Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Joe BRANNELLY (1900-?)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Joe Brannelly, musician and music publisher, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre while sitting between Vera Lynn and Frankie Vaughan.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Joe first performed music as a youngster in a boy band playing the banjo and fiddle. He moved to London in 1923, where, with the increasing popularity of the dance band, his banjo playing was in much demand, initially with the Boston Orchestra, then with London's Savoy Havana Band.
Joe later joined the highly acclaimed British dance band leader Bert Ambrose and quickly gained a reputation as 'Mister Fix-it', organising all the arrangements for the band's European engagements, including auditioning new players and singers and finding new numbers to play. Joe left Ambrose's band in 1938 and became a successful music publisher.
programme details...
- Edition No: 8
- Subject No: 8
- Broadcast live: Sun 29 Jan 1956
- Broadcast time: 7.45-8.15pm
- Venue: BBC Television Theatre
- Series: 1
- Edition: 8
on the guest list...
- Walter - brother
- William de Mornys
- Bert Ambrose
- Sam Browne
- Leslie Holmes
- Joe Loss
- Jimmy Phillips
- Freddie Mills
- Betty - wife Recorded tributes:
- Bing Crosby
- Bob Hope
production team...
- Researchers: Peter Moore, Nigel Ward
- Writer: Gale Pedrick
- Director: unknown
- Producer: T Leslie Jackson
- names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
Surrey Mirror and County Post 20 January 1956
An eager procession of show people lost few opportunities for puffing themselves and their pals while ostensibly paying tribute to Joe Brannelly in This Is Your Life. We can think of all sorts of people whose life we would rather examine and whose activities are free from the "business behind show business."
Evening Telegraph 30 January 1956
It might have been assumed an obvious point to indicate in any edition of This Is Your Life on Sunday's BBC-TV why a particular person had been chosen.
The name of Joe Brannelly could have meant little as far as the average viewer was concerned, and in the programme devised by Ralph Edwards and written by Gale Pedrick, he was given no chance to increase his knowledge.
Eamonn Andrews, who introduced the programme with a touch of wit and charm, let it be known that Mr Brannelly was affectionately called 'Mr Fixit' by his many friends in the entertainment world and that he had something to do with the dance band business. Exactly what it was that Mr Brannelly fixed or what achievements he had behind him in the dance band business to qualify him for a This Is Your Life programme was not made clear.
No doubt the programme, as unknown figure after unknown figure came forward and slapped Mr Brannelly on the shoulder, was a highly satisfying one for the subject of all the attention, but the show became alive for the home viewer only when someone like Freddie Mills gagged merrily or Bert Ambrose, Joe Loss or Sam Browne reminisced.
Series 1 subjects
Eamonn Andrews | Yvonne Bailey | Ted Ray | James Butterworth | C B Fry | Johanna Harris | Donald Campbell | Joe BrannellyStanley Matthews | Henry Starling | Ida Cook | Lupino Lane | Hugh Oloff de Wet | Elizabeth Wilde | Robert Stanford Tuck