2. From the Irish Times:
Britain: The veteran English comedy writer and
broadcasting personality, Frank Muir, died
yesterday after celebrating 50 years as one of
Britain's favourite funnymen. He was aged 77.
He died in bed - hours after watching Forrest
Gump on television, and commending the script,
his wife said. Frank Muir's death came just
three months after he published his memoirs, A
Kentish Lad, packed with anecdotes about his
career in radio and television. He began
scriptwriting during service in the second World
War when he became involved with troops
broadcasting. Soon afterwards he had success
with the BBC radio comedy series, Take It From
Here.
His co-writer on that and many more shows, Denis
Norden, said the death of the man famous for his
pink bow-tie and mellifluous voice had come as a
shock.
"He was like a brother to me," he said. Frank
Muir is remembered by most people for his
beguiling charm and distinctive voice as a
panellist on radio shows like Call My Bluff or
My Word.
But he preferred to be remembered for his work
as a scriptwriter, for many years in one of the
best-known writing partnerships with Denis
Norden.
The two were introduced in 1947, and were soon
writing Take It From Here, most celebrated for
its sketches about the Glum family, starring
June Whitfield, Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley.
The 6ft 5in writer was born in Ramsgate on
February 5th, 1920. He joined the RAF a year
after war broke out.
The new series of Take It From Here continued
until 1958, when Whack-O! - starring Jimmy
Edwards - started on television.
The partnership with Denis Norden ended in 1964,
but the two men continued to work together while
pursuing separate careers.
Frank Muir became an assistant head of light
entertainment for the BBC, and then briefly head
of entertainment for the newlyformed London
Weekend Television in 1969, before returning to
freelance writing.
He and Denis Norden had been on My Word since it
began in 1956, and My Music from 1967. Call My
Bluff started on television in 1970. Dozens of
books followed
3. Farewell, Frank Muir
I'm sorry to report that the well-loved broadcaster, writer and punster
Frank Muir died on 2 January aged 77. He presented Terry Gilliam's early
British TV break, We Have Ways of Making You Laugh. In Muir's recent
autobiography A Kentish Lad [Dreams recommends!], he recalls the making of
the first show for London Weekend Television...
"In an LWT programme conference it was decided that LWTÕs first programme,
to go on early Friday evenings, would be a series reflecting the change from
weekday programming to a more carefree weekend schedule. The perfect title
would have been The Weekend Starts Here, but Rediffusion had already used
that. It was decided that the series would not be another pop-music show but
would go for humour, and its provisional title was We Have Ways Of Making
You Laugh.
"To produce the series, I had one of the best producers who came to us from
Associated Rediffusion, Humphrey Barclay, who was young, extremely bright
and inventive. We decided that we did not want to start the weekend with an
anarchic romp, but with a cheerful, unpredictable, bitty sort of show which
viewers could join at any point and then leave at any point to put the
potatoes on.
"We had the producer and the title, we now wanted the presenter. To my
horror and delight (emotions which frequently coincide in television),
Humphrey Burton argued strongly that I should present the show. I accepted.
It was not all that much of an interruption to my work as unit head once
Humphrey Barclay had got things organised.
"We put together a team of writers and performers, and writer/performers.
Ken Cope, the writer, actor (Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)) and
restaurateur, wrote and performed a weekly five-minute piece to camera as
the manager of a none-too-successful restaurant (foreshadowing Harry
Enfield's Stavros?); Dick Vosburgh, superb writer of topical one-liners and
well-known beard, sat at the back with a clipboard and the most bulging
briefcase in television, writing his odd funny comments and passing them
forward; the then almost unknown Eric Idle did some excellent bits and
pieces; Terry Gilliam, an American artist and cartoonist, now director of
extraordinarily imaginative Hollywood movies, sat in the studio happily
drawing what was going on and the camera zoomed in on his work from time to
time; and Barry Cryer, Benny Green and others popped in with pieces.
"One Friday evening, 2 August 1968, We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh made an
almost illegible blur on television history as the first programme of the
new station LWT. The show went marvellously, the full audience laughing and
clapping their appreciation. The series never went so well over its
subsequent fourteen weeks' run, but that was not surprising as the first
show's audience consisted almost entirely of friends and investors.
"Glowing with sweat and pleasure at the end, I was leaning against a camera
feeling happily tired when Humphrey Barclay came up and said, 'I have the
most rotten news. The show didn't go outÉ The unions pulled the plug just
before we went on air.'"
4. From ITN:
Frank Muir: 1920 - 1998
Frank Muir, 77, master humorist and raconteur, who invariably sported a pink bow-tie, made his
name as the co-writer of many endearing, enduring and hilarious radio comedies.
He was also a comic celebrity and quiz game panellist, a towering man, 6ft 6ins tall, whose natty
dress and bushy moustache gave him a distinctive and beguiling charm.
But he preferred to be remembered as a scriptwriter, author of some 30 books and several
documentaries - as well as the hand that guided that notorious chauvinist comic character, Alf
Garnett, and others, on to British TV screens.
Muir, born in Ramsgate, Kent, on February 5, 1920, enjoyed a partnership lasting a quarter of a
century with the no-less talented Denis Norden.
Together, with a unique blend of racy war-time and post-war humour, they produced such
classics as Take It From Here, The Glums, My Word! and My Music.
In the 1960s, Muir ran the BBC's sitcom department and was involved inÊ producing some of the
best TV series of the time, including Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part. Later he joined
London Weekend Television as head of entertainment.
Muir attended Leyton County High School, in east London, but had to leave when he was 14
because his father died and his mother could no longer afford to pay the £11 a term for him. He
was an introspective lad and left school without a single certificate. But he had already started
to show literary skills, editing the school magazine and writing short stories.
At the age of 18 he started work as a trainee with a carbon paper
company. War broke out and a year later he joined the RAF and was posted to Iceland. Like so many of his generation, the Second World War transformed his character. From
introspective youth, he developed into a cheerful, outgoing, generous young man.
Soon, as one of his colleagues put it, he "began writing funny things seriously" and became
involved with troops broadcasts, learning the tough discipline of writing weekly scripts - and of
performing them as well. On demobilisation in 1946, Muir instantly decided that scriptwriting was
his forte. He began writing jokes in 1947 for Jimmy Edwards - he of the handlebarÊ moustache -
as well as scripts for Navy Mixture, Oliver's Twists and Listen My Children.
And it was the following year that his memorable partnership began with Denis Norden. They were brought together by Ted Kavanagh, the scriptwriter who kept wartime Britain
laughing with Tommy Handley's ITMA (It's That Man Again). With great insight and instinct, Kavanagh recognised that Muir and Norden would instantly
complement each other as top-flight comedy script-writers. He was right.
Quotes
(More to be added later)
Frank Muir said of the book
Writing Comedy: a guide to scriptwriting for TV, Radio, Film and Stage
by Ronald Wolfe,
'Along with a rich father-in-law, a good suit,
curiosity, venom and innocence, there is nothing a young man or woman
contemplating writing television comedy needs more then Ronnie Wolfe's
indispensable book.'
Books
Here is a list of books by Frank Muir
The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose : From William Caxton to P.G.
Wodehouse : A Conducted Tour
Frank Muir (Editor) / Paperback / Published
1992, Hardcover / Published 1990
An Irreverent and Thoroughly Incomplete Social History of Almost Everything
Frank Muir / Paperback / Published 1976
Call my bluff: Frank Muir versus Patrick Campbell
Frank Muir
Chambers Words for Crosswords and Wordgames
Frank Muir / Published 1983
Christmas Customs and Traditions
Frank Muir / Published 1977
Christmas Customs Around the World
Frank Muir / Published 1977
The Frank Muir book : an irreverent companion to social history
Frank Muir
Frank Muir goes into
Frank Muir
The second Frank Muir goes into
Frank Muir
The Glums : based on the original radio scripts
Frank Muir
An Irreverent and Almost Complete Social History of the Bathroom
Frank Muir (Editor) / Published 1984
The My Word! Stories
Frank Muir / Published 1977
Take my word for it : still more stories from My word !
Frank Muir
Upon my word! : more stories from "My word!" a panel game devised by
Edward J. Mason & Tony Shryane
Frank Muir
You can't have your kayak and heat it; stories from My word!
Frank Muir
The Walpole orange : a romance
Frank Muir
Prince What-A-Mess
Frank Muir / Published 1985
Super What-A-Mess
Frank Muir / Published 1985
What-A-Mess and the Cat-Next-Door
Frank Muir / Published 1985
What-A-Mess at the Beach
Frank Muir / Published 1985
What-A-Mess the Good
Frank Muir / Published 1985
Order them from
Amazon.com
OTHER MEMBERS OF THE "MY WORD" PANEL GAME RADIO SHOW
Frank Muir and Denis Norden were friends, partners and co-writers for 50
years.
Dilys Powell (1901 - 3 Jun 1995) Film Critic and scholar of Ancient Greek
(and writer about Greece). Dilys could always define unusual words by
using her knowledge of greek. For many years she was the film critic in
Punch magazine.
Anne Scott James, writer of two Gardening books (and
this illustrated one)
Jack Longland,the Chairman. Born 26 June 1905, died
29 November 1993. A kind reader of this webpage sent me a copy of the
obituary of Sir Jack Longland.
Professionally, he rose to eminence in the field of educational
administration, and he was an idealist who was very concerned with social
work. Early in his career was Director of the Durham Community Service
Council and lectured for the Workers Education Association.
He was a renowned mountaineer, and this is
is main claim to fame, not the fact that he was the chairman of My Word. His most notable
expedition was the Everest climb of 1933. The attempt was plagued by
atrocious conditions but one episode from it has become a part of
mountaineering folklore. Longland's action in bringing down eight Sherpas
from Camp 6 at 27,400 ft in a sudden storm and white-out conditions which
obliterated all traces of the route, by a ridge on which he had never
been before, is one of the great mountaineering epics of responsible
heroism. During the 36-hour ordeal he had continually both to safeguard
his exhausted and dispirited men and force them to keep on the move. It
deserved and drew the highest praise, and certainly saved the Sherpas
lives.
He is listed as a patron of
Mountain Art
Many thanks to Michael Shavelson for the information about Jack
Longland.
Please send e-mail with your stories or memories about Frank to
Magic Dragon Multimedia (please put "Frank Muir" in the subject line) for inclusion on our
webpage.
Copyright 1998, 1999 by Magic Dragon Multimedia.
All rights reserved worldwide. May not be reproduced without permission.
May be posted electronically provided that it is transmitted unaltered, in its
entirety, and without charge.
