This Is Your Life: Russell Harty

Russell HARTY (1934-1988)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Russell Harty, writer and broadcaster, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews - with the help of his nieces Samantha and Kate - while filming a piece for his television show, dressed as Father Christmas, in Selfridges department store in London.

Russell, who was born in Blackburn and studied at Exeter College, Oxford, spent ten years as an english and drama teacher in Giggleswick, North Yorkshire. He began his broadcasting career in the late 1960s, when he joined BBC radio as a producer, before moving into television in 1970 as a presenter of the ITV arts programme Aquarius.

In 1972, ITV gave him his own series, Russell Harty Plus, in which he conducted in-depth celebrity interviews, and a year later he won a Pye Television Award for the Most Outstanding New Personality of the Year. Russell remained with ITV until 1980, when his show moved to the BBC.

"I can't believe this. Thank you very much! I'm a little underwhelmed at the moment, I'm afraid!"

programme details...

Edition No: 557
Subject No: 553
Broadcast date: Wed 17 Dec 1980
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Wed 17 Dec 1980
Venue: Royalty Theatre
Series: 21
Edition: 10
Code name: Hale

on the guest list...

Myrtle - mother
Saundra - sister
Geoff - brother-in-law
Samantha - niece
Kate - niece
Vikki - niece
Jane - niece
Madge Hindle
Michael Hindle
Frances Hindle
Charlotte Hindle
John Conteh
Janet Street-Porter
Barbara Kelly
Frank Muir
Diana Dors
Lewis Collins
Elaine Stritch
Tim Cox
Tony Pollington
Warwick Brookes
Susan Brookes
Leonard Dutton
Joan Dutton
Humphrey Burton
Julia McKenzie
Olivia de Havilland
pupils of Giggleswick School

production team...

Researcher: Brian Klein
Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
Directors: Stuart Hall, Terry Yarwood
Producer: Jack Crawshaw

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Presenting Life

celebrating the hosts

New Lease of Life

the programme's relaunch

Life's awkward moments

TV Times looks at some 'unplanned' incidents

Life as seen by Aspel

Press speculation and announcements on new presenter Michael Aspel

Screenshots of Russell Harty This Is Your Life

Sunday Times 13 December 1987

How Santa got the surprise of his life

by Russell Harty

A glorious requiem mass for Eamonn Andrews in Westminster Cathedral last Monday. Whenever a multitude of those who work in that extrovert world called showbusiness gather together to say thank you for a life fully lived, there bubbles to the surface a terrible urge to say please. Please look at me. 'I got through all of last year,' as Stephen Sondheim acidly observed, 'and I'm here.'

It is a human failing and, as such, excusable. But there are occasions when a memorial service can be deeply embarrassing. Somebody will stand up and tell a story about how sporting a golfer Bill was. Then follows a chanteuse who sobs out a tearful rendition of 'We'll Gather Lilacs'.

The temptations to slither into this mud pit of light entertainment must have been considerable last Monday. Sense and dignity prevailed. If the procession of clergy is led by Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, it would not be seemly for the jugglers to be jumping through their hoops in front of the high altar. If the music ranges from Bach to Faure, with a Mozartian nod to the side, then somehow, there is little need for a backing group miming Zak's latest hit single.

As it happened, there was an air of pleasant, if unusual, formality about the proceedings. Nothing left to chance, and every different and distinct area of Eamonn's achievements properly covered. His children offered various prayers. Andrew O'Rourke, the Irish ambassador spoke in straightforward terms about the positive bonds which bind our separate islands.

The eccentricity of our particular form of neighbourliness was then underlined by the singing of 'Jerusalem' - and the thunder of feet in ancient times, walking upon England's mountains green.

Lest you should think that solemnity settled over us like a mortifying cloud, let me tell you that at least one person has his head thoughtfully but joyfully in the wafting clouds of incense.

It is exactly seven years since Eamonn trapped me in Selfridges. I was pretending to be Father Christmas, dishing out presents from a big red plastic sack. I saw my younger nieces standing in the waiting line, one carrying a parcel. Since they live 250 miles away and had not announced their arrival, or their mother's, I was already taken aback by their brazen behaviour.

'We've brought a present for you, Santa!' they mumbled and, even then, I didn't smell any kind of rat. Eamonn was behind me by this time and confronted me at the moment when I was already unstable.

The rest of that day was as a dream. I am not remotely affected by those who believe that This Is Your Life is an exhibition of naked embarassment. I could not give half a fig for that opinion. All I know is that it was, to date, the second best day of my life. It was also, by happy accident, my mother's birthday. It didn't matter a damn that she cried all the way through.

There was one moment of near disaster. The final guest is, as you know, nearly always 'flown in... specially... you thought she was...' and all the accompanying invitations to ritualistic frenzy. The drums rolled, the band fanfared. It could have been either the Queen or Mother Theresa for all I knew.

I didn't even recognise Olivia de Havilland as she floated towards me. Flying on automatic pilot, I made a lunge to peck her cheek. She turned her head away and I felt my mouth filling with a stiff parcel of lacquered hair. Eamonn rescued us. She then said that the previous time we had met, I showed a film clip of her in a deep clinch with Errol Flynn, but that I had cut the kiss.

'There'll be no cutting tonight,' she said, as obviously she had rehearsed, and the docking procedure then took place. That was why she had demurely turned away at the beginning. I was still too dazed to register anything which required sense of reason. The cloud I was sitting on was far too high for me to make any clear reading of ordinary terrestrial behaviour.

Eamonn came to Manchester on the following day to appear with me so that I could say 'thank you' and relive last night's intoxication without any nervous hangover. I asked him to stay to supper but he had ordered a private aeroplane to take him swiftly home to see his mother. She died the next day.

Grainne Andrews, Eamonn's wife, rightly said that he would have loved the service. 'So well organised... friendly people... and it finished on time!'

Series 21 subjects