THE news has leaked out. The dreadful truth is known. The boys of Battersea Grammar School in South London have at last learned that their 29-year-old schoolmaster, A.B.C. TV announcer John Edmunds, wears a GREEN suit during his evening transmissions.

The boys show do mercy on him. They call him “Le Beau” – and who wouldn’t after seeing his magnificent suit.

It is of Lovat green [a yellowish-green or bluish-green mixture named after Lovat in Inverness-shire, according to the Collins English Dictionary – Ed] with dark bottle green lapels. His bow-tie is also bottle green and his shirt is stone coloured.

This oddly-coloured get-up was specially made for John because the small, fixed-position TV camera in front of his announcer’s desk makes a better picture from greens and off-white mon from the violently contrasting black and white of conventional evening dress.

John was hoping that the boys of Battersea Grammar School, where he teaches from Monday to Friday, would never get to hear about his suit. And there was a sporting chance that they wouldn’t have done so, for his TV appearances are seen only in the Midlands and the North.

But — poor fellow – the secret is out.

While correcting an English composition the other day. he opened a youngster’s exercise book and there, slipped between the pages, found these verses, headed “The Beau”:

Lovat green, it is his shade;
Lovat green, with shoes of suede.
His fans are numbered by the score
Waiting patiently at the door
His fame is spreading far and wide
This fact I won’t attempt to hide,
But!
If your fans knew what he’s like at school
Lashing about with his cane and rule,
You wouldn’t cry “Oh Hero Mine”
Or fill your hearts with love divine.
You’d stop and think of the Battersea Band
Who suffer and squirm ‘neath his iron hand.

Poor John! They’re much kinder to him at the TV studio at Birmingham where he’s known as “Smiler” and at Leicester where he’s the favourite of many a housewife.

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LEICESTER’S 70-year-old Mrs. Stella Sharman has had the greatest thrill of her life. Visiting the A.B.C. television studio at Aston, Birmingham, last Sunday, she spent the whole afternoon with her favourite TV personality, the 29-year-old announcer, John Edmunds.

The visit, specially arranged for her by the “Illustrated Chronicle,” was a great success, ending with Mrs. Sharman and John kissing each other as they said goodbye

Mrs. Sharman made the happy discovery that John, who works a seven-day week, five as a schoolmaster, two as an announcer, was even nicer than she expected. And. believe me, she had expected a great deal!

John has the knack of putting people at ease, says Mrs. Sharman. “If you had a trouble he would be the sort of person you would like to meet,” she says.

At her home, 8, Bradbourne Road, Mrs. Sharman had waited excitedly for the red letter day. Keyed up with happy anticipation, she and her husband, 68-year-old Mr. Robert Sharman, were taken by car to a luxury hotel in Birmingham, where they lunched with John Edmunds.

ARM IN ARM

Mrs. Sharman and John were like mother and son in no time. Later, at the studio. John walked arm in arm with her. Nothing was too much trouble for him. Everything he did quickly confirmed Mrs Sharman in her belief that his “gentle, kindly manner’ on TV was far from being skin deep.

She was sure he made an excellent schoolmaster. If her grown-up daughter and sons were children he would be just the kind of teacher she would like them to have.

TINY STUDIO

First thing John showed Mrs. Sharman was the tiny studio from which he made his announcements. She sat at his announcer’s desk, saw herself in his monitor screen, and examined his control switches.

Mrs. Sharman also saw the small fixed-position TV camera a few feet in front of John’s desk. This camera is similar to those used for televising programme titles.

She was particularly interested in John’s green dinner jacket and cream-coloured shirt, which he wears when announcing in the evening. “This camera does not like strong contrasts.” he says. Viewers see the green as black and the cream as white.

Later, John took Mrs. Sharman and her husband to the make-up room and the other studios, introducing her to the seemingly chaotic, overpopulated world of TV in the making.

Mrs. Sharman watched a rehearsal and had tea with John. He signed her autograph book as a souvenir of a very pleasant afternoon.

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During the course of his visit, more than 200 acts were auditioned. The pictures on this page show some of the artistes who may well be on their way to fame and fortune.

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The Press Conference was arranged by Mr. Arthur Jones, Yorkshire Press Executive, and Mr. Barry Wynne, Head of Press and Publicity.

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“I want to learn all I can about every aspect of show business,” she told me. “Perhaps one day my singing lessons might pay dividends.”

This year, too, 23-year-old Ann passed her driving test; was the subject of an oil painting which an admirer painted using an ordinary photograph as a guide; and was voted by technicians at the Alpha Studios in Birmingham as “The Girl I’d Most Like To Take Home To Mother.”

“It’s a flattering title,” said Ann, “but I wonder what their mothers would say?”

Probably mothers would be overjoyed, for Ann is a typical English beauty—fair, with a peaches and cream complexion, tall and elegantly dressed, quietly spoken yet with a gay personality.

Behind the charm lies an inquiring mind that has definite views about most things in life. At present its main object is set in furthering the career of Ann Taylor. And it has decided views on pin-ups.

“I have never liked posing for pin-up pictures,” said Ann (whose vital statistics are 36-23-37). “Now, I don’t pose at all.”

Other dislikes are “hypocrites, malicious gossip, intolerance, people who are cruel to animals and children, Brazil nuts and the sound of someone scratching nylons or silk.” Her likes include sunsets, outdoor life, beautiful scenery arid animals.

She likes housework, too. and shares this with the friend who lives with her in their London flat. Housework often keeps her up late at night—the best time of all for Ann.

“I get a kick out of staying up late, particularly when I don’t have to be up early next morning. It’s a sort of I’m-my-own-boss complex, yet in reality everybody is my boss.

“The great thing is that I work with such nice people. All the big stars I’ve met have all been most helpful, particularly the boys in The Army Game.”

Before she became well-known on television. Ann Taylor was a member of a TV dancing team. Then came cabaret work in the London West End and the urge to branch out on her own. She was engaged as the NAAFI girl in The Army Game, and this spot led to film work.

She was born in Stafford, and is the daughter of an architect. She was 13 when she went to a stage school in Hertfordshire. While studying there she made her professional stage debut in the pantomime The Sleeping Beauty at Salisbury. When she left four years later, she appeared in a summer show at Folkestone.

Earlier this year. Ann did a season of repertory at Cheltenham. She played in typical English comedies. “I was aching for a chance to play a bad girl, but they just didn’t think I was the type.”

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On a visit to Birmingham, she was offered the piano for £12. She bought it.

Then came the problem of what to do with it. Her third-floor flat has stairs too narrow for even the slimmest upright piano.

“I moved into my flat two months ago,” she said. “But I have made up my mind to move out again. Now I shall hunt for an unfurnished flat. I don’t mind where it is — providing it is big enough for my piano.

“I know that as soon as I can have it moved in I shall be wanting to play it all day long.

“Whenever I see a piano I go all goofy and have to walk over and play a few notes. 1 can’t help it.

“I am often a pest. When a well-known pianist comes along to The Sunday Break I have to ask him to play his favourite piece — and then stand beside him to watch how he does it.”

Julie, whose 23rd birthday was last Sunday, has a quality common to young people appearing in the programme — a desire for knowledge.

Tactfully, she refused to say which visitor she has enjoyed meeting most in the past year. But she did talk of some memorable discussions she had had.

Such as talking politics with former Labour MP Elaine Burton. “I questioned her all lunchtime about her Party’s manifesto and about Governmental responsibilities towards teenagers.”

Talking clothes with singer and dancer Millicent Martin. “What a personality she is, bubbling over with original ideas. I picked up a lot of useful tips.”

Talking sport with former Test cricketer the Rev David Sheppard. “I thought cricket was a confusing game, but he was patient and explained all the points I did not understand. He made it sound really interesting.”

Talking about fame with band-leader Ted Heath. “He is a man of few words — until you mention his band. Then there is no stopping him. I wanted to find out what it was that had made him such a success.”

Talking home-making with rock ‘n’ roll singer Marty Wilde. “I met him first just before his wedding and he told me about his plans for the future and the furniture he and his wife-to-be, Joyce, were buying together.”

Talking theatre with actor and producer Bernard Braden. “We spent hours chattering about plays and people and his backstage practical jokes. He tells wonderful stories.”

Talking jazz with Methodist Minister Dr Donald Soper. “He was the last man I expected to know anything about modern music. But he told us he had played jazz and I found him very knowledgeable about modern musical trends.”

And just talking with poet John Betjeman. “Well, it’s impossible to talk to him about anything. You have to sit back and let him do the talking. He is a fascinating man with a tremendous sense of fun.”

And what about the club members themselves?

Said Julie: “Oh, they talk, talk, talk about anything and everything. The marvellous thing is that they are willing to go on television and discuss any subject. And they cannot check up on it beforehand because they are not told what it is going to be until the club opens on the day of the programme.

“They come from all parts of the country and different walks of life. They may not have always the ability to put into words exactly what they think, but they are not afraid to talk and give the rest of us the benefit of their own experiences.

“They are a vital part of The Sunday Break. Without them we might just as well shut down.”

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So those preconceived ideas of a producer in a hurry were scrapped. He had to veer off course, forget the insistence on family relationship.

“I reckoned,” he told me., “that I could find one theatrical family with two talented daughters available for a TV series. When I failed to trace them I had to act fast — a new serial was in line ready for our Northern opening and I had NO sisters to play the leads.”

The girls he had in mind would look alike and think alike — and, of course, they had to be pretty. Just look at the pictures of Dinah Lee and Jane Taylor, the two real charmers Alick Hayes found at the end of his search.

Now they are My Sister and I, ABC Television’s new Saturday serial on Channel 8 and the North’s Channel 9. For these two girls sistership has become a good thing. Life suddenly took an exciting and promising twist. Alone, and little known, and then — “sisters” seen by millions of viewers.

The two lassies have become great friends. They travel to the studios for rehearsal together, eat together, go out together and have even begun to call each other “Sis.”

For, they say: “If we’re sisters onscreen, then we’re sisters off-screen. That’s how it should be.”

Dinah Lee hails from Withington, Manchester. Jane, who is 19, is a Scarborough girl.

And this is what they told me in between dashing on and off the set during last week’s show, their first: “It’s terribly exciting,” said Jane breathlessly… back she went… into the dressing room… Then Dinah… “It sure is,” and she breathed out again. Later, I cornered them and found Jane does come from a theatrical family. “But I’m the only one of the new generation keeping up with tradition. My brother’s an architect,” she said.

“Like Dinah,” she went on, “my first stage appearance was at 12. But at 17 I had a change of heart and switched from ballet to popular dancing. I toured with Zip Goes a Million in which Charlie Chester was starring. Later I appeared in the Benny Hill Show.

“This year I had my biggest break when Mr. Hayes our producer asked me to test for this part. And here I am.”

Then Dinah told me about herself. She is very talented and has appeared many times on the BBC’s Children’s Hour and Wednesday Matinee as a pianist. And because she speaks fluent German she acted as the link in a recent song exchange between Hamburg and Manchester!

“When I was 12,” she told me, “I played Alice in a Theatre Workshop production. Later I played the same role in a Trevor Hill production. It was great fun working with such people as Jeanne de Casalis, Wilfred Pickles and Jimmy Edwards. They’re a great help to young people.”

• Alick Hayes (1908-1983) was a writer, producer and actor. His biggest role was probably as Dr Jacobs in Emmerdale Farm in the late 1970s.
• The IMDb appears to have mashed two actresses named Dinah Lee into one, making it very difficult to find anything out about her.
• Jane Taylor‘s later career was sporadic, with a number of minor roles on television.

The post A sister to assist her in career appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

Or else they frankly disbelieved it — like the assistant who was fitting him for a hired morning suit. When the customer’s name had to be written in a limited space on the hire form, Voytek slowly spelt out the improbable collection of letters until there was no more room on the form. The assistant looked up, pained: “Really, sir, this is no time for joking.”

After that he became just Voytek, which is the nearest phonetic spelling of his first name.

Born in 1925, Voytek spent his teens in Warsaw. He had always drawn well and been interested in art, but under German rule he had to go to an agricultural school.

He studied architecture secretly at the “underground university.”

Small groups of students met their tutors in private houses. Says Voytek: “It was dangerous, but everyone accepted it as a calculated risk — like crossing a busy street.”

As a member of a Resistance sabotage group, Voytek drew sketches and plans of places to be destroyed when the time came to rise against the Germans. It came in the autumn of 1944 In the confused street fighting, Voytek was wounded. When he recovered he hitch-hiked south to join the Polish forces in Italy. There he took part in camp theatricals.

He recalled: “We used to make scenery out of paper, but it stretched when wet, so I used to rub dry colour powder on with my hands.”

And so to Britain and post-war resettlement. After a year spent studying art and learning English, Voytek was interviewed for the Old Vic School of Design.

“I did not appreciate I was joining one of Britain’s principal theatrical institutions,” he told me.

“The Old Vic was still bomb-damaged and I saw the director in a back room. I was quite off-hand about it. I even asked to know the result of the interview the next day, although it usually took about a fortnight.

“If I had been less ignorant I would have been overawed. But they accepted me.”

Since then, by way of repertory theatre, the Arts Theatre and, for the past two years, on TV, Voytek has been earning a reputation for distinctive and sometimes brilliant stage designs.

For ABC he is the designer of Boy Meets Girls, Counter-Attack and many “Armchair Theatre” productions.

He is happiest when he can interpret a script in an impressionist style. Then, he thinks, a designer comes into his own in creating a mood which is right for the play without being realistic. A good example is a set he designed for J. M. Barrie’s Mary Rose at Nottingham Playhouse – a misshapen door and alcove to represent the distorted lives of the characters and set the mood.

Says Voytek: “I believe the Theatre is the essence of reality rather than a mediocre copy of our environment. ‘Props’ do not have to be realistic provided you get the right style for the play.

“I have used a few woven rustic screens and pieces of wood with chicken wire stapled over the top to represent trees. If you catch the right atmosphere with a design, the imagination of both actors and audience is stimulated.”

Voytek uses his hands expressively as he speaks. He has come a long way since winging his way through an entrance examination for Dundee Art School in 1946 – a first step towards the Old Vic.

To design a television play Voytek prepares “almost a comic strip” of the various shots and scenes throughout the production. From these lightning sketches emerge the more detailed “props.”

In the “Armchair Theatre” production of Boy With a Meat Axe, the script simply set the scene in “a street.” Voytek made it a street with lots of brickwork and heavy shoring timbers propping up a high wall.

“The timbers became an integral part of the fight scene, breaking up the action and providing a series of dramatic shots, visually exciting,” he told me.

“In television we usually work in a naturalistic style that is closer to film than the stage. It seems to be thought that while people will accept abstract design in the theatre, on television they will only accept it in advertising.”

Sometimes, with a few brush strokes, a designer can create a character visually. Voytek’s quick sketch of a jealous husband for the comedy Italian Straw Hat, produced at Nottingham, shows how a designer may not only create the clothing but suggest the complete character.

It was at Nottingham in 1955 that Voytek met his wife, actress Renate Brent. They were married the following year and now live near ABC’s Teddington studios with their children, two-and-a-half-year-old Stefan, and Julie, aged nine months.

Voytek used to “run away from the theatre” ever so often and do something else. He once went to Wales and painted pictures for a few months. Another time he became a decorator in a Mayfair hotel – and painted walls.

He is less Bohemian now. He no longer “runs away.” Instead, with a wife who has an interest in his work, the distinction of a single name may become his signature instead of a necessity.

• Wojciech Roman Pawel Jerzy Szendzikowski, MC (1925-2014) continued to work in theatre and television into the 1990s. His marriage to Renee produced a further child, Joe, but ended in divorce in 1971. His second marriage, to Fionnuala Kenny, also ended in divorce. They had one child, Taya. At the time of his death he had six grandchildren.

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As producer of one of ABC TV’s top shows, State Your Case, Janice looks forward to February 17. On that date this new and novel programme is networked for the first time.

“It will be a tremendous thrill for me,” said Janice. “My friends in the South at last will be able to see the show I have been telling them about for weeks past.”

With a huge weekly postbag, Janice expects this to assume even greater proportions with the addition of southern viewers. A great part of her working week is occupied reading hundreds of letters from viewers who all want to state their case in the hope of winning £100 [£2,380 in 2018 allowing for inflation].

Postcards, too, sent by viewer-judges roll in by the thousand. The first programme produced 1,000 replies. This has grown steadily each week until one programme last month brought in 12,000.

“I can’t get through all the correspondence during office hours,” said Janice. “It means I have to carry sheafs of letters everywhere.

“I read every letter thoroughly. After the first paragraph I just have to carry on. Many of them are moving human documents.”

In the short history of State Your Case every conceivable kind of claim has been put forward. Parents have applied to win money to visit their children abroad. Young married couples need deposits for houses and all sorts of would-be financiers want the £100 to float business ventures.

“Of course,” said the young producer, “we have naturally had a few people ‘trying it on.’ Probably the biggest example was the convincing letter from an ex-convict.

“He told us his house and furniture were being taken away from him because of non-payment of instalments. But we investigated and found that the man, although he had been in prison, wasn’t married and wanted the money to start a street bookmaking business.”

It is less than a year since Janice began producing.

Her yearning for the entertainment profession began when she was 12. She applied to Emile Littler for a dancing audition. She was successful, but her headmistress was against any of her “young ladies” going on the stage.

It was a very sorry Janice who was then persuaded to give up the idea. But, continuing her drama and music studies, she took a secretarial course and joined the BBC.

She became secretary to Michael Barrie, head of BBC TV drama, and eventually joined Dennis Vance as his personal assistant. When Vance left the BBC, so did Janice.

Before joining ABC TV early in 1956, she worked with Vance at Highbury Studios on such shows as Theatre Royal and TV Playhouse.

At ABC TV Janice worked as production assistant on Moment of Fame and on various children’s programmes. After Vance had joined the company she helped him to organise ABC’s drama department, before being launched as a producer in her own right.

Janice has quickly steered State Your Case into a top show. She finds it exciting and stimulating.

After all, what other programmes produce the kind of request she received from a man who wanted £100 to help him build a rocket ship to fly into outer space?

Resources:

• UK: National Domestic Violence Freephone Helpline 0808 2000 247
• US: National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
• CA: Varies by province. Visit Ending Violence Canada for more information
• AU: 1800RESPECT – 1800 737 732
• NZ: Are You OK? – 0800 456 450
• SA: People Opposed to Woman Abuse – 011 642 434/6

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And it’s not surprising, really, when you recall that for the past 15 years or so Hughie has devoted most of his time to giving Britain’s youngsters the sort of chance they’ve dreamed of.

He is, in fact, rather like a one-man Arts Council in the field of light entertainment.

“It incenses me,” he said — and he meant it — “to see enormous amounts of money being spent promoting all this ‘long haired’ stuff which has virtually no public appeal, and nothing being done for music, theatre and music hall.

“For, let’s be honest, music hall is the very backbone of this nation. It has produced some of the greatest entertainers of all time.”

What I particularly wanted to know when I met Hughie during rehearsals for one of the Saturday Opportunity Knocks! shows, was how he had come to be Britain’s top amateur talent seeker.

A mischievous smile appeared, he settled back in his chair and said: “For the answer to that, we have to go back a long way.

“Before the war we did a show called ‘Hughie Green and His Gang.’

“That was a talent show really because we used kids in it, and we were always on the lookout for those with talent which was a bit out of the ordinary.

“After that, I had the good fortune to go to America and work in a show called ‘Meet the People.’ It was a sort of Theatre Workshop.

“We all got paid 40 dollars a week and there were no stars. But there was certainly no shortage of talent.

“In fact, the whole idea was to get hold of people who had talent but no real stage presence or ability, and knock them into shape. It was a first-class training ground. Everybody criticised everybody else.

“It was terrific. I did an act on my own, danced in the chorus and took part in the sketches.”

Afterwards, Hughie spent five years with the Royal Canadian Air Force, did some more work in the United States, and finally returned to this country in 1948.

But let him continue the story in his own words: “One day I ran across radio producer Harry Pepper. Would I, he wanted to know, be willing to put on an amateur talent show called “Opportunity Knocks!”

“I jumped at it. You see, it meant that once again I would be in a position to give genuine talent the chance it deserved. And that was something I wanted to do more than anything else.

“That show began on radio in the summer of 1949 and went on until the spring of 1950. And, since then, it has had eight years on commercial radio and, in 1956, made its first appearance on ITV.”

In the current series, Hughie has introduced what one might call a new look—repeated appearances instead of a final prize. What had he to say about this?

“1 think it’s far better. It allows one week’s winner to compete the following week and, if successful in that programme, go forward again — and so on.”

Why? Because I’m convinced that repeated appearances in front of the public do far more good for an up-and-coming young artist with real talent than any major prize.”

And then, to allay any suspicions that this might be a way of doing the show on the cheap, he added: “Nobody, by the way, appears ‘for free.’ Everyone gets paid either the Equity or Musicians’ Union rate.”

If Hughie needs any encouragement in his never-ending search — though I should imagine that’s most unlikely — two things surely provide it.

The first is that his “spotting” has produced artists of the calibre of David Whitfield; the second, that the best of his current discoveries are to be auditioned for the famous Ed Sullivan Show, in America.

The post King of the talent seekers appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

HE is a small, dapper man with the kind of smile you normally associate with toothpaste ads.

And from lunchtime to midnight Saturday and Sunday, brief flashes of that whiter-than-white grin belonging to David Hamilton punctuate the breaks between television programmes in the North.

On the surface the job holds not much limelight.

But over the four and a half years he has been doing it, 27-year-old Hamilton has made the scant few minutes between the commercials and big features make as much impact as anything on the programme forecast.

“When you were on, I laughed more than I did at Harry Secombe,” wrote one viewer.

He gets 150 letters like that every week. Because with his “special” goodnights and sly bits of business with any prop that immediately comes to hand he has become, in his own words, “more than just a filler-in — an anonymous face sprouting words not meant to be heard or understood.”

To David Hamilton this is important. Not for the fan mail, or for the fact that at Ken Dodd’s personal request he is acting as feed man on his new TV series, but simply for his own satisfaction.

“I started this ad-libbing as a sort of challenge,” he says.

CRAMPED

“Anybody can learn a script and recite it. A lot of announcers say “goodnight everyone” as if they were talking to a Bank Holiday crowd over a public address system.

“But there’s more to it than that. Looking at it coldly you’re there to sell the programme. The way I see it, if I can sell myself, then that takes care of the programmes as well.”

After leaving his home in Marple, Cheshire, Diddy David, as Ken Dodd referred to him on TV last night, spends most of his working life in a Manchester TV studio the size of a small broom cupboard.

“To a lot of people I suppose it sounds a bit boring sitting for hours and hours on end watching a monitor screen.

“I suppose it would be if you weren’t on edge all the time wondering if the show will run early and someone will shove a mike under your nose and say ‘Talk.'”

His feelings about his present position are mixed.

“I love this job. But at the same time it gives me satisfaction and security (he gets £60 [£1065 in 2018 allowing for inflation] for two days work) it is a millstone round my neck.

“You see, under the terms of my contract I cannot appear on any other national TV network. In the past I’ve turned down good offers to keep this job.

A CHANCE

“And that’s why I’m a bit nervous of this Ken Dodd spot. You see, if it leads to other things, I’m going to have to make a decision.

“To drop the security and take a chance. Or to go on the same way as I have been doing for the past four years — and risk being typed as just another announcer.”

If he goes on doing as he has been doing, I should say that risk is negligible.

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She is Lee Halls, head of the studio’s make-up department.

For her, those practically indistinguishable differences in makeup colours become subtle changes in black and white. With a team of four assistants, she makes up all ABC stars. Some she has made up many times.

This, I assumed, would be easy. But Lee quickly denied that: “I can’t take a note the first time I see an actress and never look at her again.”

Then Lee told me why: “Mary Peach has just come back from a holiday in Kenya. She is darker than usual. I have to counteract that with make-up.

“In one play, Patricia Heneghan may be wearing a light blouse; in a second, a blue dress. That can make a change in the make-up colour she wears.”

The lighting used for a production can make a difference. A bright, clear light beats down on Billie Whitelaw in the Time Out for Peggy series. If Billie were to appear in a dramatic play, the lighting —and also the make-up — would be different.

Even though many of the sets in this series are the same, Lee has to sit through all rehearsals, watching a monitor in the control room. By making many notes, she decides what type of make-up to give the players. Her selection is governed by the tiniest things: she will even notice what kind of background the actress stands against for one shot.

“It is surprising what a difference small things can make. Elizabeth London wore a pair of flashing earrings, during a rehearsal for Let’s Go Shopping. Half-way through she took them off, and immediately her face seemed darker and she needed a new kind of make-up,” said Lee.

A straight glamour make-up for a woman takes Lee 20 minutes. Men can he made up in less, for some need only a dab of powder. But men have given Lee some of her greatest problems.

“I usually have to make Neil McCallum look younger,” she said. “The other day, I had to make him look older and give him a beard.”

Having watched Lee working, I know that putting on a beard is not simple, but she has done things that have made me gasp at her artistry. A piece of string — hidden by sideburns — gave a handsome actor a cauliflower ear for a boxing role.

One of her most difficult jobs was to change Anton Diffring’s unlined features into the face of a 97-year-old man for The Man In Half Moon Street. Three coatings of rubber solution, gauze and wool gave him a sagging skin. It took Lee two hours.

Another Diffring problem was for The One Who Came Back when Anton had to have 16-year-old machine gun bullet scars on an arm. This was done by Lee’s 21-year-old assistant Jean Mackenzie. To help her, Edith Gibbon of the medical illustrations department of Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, spent a morning at the studios to show how it should be done.

Make-up is not confined to the studios. A girl goes out with the outside broadcast teams. Sometimes they go on location.

“That is when notes come in handy,” said Lee. Then, in continuity-girl style, she is able to make sure the make-ups for the live parts of the transmission are perfect.

Lee’s job begins long before the stars get to the studios. She gets her script at the same time as the producer. “I read it to see if special make-up is needed. For instance, if a boy and girl kiss I must remember to seal the lipstick.”

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To do it ABC will use all the many resources of this young but go-ahead company, as well as those of the powerful organisations with which it is associated.

The four-man committee responsible for this ambitious training scheme consists of ABC managing director Howard Thomas, his second-in-command Ron Rowson, senior producer S. E. Reynolds and drama supervisor Dennis Vance.

So far they have three pupils. Top of the form is a girl who has made a big name for herself since she joined ABC — Joan Edwards.

She first said “Hello” to viewers in Number Please, then created for herself a growing audience in that breakfast-time programme, Housewives Call the Tune, in which she performed such homely chores as washing dishes and darning socks between playing gramophone requests.

Next she proved how well she could sing and dance in the Joe Loss Show, and this summer she is showing another aspect of her versatility by her breezy interviews in Holiday Town.

Pupil Number Two is Bob Hatch, who got his big break in show business after thousands of viewers throughout the North and Midlands had voted him winner of the long-running Bid For Fame contest.

But even if he had not pulled off the top prize, Bob would still have been invited to join ABC’s exclusive training school.

His earlier appearances in Bid For Fame were seen by company executives who earmarked him as a boy who, given a helping hand, would go places.

Both Joan Edwards and Bob Hatch have already proved that the confidence ABC are placing in them is justified. Producer Reynolds — he has been in TV since its opening day in 1936 — told me:

“To get two artists like Joan Edwards and Bob Hatch in one year is out of all proportion.

“I have been watching Joan develop since she came into this company, and there is no greater joy for me than seeing her holding her own with more experienced artists.”

Baby of the class is 20-year-old Julie Stevens. She is another pupil who caught the eye of Howard Thomas while appearing in Bid For Fame.

“I decided to give her an audition,” he told me. “Dennis Vance and I tried everything on her. It was formidable, but she came out smiling.”

Explained Julie: “I was interviewed in front of the camera. Then they gave me a piece to announce without letting me see it first. And afterwards I was told to pretend I was telling my boss I was giving up my job — and make it sound funny.”

“The result,” said Howard Thomas, “was that we gave this unknown girl a contract. Now, to get her used to cameras, we are putting her in everywhere. She doesn’t always get a credit, but she comes bobbing up in one programme after another.”

Julie’s future is still undecided. “So far, we don’t know what she is going to do,” Mr. Thomas said, “but we believe she has the sparkle of a true TV personality. How do we make her into a personality? Well, first she has to be trained the hard way.”

To learn all she can about TV production and technique, Julie has been helping in many different programmes. She has been behind the scenes in Holiday Town, making brief appearances in crowd scenes or demonstrating in advertising magazines. One day I saw her with make-up only on her hands and arms. “That,” she said, “is all viewers will see of me today.” She was off to hold a booklet in front of a camera.

Said Reynolds: “From now on, we shall be studying Julie, Joan and Bob to see which way they ought to go, as it might take two or three years to get them on the right lines and doing the job for which they are best suited.”

The ABC training school is going to be no immediate stepping stone to fame and fortune. “As far as we are concerned,” said Reynolds, “there is going to be no star overnight business.”

But while ABC is determined to give Joan Edwards, Julie Stevens and Bob Hatch the best opportunities ever offered up-and-coming artists, they, on their part, know they will have to put in plenty of hard work to make this unique training scheme a success.

The post School for stars appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

“I’m much too busy,” he declares. “I don’t have any romantic attachments at all.

“I’ve been combining teaching with announcing until Christmas, but now I’ve decided to concentrate on my television commitments.”

At present he is announcing from the Birmingham studios, but he hopes to go on to straight acting. He would also like to work on television for schools — he taught French at a London grammar school until he resigned to go full-time on television.

He has made such a big impact that he often has difficulty getting away from the studios. One Sunday so many girls were waiting for him he had to be smuggled out dressed as a labourer.

But one woman was more persistent. She waited each Saturday and Sunday; telephoned; wrote scores of letters. For weeks Edmunds managed to elude her.

“One day, she caught up with me,” he recalls. “It was a hurried conversation as I was rather late. But she still managed to explain her feelings for me. It was terribly embarrassing.”

Many of the letters are pathetic, but he answers them all. One came from a mother in the Midlands who told him that her daughter had been taking a more than usual interest in the announcing spots. “The fact is,” wrote the mother, “she hasn’t a clue what you’ve said when I ask her afterwards.”

“I did answer this letter,” says Edmunds, “but not as the mother would have wished. She wanted me to write and say that I was happily married with three children!”

When Edmunds was still teaching and announcing “it was a case of scowling during weekdays and smiling at weekends,” he laughed.

“My pupils knew nothing of my double life. Strange to think that millions of viewers in the Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire had seen me but none of my pupils knew what I did with my week-ends.”

A Welshman, Edmunds was educated at Aberystwyth and went to the university there, where he took a first class honours degree in modern languages. He had a strong leaning towards the stage in those days, and during university vacations spent several seasons in repertory and two summer seasons at a holiday camp.

One of his enterprises was his own student repertory company called “The Adventurers.”

A great lover of Shakespeare, he toured French schools and universities with his own production of Twelfth Night.

“After I had obtained my degree, the Royal Navy decided it was time to teach me something about seamanship. I was called up, and served for three years and three weeks.

“But the strange part is,” he recalls, “for three years I studied at a university on a special Russian language course. The odd three weeks? I spent those swabbing decks.”

When he isn’t in Birmingham, Edmunds shares a flat in London with Richard Baker, a BBC TV news reader. In his spare time he enjoys reading Shakespeare, playgoing and cooking.

“Working in Birmingham these past few months has made me into a really good cook,” he admits. “I’ve watched Philip Harben at work, and obtained quite a few tips from the master.

“Every Monday I try out a new recipe at home – probably that’s the reason why my friend Dick Baker always stays out on a Monday!”

But good cook or not, girls are out. Though Edmunds does admit that Jayne Mansfield is his idea of a perfect film actress.

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The post Supporting actors appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

That is the way Teddington’s Property Master TONY O’TOOLE describes his first day at ABC. Like most Irishmen, Tony is a loquacious talker with a lively turn of wit, delivered in a broad lilting Dublin accent. Getting him to talk about himself presented no great difficulties. The snag was that the stories he insisted on telling would take up more space than this column could afford, so a heavy edit brought forth the following facts, and I only wish they could be written with the accent in which they were delivered.

Tony, christened Michael Anthony, was born in Dublin a short while after the revolution… “which, I might hasten to add, I had absolutely nothing to do with, in spite of what Devalera might have said.

“In spite of the fact that my father was in the Irish Resistance movement, my uncles in the British Army and Navy respectively, and that my grandfather fought in the American Civil War, I meself am a peace lovin’ man and I’ll break the arm of any **** who says I’m not, any time”.

EMIGRATES TO ENGLAND

Before coming to England in 1943, Tony, in company with two others, purchased a canal barge, with the idea of ferrying peat, but… “unfortunately, on the maiden voyage, so to speak, the horse dropped dead. He may have broken his neck going under a bridge, I dunno, anyway, he was a gonner… so the Irish Emigration list to England had three more names added to it, and arrived in England at the ripe old age of 15.

“Ireland was neutral of course, so I made the great decision to contribute to the war effort by joining Moss Empires. There wasn’t a place on the board straight away, so they made me a page boy with about fifty thousand brass buttons”.

From there Tony worked his way slowly through the varied jobs that show business has to offer… callboy, props, electrics, ASM, Production Manager and Property Master… and so to ABC.

SOME EXPLOSION…

Tony has always been interested in special effects and explosions, and it was one such episode that led, almost directly, to Tony’s change of employers.

“We was on location making the war film V1, y’see, and there was this great big building. Bert and I rigged the explosion in the front to blow one of the windows out. ‘Is it OK?’ they shouted. We stuck our heads out and replied ‘ready when you are’ – and with that the whole building went up! I got blown into the water tank and BERT AKEHURST (he’s still with me I’m glad to say) lost some of his clothes. We had a spell of inactivity after that little one…”

Tony’s store has come a long way from those early days. It now comprises two floors and houses over three thousand items, from 15 feet high cacti to complete suites of furniture.

Apart from the stock of property items, the hired props coming into the studios to be used on productions can also prove a headache. Tony has had to deal with vultures, a lion, penguins, and donkeys in his time, but the show which provided him with the most headaches – and incidentally, the most enjoyment – was “After Hours”.

“You had to be a bit touched to be connected with that show… it helped tremendously! I remember wanting to ask Promotion’s RON WALSBY something – he was stage manager then and was also rehearsing a Cossack dance – so I had to join in, bobbing up and down while talking.

“I also remember in the early days, I went shopping in Kingston for Ad-mag kitchen dressings with a woman driver of a hire car service we used in those days. To my amusement – but not the driver’s – an old saleslady came up with the following advice: ‘For two young people starting out in the world I’d buy something a little more expensive…'”

Tony lives in Brighton with his wife and 11-year-old electronics-mad son, and nine-year-old Jacqueline who desperately wants to be his secretary. Tony ‘digs’ locally and goes home weekends, where he relaxes when necessary by interior decorating. One of his favourite interests – and least talked about -is raising funds for a Thames Ditton orphanage.

Looking back, reminiscing, Tony is pleased with life at ABC. “That French Resistance series when we went to France was the thing. I was in charge of explosions and things. We stayed in San Viatre, and what a night we had celebrating my birthday with the locals, with sou’westers and rubber boots filled to overflowing with champagne. They got the town band to play when we left. If I had stayed for a couple of more weeks I could have been Mayor, I tell you. Me and my explosions – I was the biggest noise they’d ever heard!

“Ah well, that’s how it goes . . .”

The post Man of property appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He claps his hands and is surrounded by some of the best-dressed women ever to grace a seaside promenade.

He is Jeffrey Piddock — senior floor manager of ABC Outside Broadcasts. But he is better known in Northern seaside resorts as ringmaster, major domo and general factotum of Holiday Town Parade.

The smooth running of this touring television show owes much to Piddock’s knack of being in the right place at the right time.

He is on duty from the moment the programme team arrives in the resort until all the equipment is packed and on its way to the next port of call.

Piddock is an ex-song-and-dance man. His show business career started after he graduated from dancing school. He joined a ballerina for a double act in a London amusement arcade.

Later, he worked with comics like Arthur Askey, Jimmy Wheeler and Vic Oliver. He understudied George Form by in Zip Goes a Million, and played the star role for two weeks when Formby fell ill.

He moved into ITV, and has been behind the scenes of Holiday Town Parade since the first programme.

Viewers never see Piddock. But he is known to the thousands of holidaymakers who go to preliminary heats for contests at different resorts every Friday afternoon.

Usually at local swimming pools, more than 100 bathing beauties, fashion girls and muscle-men parade before judges who choose those to appear in the programme next day.

Piddock says: “It’s thought generally that the same girls go round all the bathing beauty shows. But we often have newcomers and then I have to teach them how to parade to best advantage.”

As well as helping to organise the parades, Piddock often acts as compere.

And while the compere on Saturdays, McDonald Hobley, chants his “Don’t be late. Make a date, for Holiday Town Parade.” Piddock is thinking of the problems next week’s show will bring.

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He has already made plans. “I’d like to let you in on some of them,” he said. “I think you’d find them as exciting as I do. But … we are not the only ones in this tough field, you know!”

What we do know is that Philip Jones was first to feature a catchy tune that was later named Sidesaddle. It made pianist Russ Conway famous. And that among the winners Philip Jones has given viewers are Thank Your Lucky Stars, Spot the Tune, Melody Ranch, The Alan Young Show and Make Up Your Mind.

He views programme planning this way: “Skimping on the preparation of a show can reduce a possible smash hit to a merely passable half-hour. That’s shocking. You’ve got to be ruthlessly attentive to detail in the fiercely competitive work of small-screen technique.”

With TV expanding so fast, Philip Jones sees one of his great hopes being realised before long. The aim will be to put selected stars in a financial position that enables them to live largely on their TV income. This, he feels, will be a bargain buy in the long run.

His own connection with TV began with the birth of Granada. He had previously spent six years with Radio Luxembourg (comparative unknowns with him then included Teddy Johnson, Peter Murray and Keith Fordyce).

Article source: TVWorld magazine issue 1, covering Saturday 26 September to Friday 2 October 1964

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That is why, at least once a week, Benson visits a London studio for voice training from Jonathan Tremayne, an operatic bass. There he sings in a pleasing bass-baritone such typically English songs as Alice Where Art Thou? and Linden Lea.

“I don’t think I shall ever sing on television,” he admits, “but I want to go on talking on TV for a long time to come. This is one way of keeping my voice in trim. After all, a footballer has to train to keep fit for his job, so why shouldn’t I do the same?”

Sometimes, John Benson wishes he could sing to viewers when there is a gap to be filled. Recently, he had to ad-lib for one-and-a-half minutes. His worst-ever experience occurred when a film trailer appeared upside down during a promotion announcement. He had to talk for three minutes until it was corrected.

“This is a real testing time for an announcer,” he says. “I usually talk about programmes to come, and try to look as relaxed as possible.”

Benson is 28. His wife, Rita, and baby daughter, Sandra Jane, have also appeared in TV commercials. The whole family was used recently in an advertisement. Benson, who says his ambition is to become a successful TV compere, was in repertory before becoming an announcer.

Unlike Benson, Michell Raper had no repertory background. At Oxford University, he was a contemporary of Tony Richardson, the producer, and Robin Day, and decided to take up a career in show business. He worked on radio and films before joining television.

Apart from announcing, Raper writes poetry and plays. One of his plays has been broadcast on radio, and a children’s play has been televised. He is now working on his third play.

Four years ago, Mich Raper acquired a large and imposing flat on London’s Chelsea Embankment. A prized companion is Lulu, his Siamese cat.

Raper is unmarried. The lady of his choice must not mind “sharing me with my typewriter and Lulu.” She must also share his love of the theatre, literature and good music; his taste for old prints and modern originals. She must not complain if he spends the whole night working, or brings home friends, like last Christmas when he invited several Hungarian refugees to the flat for a party.

Other pointers in the Raper marriage dossier: “She must not be over-possessive; must not wear curlers at night; and she would need to have a sense of humour.”

The post In good voice for their calling appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

During his time in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, he worked first with ABC before moving across to the BBC in 1962, holding the role of Head of Drama with both organisations. During this phase of his career, he was responsible for initiating two hugely popular television programmes, the spy-fi series The Avengers and the science-fiction series Doctor Who, as well as overseeing the production of groundbreaking social realist drama series such as Armchair Theatre and The Wednesday Play.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Newman as “the most significant agent in the development of British television drama.” His obituary in The Guardian declared that “For ten brief but glorious years, Sydney Newman … was the most important impresario in Britain … His death marks not just the end of an era but the laying to rest of a whole philosophy of popular art.”

Early life

Born in Toronto, Newman was the son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant father who ran a shoe shop. After studying at Ogden Public School, which he left at the age of thirteen, he later enrolled in the Central Technical School, studying art and design subjects. He initially attempted to follow a career as a stills photographer and an artist, specialising in drawing film posters. However, he found it so difficult to earn enough money to make a living from this profession that instead, he switched to working in the film industry itself. In 1938, he travelled to Hollywood, where he was offered a role with the Walt Disney Company on the strength of his graphic design work. However, he was unable to take the job due to a failure to secure a work permit. Returning to his native country, in 1941, he gained a job as a film editor at the National Film Board of Canada. He was eventually to work on over 350 films while an editor for the NFB.

During the Second World War the head of the NFB, John Grierson, promoted Newman to film producer, working on documentaries and propaganda films, including Fighting Norway, which he directed. In 1944 he was made executive producer of Canada Carries On, a long-running series of such films. In 1949 Grierson again assisted Newman’s career, entering him into television, then a new industry, on a one-year attachment to NBC in New York City. His assignment there was to compile reports for the Canadian government on American television techniques, focusing on dramas, documentaries and outside broadcasts.

The CBC

One of Newman’s reports on outside broadcasting was seen and admired by executives at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and in 1952 he joined the Corporation as their Supervising Director of Features, Documentaries and Outside Broadcasts. There he was involved in producing not only some of the earliest television editions of Hockey Night in Canada, but also the first Canadian Football League game to be shown on television. After his experience of seeing the production of television plays in New York, he was eager to work in drama despite, by his own admission, “knowing nothing about drama.” He was nonetheless able to persuade his superiors at CBC to make him Supervisor of Drama Production in 1954. In this position he encouraged a new wave of young writers and directors, including Ted Kotcheff and Arthur Hailey, and oversaw shows such as the popular General Motors Theatre.

Writing in 1990, the journalist Paul Rutherford felt that during his time at the CBC in the 1950s, Newman had been a “great champion of both realistic and Canadian drama.” He felt that Newman “came to fulfil the role of the drama impresario with the vision to push people to develop a high-quality and popular style of drama.”

Several of the General Motors Theatre plays, including Hailey’s Flight into Danger, were purchased for screening by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The productions impressed Howard Thomas, who was the managing director of ABC, the franchise holder for the rival ITV network in the English Midlands and the North at weekends. Thomas offered Newman a job with ABC as a producer of his own Saturday night thriller series, which Newman accepted, moving to Britain in 1958. In 1975 the Head of Drama at the CBC, John Hirsch, noted that the tendency of so many writers and directors having followed Newman to the UK in the 1950s and never having returned to work in Canada had a detrimental impact on the standard of subsequent Canadian television drama.

ABC

Soon after Newman arrived in the UK, ABC’s Head of Drama Dennis Vance was moved into a more senior position with the company, and Thomas offered Newman his position, which the Canadian quickly accepted. He was, however, somewhat disparaging of the state in which he found British television drama. “At that time, I found this country to be somewhat class-ridden,” he reminisced to interviewers in 1988. “The only legitimate theatre was of the ‘anyone for tennis’ variety, which on the whole gave a condescending view of working-class people. Television dramas were usually adaptations of stage plays and invariably about the upper classes. I said, ‘Damn the upper classes: they don’t even own televisions!'”

Newman’s principal tool for shaking up this established order was a programme which had been initiated before he had arrived at ABC, Armchair Theatre. This anthology series was networked nationally across the ITV regions on Sunday evenings, and in 1959 was in the top ten of the ratings for 32 out of the 37 weeks it was broadcast, with audiences of over 12 million viewers. Newman used the strand to present plays by writers such as Alun Owen, Harold Pinter and Clive Exton, also bringing over associates from Canada such as Charles Jarrott and Ted Kotcheff. Writing in 2000, the television historian John Caughie stated that “Newman’s insistence that the series would use only original material written for television made Armchair Theatre a decisive moment in the history of British television drama.”

In 1960 Newman devised a thriller series for ABC called Police Surgeon, starring Ian Hendry. Although Police Surgeon was not a success and was cancelled after only a short run, Newman took Hendry as the star, and some of the ethos of the programme, to create a new series (not a direct sequel as is sometimes claimed) called The Avengers. Debuting in January 1961, The Avengers became an international success, although in later years its premise differed somewhat from Newman’s initial set-up, veering into more humorous territory rather than remaining a gritty thriller.

Newman’s great success at ABC had been noted by the British Broadcasting Corporation, whose executives were keen to revive their own drama department’s fortunes in the face of fierce competition from ITV. In 1961 the BBC’s Director of Television, Kenneth Adam, met with Newman and offered him the position of Head of Drama at the BBC. He accepted the position, eager for a new challenge, although he was forced by ABC to remain with them until the expiration of his contract in December 1962, after which he immediately began work with the BBC.

Article source: Wikipedia | Contributors | CC-BY-SA 3.0

The post Sydney Newman appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He was born in Synge Street, Dublin, and educated at Synge Street CBS. He began his career as a clerk in an insurance office. He was a keen amateur boxer and won the Irish junior middleweight title in 1944.

In 1946, he became a full-time freelance sports commentator, working for Radio Éireann, Ireland’s national broadcaster. In 1950, he began presenting programmes for the BBC, being particularly well known for boxing commentaries, and soon became one of television’s most popular presenters. He began hosting the game show What’s My Line? in 1951.

Throughout the 1950s, he commentated on the major British heavyweight fights on the BBC Light Programme, with inter-round summaries by W. Barrington Dalby. On 20 January 1956, he reached #18 in the UK Singles Chart with a “spoken narrative” recording named “The Shifting Whispering Sands (Parts 1 & 2)”, which was produced by George Martin with musical backing by the Ron Goodwin Orchestra, released by Parlophone as catalogue number R 4106, a double-sided 78rpm record. The song later reappeared on Kenny Everett’s compilation album The World’s Worst Record Show, which was released in June 1978.

Between 1955 and 1964, he presented the long-running Sports Report on BBC’s Light Programme. In 1965, he left the BBC to join the ITV contractor ABC, where he pioneered the talk show format in the UK. He hosted a chat show on ITV, The Eamonn Andrews Show for five years. He was known for coming up with off-the-cuff linkings that did not work – such as: “Speaking of cheese sandwiches, have you come far?” This was parodied by the character Seamus Android on Round the Horne in the 1960s, performed by Bill Pertwee. In the 1960s he presented Thames Television’s Today news magazine programme.

He was likely best known as the presenter of the UK’s version of This Is Your Life, between its inception in 1955 and his death in 1987, when he was succeeded by Michael Aspel. Andrews became the very first This Is Your Life subject on British television when he was surprised by the show’s creator, Ralph Edwards. Andrews also created a long-running panel game called Whose Baby? that originally ran on the BBC and later on ITV. He was a regular presenter of the early Miss World pageants.

His contribution to UK radio is commemorated in the The Radio Academy Hall of Fame. Andrews appeared as the linking narrator who introduces the unrelated segments that comprise the portmanteau film, Three Cases of Murder (1955).

Article source: Wikipedia | Contributors | CC-BY-SA 3.0

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Now she is charming ABC’s week-end audiences in a different role! As a demonstrator in the Saturday advertising magazine Quick on the Draw, she shows how to use all kinds of things, from the latest cake mixture to a machine for cutting grass the easy way.

“I’ve learnt to much about housewifery I think I should make the most competent housewife ever,” she laughs.

But in case any male reader should consider himself a likely candidate for the role of husband, there’s nothing doing. Sheila is far too busy to think about boy friends.

“The programme takes up my whole week,” she says, “but I always have Sunday off – my one chance to have a good rest.”

Monday finds her checking with producer Eddie Kebbell on what clothes she will need for Saturday’s programme. If she hasn’t already got them in her extensive wardrobe, she goes out to buy them.

Tuesday she has a script conference with Eddie. Wednesday she has a hair do. If she has to learn something especially difficult for her demonstrations, she spends the rest of Wednesday practising. Thursday and Friday are rehearsal days.

There may also be a cabaret to do, or a broadcast, and as Sheila is primarily a singer and dancer, lessons have to be kept up.

When Eddie Kebbell – who also produced her in Friday’s Girl – wanted a vivacious personality for Quick on the Draw, he immediately thought of Sheila. “I think she is a great artist,” he says.

Sheila has no illusions about show business. “I’m the most impatient person in the world regarding my career,” she says. “Of course I would like to he a big star.”

But at 27, she admits there is still plenty of time to reach the top. She is sincere enough to agree that she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life trying to attain that ambition.

Television presents its problems, says Sheila. Once, in Friday’s Girl, she forgot the words of a sing she was signing. She fitted-in with the first words which came into her head. No one noticed the difference!

She finds advertising products fun, but exhausting, too. Remembering trade names and their various uses can be nerve-racking. So far, she hasn’t slipped up.

The post Sheila Mathews is now ‘Saturday’s Girl’ appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He joined BBC Television as a trainee Light Entertainment producer in 1952 and was put in charge of the Department’s output of panel games, both finding and producing them, which he proceeded to do by introducing Guess My Story, Find the Link, The Tall Story Club and The Name’s the Same. With fellow ex-trainee Ernest Maxin he co-produced and directed the first television comedy series by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, And So to Bentley, starring Dick Bentley, Peter Sellers and Bill Fraser. He went on to produce series with Bob Monkhouse, Petula Clark, Billy Cotton, whose Band Show Wakey! Wakey! he devised, Ask Pickles, British television’s first request series, which he also devised, and Bathnight with Braden, starring Bernard Braden and written by Muir and Norden, which was BBC Television’s first weekly comedy series, such shows until then only being broadcast fortnightly.

At ATV from 1957 to 1960 he took over Sunday Night at the London Palladium, produced specials built round such international artistes as Rosemary Clooney and Johnnie Ray, devised and produced series of Val Parnell’s Saturday Spectaculars with Max Bygraves, Dickie Henderson, Arthur Askey, Harry Secombe and Dave King, and devised and produced New Look, a revue with a team of new performers including Bruce Forsyth and Roy Castle, whose television careers the series kick-started. In 1957 he won BAFTA’s first award for Light Entertainment Production when the Academy was still the Society of Film and Television Arts. His last production was Sammy Davis Jr’s first show for British TV in 1960.

As Director of Programmes at ABC TV and Thames TV during the 1960s and 1970s, he oversaw the first British television shows of Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, Peggy Lee and Bing Crosby. He introduced ITV’s first weekly series dedicated to the arts with Tempo; British television’s first late night chat show with Eamonn Andrews’ Live from London and its first hidden camera show Candid Camera with Bob Monkhouse. Programmes he commissioned included Thank Your Lucky Stars, Callan, The Benny Hill Show, Public Eye and The World at War.

He was a founder-director of both Thames Television and Channel Four; managing director and then chairman and managing director of London Weekend Television; and the founder-chairman of ITV’s first venture into satellite broadcasting with SuperChannel. During his career, he worked for four legendary broadcasting bosses: Ronnie Waldman, Lew Grade, Howard Thomas and John Freeman; and when he became a broadcasting boss himself he appointed four future legends: Jeremy Isaacs as his Controller of Features at Thames; Michael Grade, John Birt and Greg Dyke successively as his Directors of Programmes at LWT.

He retired in 1994.

Article source: Wikipedia | Contributors | CC-BY-SA 3.0

The post Brian Tesler appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He began his career typing invoices for a firm of wire-drawers in Manchester. While doing that job, he taught himself to write newspaper articles and short plays. When some of these articles were published, he managed to get a job in the firm’s advertising department. That job enabled Thomas to mix with advertising agents and through networking he obtained a position with F John Roe, one of Manchester’s advertising agencies.

He moved to the London agency FC Prichard Wood and Partners, and he continued to write articles, having a London entertainment column in the Manchester Evening Chronicle. This column was spotted by the London Press Exchange and he was hired by them as a copywriter.

At London Press Exchange, Thomas worked in the commercial radio section, at first writing, then producing commercial packages for companies including Cadbury’s. These packages, usually of music or variety acts interspersed with subtle commercials for the sponsor, were then placed on Radio Luxembourg and similar longwave broadcasters who could be heard in the UK.

The BBC

In this position he came to the attention of the BBC, and he began to submit scripts and programme ideas to them while continuing to work for the international commercial broadcasters. However, at the outbreak of World War II, the commercial broadcasters closed and the advertising market contracted. Thomas kept his post at London Press Exchange, but effectively had no work to do. He attempted to fill time by writing books about the blackout and writing more articles for newspapers, and also worked for Publicity Films Limited producing public information films.

On the outbreak of war, the BBC had closed its existing two Regional Programme and National Programme stations and replaced them with a single national station, the Home Service (now BBC Radio 4).

This move was criticised as it led to boredom amongst the listeners during the Phony War, who were also faced with cinemas and sporting events being closed “for the duration” and the loss of the competition to the BBC.

As the Phony War ended, the BBC decided to introduce an entertainment-based national radio station, primarily for the men under arms. The new service, the Forces Programme hired many new producers from the former commercial agencies, including Howard Thomas.

Ack Ack Beer Beer

Thomas’s first assignment was to produce the programme Ack Ack Beer Beer, an entertainment and variety programme for anti-aircraft and barrage balloon emplacements. Both jobs featured very little action and therefore the BBC felt that ‘lively’ entertainment had to be provided for the crews.

Under Thomas, the programme developed into a miscellany of variety, talk, music and comedy, using whatever talent was available near the evacuated Variety Department’s studios in Bristol. On occasion this was no talent at all, and Thomas later told of an edition made up of him and his co-producer playing “Shove ha’penny”, which had the side effect of reintroducing the game to the population.

Sincerely Yours, Vera Lynn

With Bristol now a victim of the Blitz, the Variety Department moved to Bangor in north Wales. However, feeling that opportunities for variety would be limited there, Thomas engineered a move back to London.

In London he spotted singer Vera Lynn in a stage show. He created a radio programme for her called Sincerely Yours, Vera Lynn where she sang popular tunes of the time, read out letters from servicemen and introduced entertainers.

The show was a hit, both with the forces and the country at large, although the senior officers of both the British Army and the Royal Navy strongly objected to the sentimental and “soppy” music and presentation. Nevertheless, the show helped turn the song “We’ll Meet Again” into one of the best selling pieces of music throughout the war. The show also cemented Vera Lynn’s title of “forces’ sweetheart” and ensured that she would remain, as of 2006, something akin to a national treasure in the UK.

To assuage critics of Sincerely Yours, Thomas introduced the programme I Am John Bull, featuring military marches and “strong” music. The programme was not successful.

Shipmates Ashore

The BBC Forces Programme provided distinct programming for each of the armed services. However, the Merchant Navy, not being classed as an armed service and under the patronage of the Ministry of Labour, was not included.

Howard Thomas began a programme named Shipmates Ashore aimed at this audience. The programme was set in a Merchant Navy club and quickly became an effectively real club, with free beer and “companionship” for visiting merchant seamen. The show featured a mixture of music, singing, comedy and information (in the form of a “ship’s newspaper”) as well as providing a platform for discussion of issues of interest to the sailors. The programme was presented by Doris Hare.

The Brain’s Trust

As conceived by Howard Thomas and Douglas Cleverdon, The Brains Trust was a simple mixture of light panel game entertainment and heavier discussion of items of scientific, legal, medical and social importance. At that time, there was much discussion in the UK about the shape of the world and the country after the war, which reached its peak with the Beveridge Report and the 1945 landslide election of Attlee’s Labour government.

The programme featured Professor Cyril E. M. Joad, previously rejected for radio for his strange speaking voice; the writer and zoologist Julian Huxley; and the loud and entertaining Archibald Bruce Campbell. The programme first aired under the title Any Questions? and drew a small audience and few questions. However, within a few weeks it had caught the zeitgeist of the nation, gaining an audience of 11½million. The series was extended from a run of 12 episodes into an open-ended series that ran into the 1950s.

However, the popularity of the programme, dealing as it did with matters of controversy and politics, caused complaints of left-wing bias from within the BBC and from commentators outside. The BBC attempted to modify the format of the programme to avoid this but also sought to avoid damaging the shows popularity. With military criticism of Sincerely Yours, general complaints about the bawdy humour in Shipmates Ashore and political criticism of The Brains Trust, the BBC sought a scapegoat and pressured Howard Thomas to leave. In 1944, he resigned.

British Pathé

On leaving the BBC, Howard Thomas joined the Associated British Picture Corporation as head of British Pathé, the newsreel and film company.

Thomas relaunched the ailing Pathé Gazette as Pathé News, began hiring new camera operators and pioneered the switch to colour film. He also arranged for the Pathé archives, then of little or no intrinsic value to the company, to be indexed and properly preserved for future use.

ABC

By the 1950s, it was becoming clear that television was eroding the size of cinema audiences. Frustrated at his inability to convince the Associated British Picture Corporation that it should either expand into production of popular feature films or bid for one of the new commercial broadcasting licences offered under the Television Act 1954 by the Independent Television Authority (ITA), Howard Thomas began to look for roles in the new ITV companies that were being started.

He was offered the job of General Manager of Kemsley-Winnick Television, the new weekend contractor for the midlands and north of England. However, before he could take up the job, Lord Kemsley pulled out of the company and the contract lapsed.

The ITA made a last-ditch attempt to get the Associated British Picture Corporation involved in commercial television as a replacement for Kemsley-Winnick. The board of the company was finally convinced to try, and signed a contract with the ITA on 21 September 1955 to form Associated British Cinemas (Television) Limited to take over the contract.

Howard Thomas was appointed as managing director of the company and hired Sydney Newman and Brian Tesler as his controllers of drama and light entertainment respectively.

Article source: Wikipedia | Contributors | CC-BY-SA 3.0

Images source: With an Independent Air by Howard Thomas, published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson in 1977

The post Howard Thomas appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He was born in Manchester, Lancashire, in 1938. He adopted his mother’s maiden name as a show business name.

He attended Glastonbury Road Grammar School at St. Helier in Surrey, until aged 17. On leaving school Hamilton became a script-writer for the TV series Portrait of a Star.

In 1960 he became an in-vision television announcer for ABC in Didsbury, Manchester and appeared with Ken Dodd in the TV series Doddy’s Music Box, acquiring the nickname, ‘Diddy’. Throughout the 1960s he hosted shows for the Tyne Tees, Anglia and Westward Television companies.

He joined the then new Thames as an announcer in 1968, subsequently hosting many shows for them including Miss TV Times, TV Times Gala Awards and The World Disco Dance Championships, as well as many outside broadcasts, circus and sports shows. He appeared alongside comedians Benny Hill and Tommy Cooper and hosted Thames TV’s showcase weeks on television in New York City and Los Angeles. Later he hosted ATV’s Saturday night series Up For the Cup, and four series of ITV’s Hangman-style game show All Clued Up.

For BBCtv he compered Top of the Pops and Seaside Special and in 1986 the Eurovision Song Contest previews. For seven years he was the main host of one of the earliest satellite TV stations, Lifestyle.

In February 2012 at the age of 73 he danced to the track “Push it” with fellow DJ Tony Blackburn as contestants on the charity show “Let’s Dance for Sport Relief”.

Article source: Wikipedia | Contributors | CC-BY-SA 3.0

The post David Hamilton appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.