 1955 he was a great success in Windfall, and there followed a plethora of successful cameo roles in which he proved capable of summoning up both dry comedy and menace. Among them were an inquisitive reporter in the Quatermass Xperiment (1955); Gelignite Joe, a diamond robber whose schoolgirl niece contrived for him to impersonate a new headmistress in Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957); and a sailor charged with trying to prevent the ship's captain from knowing about all the livestock being carried on board in Up the Creek (1958). Other parts included Major Proudfoot in Law and Disorder (1958); an army adjutant trying to impose regulations on Anthony Newley's conscripted pop singer in Idol on Parade (1959); and a prison officer attempting to discipline Peter Sellers and Bernard Cribbins in Two-Way Stretch (1960). Jeffries continued in this vein for another two decades, samples being The Hellions (1961); The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963); First Men in the Moon (1964); You Must be Joking! (1965); Rocket to the Moon (1967); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played Grandpa Potts; and The Prisoner of Zenda (1978). In all he appeared in 70 films between 1949 and 1988. But it was as the director of The Railway Children, one of the most enchanting films ever made for young people, that Jeffries left his mark on the history of cinema. Jeffries's script and direction, along with the acting of Bernard Cribbins, Dinah Sheridan and Jenny Agutter and the homely tone of the whole enterprise, earned the film its place as a minor classic. With this success behind him, Jeffries was inspired him to make more films in the genre, coming up with The Amazing Mr Blunden (set in 1918, it has a widow and her two children living in a country house haunted by the friendly Mr Blunden); Wombling Free (1977) and The Water Babies (1978). None of these, though, rivalled the warmth, simplicity, charm, and eye for period detail that distinguished The Railway Children. 20 Feb 2010 09:41:03 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7272828/Lionel-Jeffries.html 9A35ACB4-C4CA-4387-B096-4CB7AA8C89CD She appeared in 20 films, all but three for MGM - but only one, the 1952 remake of Show Boat, was a big hit. Cast opposite Gene Kelly in Thousands Cheer (1943) and Anchors Aweigh (1945), she displayed a winsome charm. Early co-stars were June Allyson in Two Sisters from Boston (1946) and Frank Sinatra in Anchors Aweigh, It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) and The Kissing Bandit (1948), a pseudo-Mexican extravaganza that failed at the box office. MGM then cast her opposite Mario Lanza, a podgy and then unknown tenor of whom some hopes were entertained. They made two films together - That Midnight Kiss (1948) and The Toast of New Orleans (1950). Kathryn Grayson's career benefited in tandem with Mario Lanza's; hence Grounds for Marriage (1951), a comedy with Van Johnson about a prima donna who makes a play for her ex-husband. This afforded a rare on-screen chance to show her operatic form, though she was vocally and dramatically miscast in excerpts from Carmen and the film was released only as the second half of a double-bill. Shrewdly typecast in Showboat as the pretty but simpering "belle of the Cotton Blossom", she was backed by outstanding production values and strong performances from Howard Keel and Ava Gardner. Her last three films for MGM, all with Howard Keel, contained her best work. Show Boat, Lovely to Look At (a 1952 remake of Roberta, with music by Jerome Kern) and Kiss Me Kate, the 1953 3-D version of the Cole Porter musical based on The Taming of the Shrew, were well within her vocal range. In the last, in particular, as Shakespeare's shrewish Kate, she demonstrated the long-awaited germs of an acting talent. 20 Feb 2010 09:40:19 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7272836/Kathryn-Grayson.html 4391E29E-9187-4691-8C84-8746EC1424CA Cy Grant served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and qualified as a barrister before turning to acting. He became best known for his role singing 'Topical Calypsos' on the BBC's daily topical programme, Tonight. It made him a household name but he left after two and a half years to avoid being typecast. He went on to star in the award-winning TV drama Home of the Brave in 1957 and played the lead in Othello at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester in 1965 at a time when white actors were routinely "blacked up" for the part. He returned to the Bar briefly in 1972 but left after six months. Two years later, he helped create the Drum Arts Centre in London - which was considered to be hugely important in the development of black theatre. He went on to set up multi-cultural festivals across England in the 1980s. Alongside his acting and activism work, he recorded five albums, having performed Caribbean folk songs and calypso across the world. Two of his best known singles are King Cricket and The Constantine Calypso, in celebration of Garfield Sobers and Learie Constantine, two of the West Indies' most famous cricketers. He also recorded many shows for radio and wrote several books including a collection of poems. 17 Feb 2010 08:49:29 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7245357/Cy-Grant.html A6E4A05B-6712-4290-86A5-CC8A22046DE3 3 May 2009 08:34:34 GMT