Bob Holness RIP

[Nick Dando]

The BBC News website is reporting the death of Bob Holness.

BBC News - Bob Holness, former Blockbusters host, dies aged 83

Nick

Bob Holness, former Blockbusters host, dies aged 83


Holness was the second actor to portray James Bond

Former Blockbusters host Bob Holness has died at the age of 83.
His family said in a statement he had "died peacefully in his sleep" early on Friday morning.
Holness, who had suffered from a series of strokes, had been in a nursing home. He is survived by his wife Mary, three children and seven grandchildren.
South African-born Holness joined the BBC in the 1960s and hosted Late Night Extra on Radio 1 and Radio 2 alongside presenters including Terry Wogan.
It went on to air on Radio 2's AM frequency only until 1975 before Holness moved to commercial station LBC, co-hosting the morning show with Douglas Cameron.
He was also the second actor to portray James Bond, starring in a radio adaptation of Moonraker in 1956.
But he is best known for hosting ITV gameshow Blockbusters, from 1983 to 1993, complete with its hexagonal board, gold runs and the classic double entendre contestant request: "Can I have a P please Bob?"
Holness continued to present the show for a time when it was bought by Sky.
He also continued to appear on the airwaves, hosting shows including a Tuesday night broadcast on Radio 2 presenting the BBC Radio Orchestra's selection of the best in popular music.
He also presented the BBC's long-running panel game Call My Bluff which he presented from 1996 until 2002.
His health began to deteriorate in the 1990s after he suffered from a mini-stroke before a more severe attack in 2002 that led to temporary paralysis.

[Nick Dando]

And there's a BBC obituary

BBC News - Obituary: Bob Holness

Nick

Obituary: Bob Holness
Bob Holness, who has died at the age of 83, was known and loved by millions as the host of popular game show Blockbusters. Yet he was also a member of that exclusive band of actors who have played the part of James Bond 007. He was given the role by South African Radio' s English language service in a 1956 adaptation of Ian Fleming's Moonraker. He later recalled that, at the time, he had never heard of Bond. "But it became an amazing part to play and the response from listeners was terrific."

Robert Wentworth John Holness was born on 12 November 1928 in Natal, South Africa. But his parents brought him back to his father's birthplace, Kent. He studied at Ashford Grammar School and Maidstone College of Art before returning to South Africa with his family, at the age of 25. He began work as a printer but quickly left to pursue his love of acting with an English repertory company that had begun performing in Durban. Within 18 months he was a regular performer in radio drama and had begun presenting his own show Calling to Youth which featured visiting British and American artistes.

By now he had met and married his wife Mary. Attracted by the increasing potential of television the couple decided to return to the UK. He arrived in 1961 with no job and no prospects. But he approached Granada just as the company was looking for a complete unknown to host a new panel game, Take A Letter. Holness was given a three-year contract with the Manchester-based company, during which time he presented quiz shows and documentaries and read the local news. He became a regular presenter on the pop station Radio Luxembourg, signing off every night with: "Whether at home or on the highway, thanks for tuning my way."

Holness joined the BBC Light Programme in 1964 as a freelancer presenting various record programmes including Midday Spin, Housewives Choice, Swingalong and Roundabout. He also continued to present TV programmes, appearing on Out of School and Transworld Top of the Form.


Can I have a P please, Bob?
In 1967 he began a stint as one of the team of presenters on the radio show Late Night Extra, which went out live and unscripted, initially on Radios 1 and 2, between 10pm and 12am. ''You can't imagine the feeling of freedom we had," he later recalled. "There were no scripts at all. It was a major departure for the BBC." He stayed with the programme until 1975 although, in his final four years, it was only broadcast on Radio 2's AM frequency. He moved to the commercial talk station LBC, initially as the airborne traffic reporter, but was soon co-hosting the AM show with Douglas Cameron. It was a massively successful partnership, twice winning Holness the accolade of Joint Independent Radio Personality of the Year.

In 1983 he began a ten-year stint as the host of the ITV quiz series Blockbusters and became something of a teenage cult figure. It also gave him financial stability for the first time in his life, after years working as a freelancer. The programme generated a number of catchphrases such as "Put Yourself on the Hot Spot" as well as the occasional snigger when someone asked "Can I have a P please, Bob?" ITV axed the show in 1993. But it was snapped up for a while by Sky who continued to use Holness as the presenter.

Maintaining his radio career, he moved from LBC in 1985 to present the BBC Radio Orchestra's Tuesday night selection of the best in popular music on Radio 2. He also stood in for other presenters and fronted his own shows, including Bob Holness Requests the Pleasure and Bob Holness and Friends. He was presenter of Call My Bluff, the cerebral BBC TV panel game, when it was axed by the Corporation in 2002 after 27 years. Holness criticised the decision, attacking what he called the trend towards quiz shows based on avarice rather than education.

His health began to decline in the late 1990s after a series of mini strokes, culminating in a more severe attack in 2002 which induced temporary paralysis. Despite this he continued an exhausting round of public appearances and voice-overs until being diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2005.

Bob Holness was the subject of a myth that he played the saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's 1978 hit Baker Street. The actual performer was Rafael Ravenscroft. Ever the joker, Holness gleefully played along with the story - claiming, furthermore, that he was also the lead guitarist on the Derek & the Dominoes song Layla.

[batman]

RIP Mr Holness.

[jimw1]

Very Sad.....R.I.P. Robert Wentworth John Holness

[Moor Larkin]

His relatively late *celebrity* in career terms must have made his working life feel quite satisfying. Wasn't it Blockbusters where a girl referred to an orgasm, when she meant to say organism?....... cue teenage embarrassment, tittering aplenty, and mature comforting grins from Bob........ if not, he would have dealt with in that way.

[Freddy]

I'll have a P please Bob.

RIP Mr Holness, Blockbusters was delightful tv.

[jch]

Very sad news, always liked him. R.I.P. Bob

[agutterfan]

Give me an R, give me an I, and give me a P, Bob! I used to watch Blockbusters as a University student. Interesting fact: a rumour was spread in the late 80s that he had played the saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's song Baker Street. He didn't. But he was a James Bond!

[Edward G]

Freddy oh Freddy

RIP Bob,
Always liked his cheery (but not cheesy personality).
Another cult hero from my schooldays gone.

[Steve Crook]

Can I have a P please, Bob?

The other one was when the schoolgirl contestant would say "Can I have U please Bob"

Steve

[Windthrop]

RIP Bob

The second actor to play James Bond

[Marky B]

A much well liked tv personality - never smarmy and made the contestants feel comfortable in Blockbusters.
Bob Holness RIP
Mark

[Merton Park]

How could you not like Bob Holness? The current crop could have learned a lot from him.

RIP

[alan french]

Hi,
Very sad. Please R.I.P. Bob.

Alan French.

[didi-5]

The Baker Street thing always amused me. RI and a P for Bob, who was a comforting TV presence for a whole generation.

[Nick Dando]

From the Guardian

Bob Holness obituary | Television & radio | The Guardian

Bob Holness obituary
Modest quizmaster who achieved cult status at the helm of Blockbusters
Dennis Barker
guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 January 2012 17.06 GMT

Before television and radio quizmasters became increasingly raucous, clever-clever and sarcastic, Bob Holness, who has died aged 83, saw the role as that of a rewarder of knowledge rather than the ringmaster of a hysterical circus. Indeed, one of the worst mistakes one could make with Holness was to refer to any of the many quizzes he conducted as gameshows. In his unostentatious clothes, he resembled a jovial and thoughtful golfing companion rather than a smirking media man, and he always made a point of sympathising with contestants who lost.

Blockbusters, the TV quiz for 16- to 18-year-old contestants but aimed at a much wider audience, consolidated Holness's popularity and also gained him cult status. In the programme, he posed questions, the answers to which began with a letter of the alphabet that had been chosen by contestants from a honeycomb grid. A favourite wheeze of the contestants was to tease him by asking, "Can I have a P please, Bob?" or even "Can I have U?" Holness, who said that he always recognised the "little snigger" in the contestants' voices, took all this in good part, knowing that it helped to build up the programme's audience to more than 6 million.

A variant of a show first screened in the US, Blockbusters was the most popular programme Holness conducted. Produced by Central, it was first broadcast in the UK in 1983 and ran for 10 years at differing times in various regions on the ITV network, before being taken up by Sky – with Holness still as quizmaster – for a short run. There followed variations of the show, hosted by Michael Aspel and Liza Tarbuck.

Holness was born in Vryheid, Natal, in South Africa. His grandfather had fought in the South African wars at the turn of the century and settled there as a mining engineer and prospector. He had many contacts with Zulu people, and taught King Solomon how to drive a car. Holness's father, too, enjoyed the country, and regularly drove across Natal, paying out the wages at the mines, and returning with lumps of gold that had been discovered.

When he was young, Holness's family relocated to the UK and he won a scholarship to Ashford grammar school in Kent. During the second world war he and a gang of schoolmates plundered shot-down German aircraft for souvenirs. He enjoyed listening to forces radio, and would sometimes stay up all night, tuned to American stations.

After attending Maidstone College of Art, he was persuaded by his father to become a printing apprentice. He took up a printer's job in South Africa and joined a repertory theatre in Durban within two months of arriving. In the 1950s he acted first in repertory, where he met his future wife, Mary, and then on radio. He was one of the first actors to portray James Bond, taking the role in a Durban radio production of Ian Fleming's Moonraker in the mid-50s. He also presented music and magazine programmes on radio.

After he and Mary had started a family, they decided to move to the UK. It took the couple a few years to save up enough money for the tickets, and when they arrived at Southampton, it was with virtually empty pockets. They stayed with Mary's family in London while Holness looked for work.

The British actors he had met in South Africa had spoken with great enthusiasm about the booming television industry in the UK. Within three weeks of approaching companies, Holness was put under contract by Granada in Manchester. The company introduced him to audiences in 1961 on the TV shows Take a Letter and Junior Criss Cross Quiz, as well as using him as a continuity announcer and newsreader.

This lasted for three years until he moved south, buying a modest house in Pinner, north-west London, which remained the family home for more than three decades. Over the years, he worked as a reporter, interviewer and announcer for TV programmes such as World in Action and Today, and radio shows including the unscripted Late Night Extra. He delivered LBC radio's traffic reports from a helicopter and for many years, he and Douglas Cameron co-hosted LBC's morning news show, AM, which required him to get up at 3.30am.

Holness had a long association with BBC Radio 2, chiefly as presenter of Bob Holness and Friends, and with the BBC World Service, for which he presented Anything Goes, a weekly anthology of words and music. Once Blockbusters had put him on the path to celebrity, he became recognised as a master of the quizshow genre and in the 1990s, he was seen presiding over Raise the Roof and Call My Bluff.

He also lent his support to a number of children's charities including Teenage Cancer Trust, Young People's Trust for the Environment and, as vice-president from 1994, National Children's Home (now Action for Children).

Holness, who had suffered a number of minor strokes in recent years, is survived by Mary and their children, Carol, Rosalind and Jonathan.

• Robert Wentworth John Holness, quizmaster, presenter and actor, born 12 November 1928; died 6 January 2012

[Richard_in_wales]

Always a gent.

R.I.P. sir.

[julian_craster]

Great saxophone player as well.....

[Heinrich]

[wadsy]

A true gentleman. R.I.P. Bob!