Bruce Forsyth: The face of Saturday night television who has died at the age of 89
For those of a certain age who grew up in the 1970s the face of Saturday night television was Bruce Forsyth, gently haranguing punters on The Generation Game. A decade earlier he’d been the face of Sunday prime time as host of Sunday Night at the London Palladium. For those growing up in the 80s and 90s he was television’s Mr. Quiz Master with shows like Play Your Cards Right and The Price is Right. It’s a testament to Forsyth’s longevity that his face has been part of our television landscape since most of us were born. And who’d have thought that in his 80s he’d host a show that would beat the likes of The X Factor in a ratings battle.
Familiarity, however, does have a habit of breeding contempt. Few mainstream entertainers divided public opinion quite as much as Bruce Forsyth, with the detractors put off by his forced endearment, over eagerness to please and perceived vanity, although like most artists his self confidence was brittle and he was always in need of reassurance and acceptance. But what few people knew was that the Forsyth they saw on screen was a manufactured persona, the walk, the attitude, the "I'm in charge" persona that some found grating, was an exaggerated version of himself, Brucie as opposed to Bruce. "He is much more gregarious, much more over the top than I am normally," Forsyth once said. "I couldn't stand to be him all the time; he'd drive me crazy."
Bruce Forsyth was born in 1928 in Edmonton, London, the youngest of three children. His father John ran a garage business and exhibited a work ethic that was engrained into Bruce at an early age. His mother Florence sang with the local Salvation Army band and was a lover of movies and music hall. Aged eight, Forsyth saw Fred Astaire and immediately aspired to be a dancer, practising for hours after school, sometimes tap dancing on the corrugated roof of his dad's garage. By the age of 14 he landed his first professional gig at the Theatre Royal, Bilston. With men away fighting in the war, variety bills were crying out for male talent and Forsyth grabbed his chance. Calling himself "Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom", he later described his act, which incorporated a ukulele, an accordion and a dance mat, as truly dreadful. For the next few years he slogged his guts out in concert halls and variety theatres with a steadily improving act of stand up comedy and song and dance.
After a bout in the RAF as part of his National Service, Forsyth won plaudits for his turn at the notorious Windmill revue in Soho where the punters interest lay in the decoratively posed nudes on stage rather than the comics who performed in the intervals. While there he met and married one of the dancers, Penny Calvert, with whom he would share three daughters.
In 1958 Forsyth was 30 years old and had spent half his life treading the boards when he was talent spotted by Val Parnell, the impresario and producer of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, one of the most watched shows on television. Regular host Tommy Trinder was leaving and Forsyth’s natural ability for ad-libbing and audience participation made him a natural replacement, not least in the show’s most fondly remembered segment, Beat The Clock, where married couples (picked from the theatre audience) played silly games to win prizes.
Originally hired on a four week contract, Forsyth proved an instant hit and stayed with the show until 1962. The rest of the decade was spent concentrating on his stage career, with the occasional appearance in television specials. In 1968 he appeared briefly in the Julie Andrews film musical Star! based on the life of Gertrude Lawrence, then played a cockney hoodlum in the popular Disney fantasy Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). For the most part Forsyth steered clear of the acting world, although in the late 80s he made a fairly decent stab at sitcom, playing the harassed manager of a supermarket with largely incompetent staff in Slinger’s Day, taking over a role played by Leonard Rossiter.
Forsyth’s return to peak time television in 1971 came about by pure luck. Bill Cotton junior, newly elected Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC, was in Holland on business when he caught their current hit game show Een van de Acht (One out of Eight), which saw families competing against each other in various tests set by experts. Cotton immediately grasped the format’s potential and knew who the right man would be to front it. Over its six year run with Forsyth in charge, gently mocking the contestants and feigning exasperation, at which he was an undoubted master, The Generation Game developed into one of the most popular TV shows of the decade and established Forsyth as one of the country’s most recognised faces. Then there were the catchphrases, "Didn’t he do well", "Nice to see you, to see you nice", "Good game, good game", and "Give us a twirl", directed to his glamorous assistant Anthea Redfern, with whom he soon began a relationship, his marriage to Penny Calvert having been over for several years on account of his prodigious workload. They married in 1973 and had two daughters.
The enormous success of The Generation Game identified Forsyth in the public's mind as a game show host and over the next 20 years producers cast him in a veritable conveyor belt of them, notably Play Your Cards Right, You Bet! and Bruce’s Price is Right. While he never turned his nose up at the work, he did in the end believe he made far too many of them, much preferring variety specials, like the one he did with his idol Sammy Davis junior in 1980; the show that he was perhaps most proud of. Forsyth always saw himself as a song and dance man and one of his greatest regrets was not cracking Broadway or Las Vegas with his one man show.
Seemingly never off our screens during the 70s and 80s, it was Bruce’s furious work ethic that was again the cause of the breakup of his marriage and he and Anthea Redfern divorced in 1979. Promising himself that he would never marry again, that all changed when he met Wilnelia Merced, a former Miss Puerto Rico and Miss World who became the third Mrs Forsyth in 1983. They had a son together.
Forsyth celebrated his 70th birthday in 1998 with a week-long run of his one man show at the London Palladium, his favourite live venue. In the same year he was awarded an OBE. He would receive a Knighthood in 2011. Following a successful revamping of The Generation Game in the early 90s, Forsyth's presence on our television screens had largely diminished, but there was to be a forceful reminder of his showmanship skills and natural comedy touch when he guest presented a 2003 episode of Have I Got News for You. It led directly to the job that was to reinstate him as the king of Saturday night television, at the incredible age of 76. Strictly Come Dancing was a glorious hybrid of pure cheese and old fashioned entertainment and a surprise ratings winner. Although Forsyth looked at times as if he had been replaced by something from the Disney animatronics workshop when he had trouble reading the autocue, his mere presence was reassurance enough for the watching millions, a little bit of showbiz glitter from a bygone age, which he only stopped presenting well into his eighties.
Bruce Forsyth, comedian, singer, dancer, television presenter. Married Penny Calvert (1953-1973: divorced), married Anthea Redfern (1973-1979: divorced), married Wilnelia Merced in 1983, who survives him
