This Is Your Life: Joss Ackland

Joss ACKLAND (1928-2023)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Joss Ackland, actor, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at his home in Kingston Hill, London, having been led to believe actor Jack Smethurst was interviewing him for a television programme about how personalities spend their Christmas.

Joss, who was born in Kensington, London, and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, made his professional stage debut at the age of 17 in 1945 in the play The Hasty Heart. After working in provincial repertory theatre for several years and with a growing family, he left the profession in 1954 to relocate to Africa to work on a tea plantation.

While in Africa, he acted in local theatre and on radio, prompting his return to the UK in 1957 to work with the Old Vic Company and, later, The Mermaid Theatre. Regular work in films and television during the early 1970s led to Joss becoming a household name.

"How very embarrassing!"

programme details...

Edition No: 448
Subject No: 445
Broadcast date: Wed 15 Dec 1976
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Wed 17 Nov 1976
Venue: Euston Road Studios
Series: 17
Edition: 8
Code name: Stick

on the guest list...

Rosemary - wife
Melanie - daughter
Alister - son-in-law
Paul - son
Sue - daughter-in-law
Penelope - daughter
Samantha - daughter
Kirsty - daughter
Toby - son
Antonia - daughter
Norman - father
Jane - stepmother
Barbara - sister
Geoffrey Rowley
Nicholas Parsons
Shaun Sutton
Lewis Jones
Richard Awdrey
Dulcie Gray
Bernard Miles
Glynis Johns
Joanna - granddaughter
Kandy - granddaughter
Herbert Roland
Ingrid Bergman

production team...

Researchers: Tony Lee, Maurice Leonard
Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
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

Dulcie Gray

Nicholas Parsons

Screenshots of Joss Ackland This Is Your Life

Joss Ackland recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, I must be in there somewhere...

Our extraordinary friendly home, which held such happy memories, was difficult to leave. There were still the echoes. The laughter and wit at the dinner table, the parties carrying on through the house and into the gardens, rehearsing for plays and TV shows. And the mad moments: Pukk and I waking one morning to find Mai Zetterling lying on top of us in bed, with a camera six inches from my face. She was making a short movie about us for the BBC programme One Pair of Eyes, and with her husband at that time, David Hughes, was staying with us for two weeks. And one November afternoon when I arrived home to find log fires in every grate, the house strewn with decorations, a Christmas tree and an enormous TV unit occupying every room. All this, I thought, for a TV interview about children at Christmas? I was very incensed at this invasion of privacy and was about to explode when Santa Claus came into the house, pulled down his beard and said: 'This is your life!' It was Eamonn Andrews.

Series 17 subjects