This Is Your Life: Ian Ogilvy

Ian OGILVY (1943-)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Ian Ogilvy, actor, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while being driven to what he believes is a business appointment in central London.

Ian began his career working backstage at London's Royal Court Theatre, before training as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduation, he combined theatre work with a film career which saw him appearing in several low budget films, such as Revenge of the Blood Beast and Witchfinder General.

Ian also frequently appeared on television, including a regular role in ITV's Upstairs, Downstairs, which led to him landing the lead in the popular ITV series Return of the Saint in 1978 - a role which made him a household name.

"Is this a hi-jack? I'm too young to die!"

programme details...

Edition No: 520
Subject No: 517
Broadcast date: Wed 18 Apr 1979
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Thu 22 Mar 1979
Venue: New London Theatre
Series: 19
Edition: 26
Code name: Bernard

on the guest list...

Tessa Wyatt
Diane Keen
Carolyn Seymour
Lynn Dalby
Prunella Gee
Muriel Odunton
Jenny Hanley
Mary Tamm
Sarah Douglas
Fiona Curzon
Judy Geeson
Diane - wife
Titus - son
Emma - daughter
Aileen - mother
Kerry Jane - sister
Nicholas Dawson
Mr Tupholme
Sean Hall-Smith
Charles Lucas
Bob Baker
Simon Williams
Belinda Carroll
Angharad Rees
Christopher Cazenove
Aime Misliwiec
pupils of Sunningdale School
Nicky Henson
Michael York

production team...

Researchers: Cathy Parnall, John Graham, Sue Jerrard
Writer: John Sandilands
Directors: Royston Mayoh, Terry Yarwood
Producer: Jack Crawshaw

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

An Actor's Life For Me

spotlight on the stars

Christopher Cazenove

Simon Williams

Screenshots of Ian Ogilvy This Is Your Life

Ian Ogilvy recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, Once A Saint: An Actor's Memoir...

This newfound celebrity led me inevitably to Eamonn Andrews and his big red book. I was a victim of This Is Your Life. One day a chauffeured limousine came to pick me up and drive me to an appointment with Columbia studios' publicity chief. Halfway there the driver asked if he could make a brief detour - he had a script he had to drop off. We ended up somewhere in suburbia. Ahead of us - and blocking our way - was a large white tent and a small film unit. Somebody waved us to a stop. My driver helpfully switched off his engine. I sat grumpily in the back seat and cursed under my breath at the delay. I was going to be late for my meeting with the publicity chief...

Then suddenly the flaps of the tent flew open and my familiar white Jaguar XJS roared out towards us. Ten feet away it slithered to a stop and Eamonn Andrews got out. He was carrying a big red book under one arm - which was when I realised that there was no Columbia publicity chief, or if there was one, I wasn't going to meet him.

For the next few hours I was a prisoner. There was no going home to change clothes (now I understood why Diane had insisted I wear my best suit), no calling agents or friends (in case you cried out to be rescued) - I was driven straight to the New London Theatre and put into a room and left alone with lots of fruit and sandwiches and soft drinks but no alcohol and somebody was posted outside to make sure I didn't escape. Not that I wanted to escape; I'd been a guest on several This Is Your Life shows - with old friends like Peter Barkworth, Christopher Cazenove and Simon Williams - and I was curious to know how it worked for the victim. I was also, rather obviously, flattered to be one.

The show included all the available (and presumably willing to put themselves out for the occasion) Saint girls who crowded one by one onto the stage and made a fuss of me, which was nice. Then Diane and both my children, who'd been given time off from school. A number of childhood friends and elderly schoolteachers trooped on next, including old Mr Tupholme from Sunningdale, who seemed bemused by the whole affair. There were professional friends and contemporaries - Michael York was at the height of his fame and said nice recorded things about me from the back of a car on his way to the airport, and Nicky Henson did the same thing from the back of his motorbike on Waterloo Bridge; Simon Williams and his wife Belinda Carroll came and so did Christopher Cazenove and his wife Angharad Rees. Christopher read aloud the fairly flattering review I'd received from the Eton Chronicle when, aged fifteen, I'd played Edgar in King Lear. My sister Kerry was flown in from Marrakech; my mother Aileen came on dressed to the nines and effectively took the opportunity to perform an over-the-top audition piece - years later, long after she'd died, I found an entry about the show in one of her diaries. She wrote, 'The Great Day! I was too articulated & loud & theatrical.' At the back of the diary, in which she summed up the year 1979 as being 'A dull, horrible, boring, boring year!' she wrote 'Ian triumphing as the Saint! The best day of the year - This Is Your Life.'

The last guest was my dear old nanny, the ex-Miss Aime Domberg. She had married a delightful Polish man called Kasimir, and was now Mrs Aime Misliwiec. The name Aime Misliwiec - which is pronounced something like 'I'm A Miss-Lay-Vitz' - was obviously going to give Eamonn Andrews a problem. Sweating profusely at the prospect of having to pronounce the unpronounceable, he introduced her as 'Amy Mizzlewick, an old friend of the family.' Nanny didn't mind being called Amy Mizzlewick, but she had insisted on 'an old friend of the family' because she thought that being described as 'the Saint's nanny' might embarrass me. That's the kind of nanny Nanny was.

Series 19 subjects