This Is Your Life article

TV NEEDS THEIR ZIP!

We've rescued Eamonn from the dollar lure

By Kenneth Baily

THERE is one British TV star the Americans would dearly love to steal from us. They have already offered this character a three-year contract to work in America.

Gentleman in question is Eamonn Andrews. And I'm happy to say that Eamonn won't go. Yet this is the third time the U.S. carrot has been dangled before him.

Eamonn has been in the States for three months. "It's useful to go there to polish your edges," he told me. "But," he added, "Britain's the place for me!"

So back he comes to the BBC's "What's My Line?" "This Is Your Life," two children's programmes, and radio's "Sports Report."

"What's My Line?" returns this time as a Saturday night BBC regular on October 5. THE PANEL: David Nixon, Lady Barnett, Barbara Kelly and Gilbert Harding.

In New York, Eamonn Andrews appeared on the ten-year-old American version of "The Line." He tells me it is still madly popular. Arriving at Hollywood airport the next morning, the newsstand man asked for his autograph, having seen "The Line" the night before.

How many other British TV personalities would be recognised in America?

I got a startling clue to this at Lime Grove when a party of American editors were shown the studio's picture gallery of BBC stars.

Looking blankly along the photographs of Gilbert Harding, Wilfred Pickles, Lady Barnett, Benny Hill and the rest, the Yanks found just one familiar face at the end.

This was Mr Dag Hammarskjöld, United Nations general secretary, who had once appeared on BBC!