Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
a brief biography
the producers who steered the programme's success
the genesis of the programme
Reporter and Advertiser 5 September 1957
Reports GALE PEDRICK
WHEN Leslie Jackson returned from his annual leave at the beginning of the week, he was faced with the most exacting of the many difficult tasks that have come his way as a television producer.
In a current communique from the BBC Press Department is a statement that Hancock's Half Hour returns as a weekly attraction and will be preceded by This Is Your Life.
The important piece of information embedded in this item is that the programme that so many people love to hate will in future be presented not in alternate weeks but every Monday evening.
This means that the research work, the nervous strain of production, the last-minute crises, the rejoicing, the tension and the despair will be doubled, to say nothing of the headaches involved.
This Is Your Life, which found its way into the first four or five television "top shows" had a stormy passage into the world of British television - although it had been a best-seller, both in sound and on vision, in America for years.
The crucial question was whether a show so American in outlook and approach would be accepted by the British viewer.
Condemned
In many quarters, This Is Your Life was condemned - before it had even been seen in this country - on the ground that it depended for its dramatic effect on "intrusion" into the private lives of the subjects.
In the event, complaints were few and far between, and although certain episodes were magnified out of proportion by some critics, all the subjects said that they were complimented by being chosen and were delighted to meet a succession of old friends.
Leslie Jackson and his team are busy sorting names of possible subjects and investigating the most promising.
Hefty job
To put on a production like This Is Your Life at intervals of seven days is a colossal task and Mr Jackson has all my good wishes - and so has Eamonn Andrews.
The decision to make the show a Monday night fixture means that I shall no longer have any personal association with This Is Your Life.
Ballymena Observer 20 September 1957
Producer Leslie Jackson plans to make each of his latest series of This Is Your Life programs, starting on September 30, a real celebrity occasion. His aim is to people his audience with as many big names as possible from all walks of public life.
"It will help us to build up the tension at the outset," he explains. "If the cameras can pick out a host of familiar faces in the audience viewers will be kept in greater suspense until our actual choice is announced."
The programme, presented weekly for the first time, will again be introduced by Eamonn Andrews. The orchestra will be under the direction of Eric Robinson.
The Liverpool Echo 30 September 1957
Back, too, tonight is This Is Your Life. Producer Leslie Jackson says he plans to make each of the series a real celebrity occasion. There will be plenty of big names out in the audience as well as on the stage. And the celebrities will be from all walks of life.
The series will be presented weekly for the first time. Eamonn Andrews will again be turning back the pages in the lives of the visitors.
Edinburgh Evening News 30 September 1957
VIEWING and LISTENING
TONIGHT'S PROGRAMMES
THIS Is Your Life, one of the most popular of all BBC TV shows, returns to the screen in a new weekly series at 7.30 tonight. The programme, in which the unsuspecting subject is confronted with old associates and associations, will again be compered by Eamonn Andrews.
Evening Sentinel 30 September 1957
TWO popular BBC features return to the screen tonight after the summer break.
One is This Is Your Life, in which Eamonn Andrews introduces a new series of the programmes in which an unsuspecting subject, celebrated or otherwise, finds the searchlight turned publicly on his (or her) past life.
The other is Hancock's Half-Hour, one of the most consistently successful of all television comedy series. The star is supported by a company headed by Sidney James, and the script, as before, is by Alan Simpson and Ray Galton.
The Birmingham Mail 30 September 1957
TELENEWS
Leslie Jackson, who produces This Is Your Life, intends to make each of the new programmes a celebrity occasion. He plans to crowd his studio audience with as many "big names" as possible from all walks of life - just to build up tension at the outset.
"I want the cameras to pick out familiar faces in the audience so that viewers will be kept in greater suspense until our real choice is announced."
The programme is upgraded to appear weekly.
Coventry Evening Telegraph 30 September 1957
Tonight's Television and Radio
By MONITOR
The BBC tonight begins to put its autumn TV light entertainment plans into operation.
During this week eight new series begin, fixing the "star show a night" pattern for the coming months.
The season opens at 7.30 with the return of This Is Your Life.
It will again be introduced by Eamonn Andrews. Producer Leslie Jackson says he plans to make each programme a real celebrity occasion.
He will do this by peopling his audience with as many big names as possible from various walks of life.
"It will help us build up the tension at the outset," he told me. "If the cameras can pick out a host of familiar faces in the audience viewers will be kept in greater suspense until our actual choice is announced."
Daily Record 30 September 1957
THE return tonight of television's most hush-hush half hour This Is Your Life brings with it an outsize headache for producer T Leslie Jackson: How to keep on successfully double-crossing his victims. Celebrities are now on guard against the mysterious Monday night invitation.
Several shows last season were scrubbed because of an identity leak. Also if you know of any untried methods of getting unsuspecting victims into a BBC studio I'm sure "Jacko" would be glad of the hint.
It's to the credit of the affable Eamonn Andrews that not once so far has a hoodwinked victim shown resentment at the intrusion into his private life - or the method adopted to ensure secrecy.