JUNE WHITFIELD 2

Photographs of June Whitfield This Is Your Life (click images to enlarge)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - June Whitfield, actress, was surprised by Michael Aspel at the BBC Television Centre.

In a career which began in the 1940s, June has worked on countless radio and TV comedy series, working with most of Britain’s major comedy talent.

June was previously honoured by This Is Your Life in 1976 - details can be found here

“And there’s me with no earrings!”

ON THE GUEST LIST:

★Richard Whitfield - cousin
★Chris & Veronica - nieces
★Margaret - sister-in-law
★Frank Thornton
★Kate Robbins
★Anna Dawson
★Derek Bond
★Reginald Marsh
★Rosemary Frankau
★Tim Aitchison - husband
★Suzy Aitchison - daughter
★Julia Sawalha
★Joanna Lumley
★Jennifer Saunders
★John Whitfield - brother
★Frank Muir
★Denis Norden
★Bob Monkhouse
★Pat Coombs
★Reg Varney
★Liz Fraser
★Leslie Phillips
★Maggie Scott
★Roy Hudd
★Chris Emmett
★Rolf Harris
★Jack Tripp
★Honor Blackman
★Leslie Crowther

Filmed tributes:

★Esther Rantzen

EXTERNAL LINKS:

Wikipedia

IMDB

June WHITFIELD OBE (1925-)

Edition No: 911

Subject No: second timer

Broadcast: Wed 8 Mar 1995 7pm

Recorded: Tue 28 Feb 1995

Venue: BBC Television Centre

Series: 35

Edition: 19

Code Name: May

Back to Series 35

Celebrating television’s This Is Your Life

This Is Your Life - June WHITFIELD

names listed in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Researcher & Writer: Charles Boyd

Director: Brian Klein

Producer: Malcolm Morris

Associate Producer: John Graham

Executive Producer: Peter Estall

June recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography ...and June Whitfield, reproduced here with kind permission of the author...

In 1995, not long after we finished the third series of Ab Fab, Jennifer, Joanna, Julia and I were called in one day to do some dubbing, and while recording in the small studio, I saw Michael Aspel making his way towards me. I almost waved him away as I was concentrating on the matter in hand, then he said the magic words and produced the red book.

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘There must be a mistake. I’ve been done.’

They cut that bit out!

I really thought he was there to nobble one of the others, but I soon realised from the grins that they’d known all about it. I was taken to the studio and once again basked in the deeply flattering process. The funny thing was that a few weeks before a woman had turned to me in the audience of a charity show and said, ‘Are you looking forward to your This Is Your Life?’ I told her I’d been done twenty years ago, but she smiled knowingly, and I just thought she was touched. The producer of the programme recently admitted to me that a list of possible subjects had been taken from his office and circulated at the time, so presumably this woman must have had access to it. However, I was still completely unprepared.

I wasn’t thrown by it quite as much as the first time, but I did wonder how on earth they would manage to scrape together enough people to walk through the sliding doors. In the event, they rounded up rather more than the first time. Some of the old crowd had faded away, but I had acquired several new theatrical families in the intervening years, the Huddlines and Ab Fab teams to name but two.

The surprise guest at the end, and it really was a surprise, because no-one thought he’d be well enough to manage the journey, was Leslie Crowther. I had done his This Is Your Life some time earlier, and he was determined to appear on mine, even though he’d be very ill.

The recording of the show was delayed by about forty-five minutes because the traffic in West London had come to a standstill following a shooting incident in Castlenau, near Hammersmith Bridge. The extra time that Leslie was kept waiting didn’t do him a lot of good, and I know Jean, his wife, was worried about him, but he did wonderfully well and I really appreciated the effort he’d made to be there.

Yet again, it was an overwhelming experience. For the second time in twenty years I was left gobsmacked with wonder at all the research and effort that must have gone into the show, and I greatly appreciated the trouble my friends and colleagues had taken to turn up.