Charlie CHESTER (1914-1997)

Charlie Chester This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 160
  • Subject No: 161
  • Broadcast live: Mon 17 Apr 1961
  • Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
  • Venue: BBC Television Theatre
  • Series: 6
  • Edition: 31

on the guest list...

  • Albert Stevenson
  • George Pavey
  • Reginald Tidy
  • Reginald Dean
  • Mrs Manser - mother
  • RSM Larkin
  • George Black
  • Eric Grier
  • Tug Wilson
  • Margaret Govaghan
  • Leslie Bridgmont
  • Eric Robinson
  • Len Martin
  • Louise Gainsborough
  • Ken Morris
  • Ramon St Clair
  • Filmed tribute:
  • Arthur Haynes

production team...

  • Researchers: Ronald Vivian, Virginia Ropner
  • Writer: Peter Moore
  • Director: Michael Goodwin
  • Producer: T Leslie Jackson
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related page...

It's a Funny Old Life

it's all about the comedy

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Photographs of Charlie Chester This Is Your Life

Charlie Chester's autobiography

Charlie Chester recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, The World is full of Charlies...


But when it comes to shocks I think that television must take full credit, for this gave me one of the greatest shocks I can remember, and anyone who tells you that it's all pre-arranged, just doesn't know. When Eamonn Andrews confronted me and said: "Charlie Chester, this is your life!" I went cold.


I had been at rehearsals all day at the Television Centre, and I had introduced a routine to Lionel Blair for his dancers. It was a routine of playing the spoons, not just clicking them, but a set routine which looked most effective. Learning the spoons, however, tends to give newcomers sore hands and bruises on their legs with the constant banging. The girls were very good though and practised ardently and were fast becoming very competent. It was a complete novelty for them anyway, and any break in the hard dance routine was a welcome change. One girl, however, unknown to me, had been primed to be a bit dumb. She kept coming to me saying that she couldn't get one particular rhythmic movement. With patience I kept showing her, and I must confess that she acted her part very well.


Albert Stevenson the producer said we would knock off around six o'clock. At ten to six, however, I was asked if I would call in on Eric Maschwitz before I left. I did so, and after being with him for a while, I began to wonder why he had called me in, because he never said anything of importance. We chatted about the show and this and that, and I saw him go to the window and blow his nose. It never occurred to me then that he was giving a signal to someone.


The actors, like Felix Aylmer and hosts of others had all been asked to sit in the reception hall until that moment and then, as we came down in the lift, they would all make for the doors. This meant that we had to fall in behind all these famous names and follow them out.


I didn't even see the taxi from which the film was being taken, neither did I hear Eamonn saying: "Among these actors and actresses, there is one man who will be coming out through that door in a moment having been rehearsing with his show."


The Head of Light Entertainment, Eric Maschwitz, and I walked out together and within a few paces I saw Eamonn, lurking behind one of the great pillars.


I shouted to him. "Hi there Eammon. Working?"


He said: "Yes, on you... this is your life."


Eric laughed and walked a few steps away and I remember shouting good naturedly: "Eric, you bastard!"


After the initial shock, I was more or less incommunicado until the show. It was a moving experience and a very upsetting one for me. What I didn't know at the time was that my wife, Dorita, knew, but being a pro she wouldn't have spoilt it for anything. She never breathed a word to me. I do remember I was going to rehearsals that day in some old clothing and she said: "If you're rehearsing at TV Centre you should at least put a decent suit on."


My wife has always been fanatical about looking smart and having clean underclothes daily. If I wear a shirt for an hour, it's soiled, and she suggests that I change it. Both she and my son Peter kept the secret between them and when Peter went to play at some function in the evening, she made him wear his dress suit, thinking that he would be called, the same as herself.


They never were.


Something went wrong. I don't know what, but they, by-passed her and my boy completely. They weren't invited, and after the show I rang home to Dorita who was quite put out about the whole thing. How, or why this happened I don't know, but it spoiled what was, a memorable occasion.

Series 6 subjects

Leonard Cheshire | George Bennett | David Sheppard | Sybil Thorndike | Clarence Wolfe | Charles Coward | T E B Clarke
Helene Jeanty-Raven | Cyril Smith | Victor de Spiganovicz | Bill Hartley | Ellen Field | Anthony Deane-Drummond
John Mills | Richard Bancroft | Freddie Mills | William Simpson | Alan Herbert | Madame Vacani | Elizabeth Ambridge | Robert Fawcus
Flora Robson | Edward Chad Varah | James Zarb | Maryan Rawicz and Walter Landauer | James Chipperfield | Anthony Kimmins
Thomas Cosmo Jones | Jessie Matthews | Helen Wilson | Charlie Chester | Brunel Cohen | Godfrey Winn | Billy Wright
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