Kenneth Kendall (1924-2012)

[Brock]

The death of the former BBC newsreader Kenneth Kendall has just been reported by BBC Radio 4. The first newsreader to appear in vision (according to Wikipedia).

[Alice80]

RIP - such an icon of the 70s and 80s for me...

It's just occurred to me, reading the piece inThe Guardian, that Treasure Hunt never got repeated...or did it? He was excellent as the host...

[Brock]

BBC news report here. He was the first to appear in vision on the BBC. Did ITN get in there first, or did the BBC pre-empt them?

[JezR]

BBC started showing newsreaders in vision in early Sept 1955, a little more than 2 weeks before the start of ITN.

[Westcountry]

RIP
No mention made that he was the "Voice" of the BBC Micro, providing phrases for the Speech synthesiser add-on.
Treasure Hunt was repeated on Channel 4 after original broadcast, Sunday afternoons if I recall.

[RobinCarmody]

It's just occurred to me, reading the piece inThe Guardian, that Treasure Hunt never got repeated...or did it? He was excellent as the host...

It was repeated very regularly indeed in the late 1990s/early 2000s on the original Challenge TV, but of course that had a much smaller potential audience back then.

Anyway, RIP Kenneth.

[ctraynor]

One of the media icons I grew up with, presenting the news. I'd be interested to know his background re his appearances in TV and film dramas - 2001 etc. He must have had an equity card or something. Also be interesting to see some material on his war actitivities. He was apparently an army captain who went in on the Normandy landings.

[RobinCarmody]

I'd be interested to know his background re his appearances in TV and film dramas - 2001 etc. He must have had an equity card or something.

I think he was an actor first, like most BBC newsreaders for decades after ITN had first used journalists exclusively.

[Peter Neill]

He was not a journalist - but neither was he an actor. One of the obits quoted him as saying that the BBC didn't like actors, because they "acted" the news and lent an unconcious bias to what they were saying. So he was a newsreader.

[Roll ACR]

They might not have been actors but they were of a "Theatrical" persuasion. And ITN didn't exclusively use people with cast iron journalistic credentials as Newscasters. A number of ITN's newscasters were a bit Theatrical, Gordon Honeycombe springs to mind.

[Mark]

Sorry to hear this.

Top chap, great voice, and perfect host for "Treasure Hunt".

[Bob Richardson]

A lovely man, but I was quite startled to see him in Lammas Park, Ealing very early one morning, wearing a dressing gown and walking a small dog. I did a double take and he smiled at me as if to acknowledge "Yes, it IS me". I'm assuming that he lived nearby, perhaps near Northfields Avenue.

[Vera Lamonte]

A lovely man, but I was quite startled to see him in Lammas Park, Ealing very early one morning, wearing a dressing gown and walking a small dog. I did a double take and he smiled at me as if to acknowledge "Yes, it IS me". I'm assuming that he lived nearby, perhaps near Northfields Avenue.

I saw him waiting at a London bus stop about 15 years ago and got a half-smile-half-wink from him. Disappointingly he was wearing a nightie fully dressed.
Did any of the obits (I only saw the Telegraph's) mention when the cap on one of his front teeth flew out while he was reading the evening news? Hardly on a par with Jan Leeming's exploding light or Sue Lawley's vagetarians but I've remembered seeing it ever since, and it was in the papers the next day.

[Simon Harries]

I met him in 2009 while filming a programme for BBC2. I don't believe I've met anyone quite so charming, modest or self-effacing. He told me a lovely story about Stanley Kubrick's obsession with the way in which he used to close all his BBC broadcasts by clicking shut his ballpoint pen and putting it in his pocket. Kubrick had a special 'futuristic' pen made for Kendall to use in "2001 A Space Odyssey" - although the pen closure moment was cut from the finished movie.