You Thought You Were Here To...
TV Guide
5 May 1990
TV Guide: This Is Your Life article TV Guide: This Is Your Life article TV Guide: This Is Your Life article
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YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE HERE TO...


...says This Is Your Life's host to a stunned victim as ITV's hit show with the big red book celebrates 500 editions [Bigredbook.info editor: Actually the 500th edition, produced by Thames Television was the edition featuring Nigel Mansell, which was broadcast during series 29 - on 22 February 1989 - which in total was edition number 756, if you include the 256 editions produced by the BBC between 1955-1964!]


Phil Collins has been on it, but Ronnie Barker missed out. Twiggy, at 20, was the youngest to appear [Bigredbook.info editor: David Butler, who lost his legs in a mortar bomb explosion, was the programme's youngest subject at the age of 17. He was surprised in his headmaster's study in March 1962] and Sir Harry Secombe made it twice. Football legend Danny Blanchflower wouldn't have anything to do with it, and Michael Aspel thrives on it.


It is, of course, This Is Your Life, which this week celebrates its 500th edition after originating in America, being sold to the BBC and going on to be ITV's second most popular show.


Celebrities to be surprised with blasts from their past include romance queen Barbara Cartland, magician Paul Daniels, heart-throb Omar Sharif, Coronation Street's Liz Dawn, cop-basher Zsa Zsa Gabor, the glamorous Stephanie Beacham and Star Trekker William Shatner.


Presented first by Eamonn Andrews and now by Aspel – both former Crackerjack hosts – the show which sneaks up on its surprised subjects has met with enormous success, due in some part to that refusal by Blanchflower to take part. Millions tuned in each week thereafter eager to learn the identity of the subject and hopeful of a similar brush-off.


Andrews was left holding the trademark This Is Your Life red book again when Richard Gordon, author of the Doctor series of books, declined in no uncertain verbal terms, and actor Harry Andrews declined so much he almost fell under a bus! He later changed his mind, however, and accepted the red book and all who went with it.


Refusals apart, there are those who would have accepted had the whistle not been blown – if a subject finds out he or she is in the limelight they are dropped like a hot potato.


Ronnie Barker would now have the big red book sitting on his coffee table had he not become suspicious of his wife and phoned a number he found hidden in her underwear drawer. The voice on the other end of the line said: "This Is Your Life, can I help you?" Barker was ditched immediately and actresses Cyd Charisse and Elaine Stritch also met the same fate – both answered the phone at the wrong moment.


There's no rule either which says subjects have to be happy with the end result. Astrologer Russell Grant says that, as an Aquarian, he found the emotional side a bit much and was miffed his two closest friends were not invited. International showjumper David Broome also had harsh words to say about the selection of participants, feeling his famous friends were favoured over his closet ones.


Current host Michael Aspel admits his biggest fear is not that participants will refuse, but that they won't know what he's talking about. "I think Eamonn went up to Earl Mountbatten and said: 'This is your life', and Mountbatten said, 'What do you mean?' That is what I dread: someone saying thank you, taking the book and walking off."


Most shows, however, go without such hiccups and wind up with participants being unleashed on a party in the hospitality room afterwards. Says Aspel: "More and more I find they're staying longer, and one jolly evening I finally left about midnight and they were still there round the piano at two o'clock in the morning."


BRENDAN MARTIN



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