Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
1 April 1960
a brief biography
The Legend That Was Eamonn Andrews
a celebration to mark the presenter's centenary year
the man who created it all
by Dominic Flessati
Another season of This Is Your Life came to an end last week, and it seemed a good moment to find out how life looks at present to Eamonn Andrews, its genial and untiring compere. What's My Line? is due to end in three weeks' time, and the football season will soon be over – and with it Eamonn's other task of presenting Sports Parade and Sports Report – so I naturally expected to find him in a relaxed mood, perhaps looking forward to a long stretch of idleness on some sunny beach.
He was relaxed all right (but then, come to think of it, that is one of his permanent gifts); and he was contemplating a holiday – 'perhaps two weeks in Italy' – but his main plans were active. As we spoke he kept his eye on the clock – he had to catch a plane to Dublin where, as chairman of the Irish television authority, he is helping to build up a service from scratch – and our main topic was his forthcoming trip to the United States. 'I hope to be there by June,' he said, 'to appear as a panellist in the American version of What's My Line? A change is as good as a rest,' he added with a grin.
Eamonn's 'rest' will also involve travelling across to Hollywood to swap notes with Ralph Edwards who introduces the American version of This Is Your Life – 'and I'll take the opportunity of learning about anything new in TV or radio – a sort of postgraduate course, you could call it.' He also hopes to be called upon to give a commentary on the return flight for the world heavyweight championship: his commentary last year, when Johannson took the title from Patterson, was relayed to Light Programme listeners in the early hours of the morning.
And we came back to sport – a topic never far from Eamonn's mind – as we discussed the chances he has had to settle permanently in America: 'As it is, the division of my time between Britain and America depends on the football season: you could say it's football that draws me back and keeps me in England.'
One other thing: before Eamonn sets off on his journeys, he is finding time to present a short series of record programmes, Cock-a-Doodle Disc (Light). Listeners may remember his most successful late-night series of a few years ago called The Pied Piper, and though this new one will be a morning session (8.15 on Wednesdays!) it should call forth the same qualities of charm – and brevity – in its disc-jockey.