Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Esmond KNIGHT (1906-1987)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE – Esmond Knight, actor, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith.
Esmond, who was born in London, first began acting on stage in the 1920s and joined the company at London's Old Vic in 1925. Success in West End theatre led to various film roles, but his career was put on hold when he joined the Royal Navy during the outbreak of the Second World War.
He was severely injured in 1941 on board HMS Prince of Wales when he was struck by a shell from the German battleship Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Esmond remained totally blind for two years, though with treatment, he regained some sight in his right eye and, after the war, could continue with his career, appearing in films such as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes.
programme details...
- Edition No: 27
- Subject No: 27
- Broadcast live: Mon 18 Feb 1957
- Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
- Venue: King's Theatre, Hammersmith
- Series: 2
- Edition: 12
on the guest list...
- Nora Swinburne - wife
- Dorothy Rendle
- Michael Shepley
- Balliol Holloway
- Wilson Barrett
- Michael Buxton
- Rosalind Knight - daughter
- Sally Duncan
- Enid Heyworth
- Dr Vincent Nesfield Recorded tribute:
- Capt Charles Knight - uncle
related appearance...
- Stories behind This Is Your Life - Jun 1957
production team...
- Researchers: Peter Moore, Nigel Ward
- Writer: Gale Pedrick
- Director: unknown
- Producer: T Leslie Jackson
- with thanks to Rosalind Knight for her contribution to this page
Rosalind Knight, actress and daughter of Esmond Knight, recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in March 2011
Photographs of Esmond Knight This Is Your Life
Esmond Knight recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in the end of the series review programme, Stories behind This Is Your Life, broadcast in June 1957
Towards the end of the 1950s, two events occurred that took Esmond back in time to the day that changed his life - 24th May 1941 - the day he was injured on board HMS Prince of Wales. The first of these took place on 18th February 1957 when Esmond was the subject of a TV programme which is now all too familiar, but in those days was quite new - This Is Your Life.
The man with "the red book" in those days was Eamonn Andrews, and for thirty minutes he talked through Esmond's life and introduced family, friends and colleagues including Balliol Holloway (the actor who worked with Esmond in his early Old Vic days), Nurse Thorday (who had looked after him in hospital in Iceland), Dr Vincent Nesfield (who had restored his sight), Enid Hayworth (the matron at Nesfield's nursing home), Michael Shepley (schoolfriend and fellow actor who worked with him in the film Henry V), Michael Buxton (a shipmate from HMS Prince of Wales who survived the sinking), Rosalind and Nora. Uncle Chas could not be there - he was in Kenya and not well enough to travel, and in fact died later the same year. But he had recorded a message for Esmond in advance which was played during the programme. Earlier that day, Chas had sent a telegram to Esmond's home that read: "All good wishes, I shall be speaking to you later, old boy, love Chas." Fortunately it didn't arrive until after Esmond and Nora had left home for the evening (Esmond thought he was going to the theatre), otherwise it would have given the game away.
The final "mystery guest" was intended to be Burkard, Baron von Muellenheim-Rechberg of Wiesbaden, third gunnery officer on the German battleship Bismarck - or as Esmond scribbled in a personal note in the great scrapbook of his life, "the man who blew me to blazes". Unfortunately, on the day of the show, Muellenheim-Rechberg was ill and could not take part. However, six months later, a "flashback" programme about the making of This Is Your Life was recorded and this time the surprise was belatedly sprung on Esmond, and the two finally met. Only 107 out of 2,000 men survived the sinking of Bismarck and Muellenheim-Rechberg was the senior surviving officer. Before the war he had been an assistant naval attaché under Ribbentrop at the German Embassy in London and his English was excellent, so he and Esmond were able to talk easily together about their experiences, sixteen years after they had faced each other as enemies in the Battle of Denmark Strait. When they were introduced to each other in the BBC television studio, they had in fact been corresponding for some years, but this was the first time that had actually met - or rather the second if you included their previous encounter in battle. After the show they continued to talk in the green room and remained good friends for the rest of their lives.
In a review of Esmond's This Is Your Life programme the next day (19th February 1957), TV critic Stanley Moss wrote: "If you can judge a man by his friends, Esmond Knight must be a really delightful person."
[Bigredbook.info editor: Von Mullenheim-Rechberg - the senior surviving officer on the German battleship Bismarck - was due to be the final guest on Esmond Knight's This Is Your Life, but was unable to appear due to illness. However, the production team were able to arrange for the two men to finally meet on the Stories behind This Is Your Life programme broadcast in June 1957 (see video extract above)]
It was in the stars that the shell that struck the bridge of the Prince of Wales would not explode until it had passed through, a fact that later brought me the friendship of one of its victims.
Lieutenant Esmond Knight, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, an actor by profession and a painter and ornithologist by avocation, was keeping lookout through a pair of German Zeiss binoculars. His station was in the unarmoured antiaircraft fire-control position above the bridge, and he was protected only by his steel helmet.
He heard something like "a violently onrushing cyclone," then someone said, "Stretcher here, make way." He had the feeling that he was surrounded by corpses and he smelled blood.
People were approaching him and asking, "What happened to you?" He looked in the direction of the voices and saw nothing – a shell splinter had blinded him.
In 1948, after a visitor to Germany brought me greetings from him, he wrote me, "I was blind for a year, but now I am back to my old profession at the theatre, which makes me happy."
In 1957 I was a surprise guest in the episode of the BBC's television program This Is Your Life that was devoted to Esmond Knight. That is when we met for the first time, and we have been friends ever since.
Evening Telegraph 19 February 1957
Esmond Knight's exuberantly cheerful and amusingly wholesome outlook lifted "This is Your Life" to impressive heights. His wife wasn't alone in her tears.
Sussex Express and County Herald 22 February 1957
Dr Anonymous
A DOCTOR, well known in Sussex, who, for reasons of professional etiquette must remain anonymous, figured in the BBC television programme on Monday evening.
He appeared in the feature "This Is Your Life". The personality, whose life was reviewed by Eamonn Andrews is Esmond Knight, the actor, who was blinded in the Naval action between the Prince of Wales and the Bismarck during the last war.
Mr Knight was an officer on the Prince of Wales and was injured when his ship was hit.
The television programme told how, after his sight had been despaired of, he was introduced to a doctor, now resident near Northiam, who declared: "Yes, there is hope."
"His skill made it possible for you to see him now," Eamonn Andrews told Mr Knight.
Said the doctor, whose identity was not revealed on TV: "I knew he would recover his sight because of his great courage and his great faith in God. It is a great honour that I was allowed to help this very brave man."
West London Press 22 February 1957
THAT delightful Chelsea couple Esmond Knight and Nora Swinburne, were on televison on Monday.
"This Is Your Life", the controversial biographical programme, had caught up with the actor, and it was fairly obvious that this was the sort of "Life" the irrepressible Eamonn Andrews relished.
To save embarrassment, said Eamonn, he would refrain from calling "Teddy" Knight a hero - but no-one in the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, was fooled by that.
The programme had a climax of rare impact. Into the picture suddenly came the surgeon ("who must remain anonymous") who performed the operation which made Esmond Knight, blinded in naval action, see again.
The surgeon who had curtailed a holiday in Switzerland to be there declared, "I knew he'd recover his sight because of his strength and his great faith in God."
He was honoured that he had been allowed to help "this very great man."
Presenting Mr Knight with his "biography," Mr Andrews described it as "the story of a man to whom life is a great and glorious joke."
A man of "verve and gusto" which earned him the descriptor - if "hero" were unacceptable, - of "the true Elizabethan."
By the way, what about the BBC putting on "The Gift" - the corneal grafting play presented in Chelsea last week - on television with Mr and Mrs Knight in it?
Huddersfield Daily Examiner 23 February 1957
Those people - and I was among them - who entertained some misgivings concerning the filling of the TV "gap" between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. must have been reassured to some extent during the past week, for both the BBC and ITV have approached this matter with a due sense of responsibility.
There has been a full range of variety in the choice of programmes, and on balance, the BBC have, I think, finished slightly ahead in the quality of their presentations.
Monday evening's "This Is Your Life" with Esmond Knight as the subject was one of the most successful yet. This was the story of a courageous man, and Mr Knight appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the occasion - an enjoyment which was shared by the audience.
Eamonn Andrews positively shines as an interviewer.
The Illustrated Chronicle 23 February 1957
If we must have "This Is Your Life" which can be at times quite as nasty and unhealthy as "Is This Your Problem?" then Esmond Knight is the ideal victim.
Without being in the least exhibitionist he quite obviously thought the whole thing a delightful experience, and as he joked his way through the 30 minutes one realised how much true courage there had been in his struggle to regain his sight.
Better Left
But, just the same, it would have been ever so much better to have left the whole thing alone. People's emotions should not be paraded for public entertainment.
If this tendency increases there will soon be nothing to choose between television and the Sunday papers. A great many people already think they are indistinguishable.
Series 2 subjects
Peter Scott | Ada Reeve | Peter Methven | Sue Ryder | Harry S Pepper | Compton Mackenzie | Maud Fairman | Billy SmartBrian Hession | John Barbirolli | Duncan Guthrie | Esmond Knight | Sammy McCarthy | Edwin Madron | Diana Dors
Parry Jones | Percy Flood | G H Elliott | Stuart Hibberd