Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
George MARTIN (1926-2016)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - George Martin, record producer, musician and composer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews outside the New London Theatre, having been led to believe he was there to take part in a television programme about music.
George, who was born in Highbury, London, taught himself the piano, trained as a quantity surveyor but joined the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War. Encouraged by Sidney Harrison, he studied piano and oboe at the Guildhall School of Music before joining EMI where, as head of the Parlophone, he produced comedy and novelty records in the 1950s and the early 1960s.
In the early 1960s, after a visit to Liverpool and his friendship with Brian Epstein, George began producing acts such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer, Cilla Black and The Beatles, becoming responsible for 37 weeks of no 1 singles in 1963. Commonly referred to as the "fifth Beatle", his involvement with the band’s original albums resulted in popular, highly acclaimed records with innovative sounds.
"You are a devil, Eamonn! How awful!"
programme details...
- Edition No: 531
- Subject No: 528
- Broadcast live: Wed 30 Jan 1980
- Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
- Venue: New London Theatre
- Series: 20
- Edition: 10
- Code name: Air
on the guest list...
- Paul McDowell
- members of The Temperance Seven
- Billy J Kramer
- Ron Goodwin
- Gerry Marsden
- Shirley Burns
- John Burgess
- Tony Hart
- Jean Hart
- Lucie - daughter
- Giles - son
- Judy - wife
- Alexis - daughter
- Bernard Cribbins
- Irene - sister
- Ken - brother-in-law
- Sandy - niece
- Terry Roberts
- Vic Moore
- Pat Greenway
- Eric Forrest
- Sidney Harrison
- Rolf Harris
- Irene Handl
- Matt Monro
- Cilla Black - live link
- Cyril Bishop - uncle Filmed tributes:
- Paul McCartney
- Dudley Moore
related appearances...
- Matt Monro - Mar 1977
- Nigel Kennedy - Mar 1990
- Rolf Harris - Sep 1995
- Midge Ure - Mar 2001
production team...
- Researcher: Katie Lander
- Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
- Directors: Paul Stewart Laing, Terry Yarwood
- Producer: Jack Crawshaw
- names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
charting the pop stars
Screenshots of George Martin This Is Your Life
For George, it was a strange period, indeed. He was working again with Paul, arguably his most successful and talented artist, and trying out a host of new bands from very different generic backgrounds. Yet at the same time, at age fifty-five, he often found himself fêted by well-meaning organisations with a nostalgic eye for his other-worldly past achievements. One such opportunity had recently arrived in the form of the popular British television programme This Is Your Life.
He had long worried that the This Is Your Life production team would attempt to memorialise him, and he purposefully made a pact with Judy to resist their ministrations. Hence, he was "quite shocked" when he learned that she had made secret arrangements with their old friend Ron Goodwin to lure him into a London television studio to record an episode devoted to his life and work.
He knew something was up when the taxi pulled up outside the studio, where the Temperance Seven, the band behind his first number-one single, were playing along the curb, with Gerry Marsden and Billy J. Kramer loitering nearby. As the programme unfolded, George was bowled over by seeing so many friends and colleagues, including Cilla Black, Rolf Harris, Dudley Moore, Bernard Cribbins, and Matt Monro, among others. The producers had even rounded up the Four Tune Tellers, George's dance band from his teenage years.
George later discovered that Judy had gone ahead with the episode in order to include his older sister, Irene, who was battling cancer at the time. Irene ultimately survived, and George, for his part, understood his wife's motives implicitly. And besides, he later admitted, his encounter with This Is Your Life made for a truly "wonderful night"
George himself was the subject of the Life on 30 January 1980. There were greetings from two of his protégés – Paul McCartney, arguably the world's most successful composer, and Cilla Black on a live link from the Wimbledon Theatre where she was appearing in Aladdin.
For many musicians, Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer and the Temperance Seven, George had been the musical genie. He had learned the piano from his uncle Cyril, who was there, at eighty-three, playing 'Tiger Rag'.
Series 20 subjects
Pat Seed | Fred Trueman | Noel Barber | Charles Aznavour | Eric Sykes | Andrew Sachs | Gerald Harper | Terry GriffithsPaddie O'Neil | George Martin | Geoffrey Capes | Roy Kinnear | Nyree Dawn Porter | Emlyn Hughes | Stewart Granger
Clare Francis | Jilly Cooper | Robin Cousins | Brian Bevan | Bill Beaumont | Mike Tetley
Alan Minter | Nat Jackley | Cathleen Nesbitt | Michael Aspel | Clive Lloyd