Bob Greaves, who died on March 14 aged 76, presented news and current affairs programmes for Granada TV for more than 30 years and became one of the most recognised television faces in the north-west of England.
Photo: PA
A natural performer with a down-to-earth manner, Greaves became the face of Granada, and in a street poll in the region some years ago, 96 per cent of people shown his photograph were able to name him.
Although best known for the many "soft" items he presented, Greaves was a first-rate journalist who could handle "hard" stories with equal aplomb. As Granada's newly-appointed young news editor in 1963, he was in charge on the night of November 22 when news broke of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
Greaves was a lifelong champion of his native north-west and developed a instinctive rapport with its people. "He had a great charm," recalled Michael Parkinson, who began his own television career with Greaves at Granada. "He had what all great communicators had – he understood his audience, he spoke their language, which means to say he didn't speak down to them at all."
In a career with Granada spanning 36 years, Greaves calculated that he had presented some 12,000 hours of programmes, including Scene at 6.30, Exchange Flags and, from 1973, Granada Reports (latterly Granada Tonight), the station's flagship current affairs show.
On the ITV network he presented Reports Action and five series of the award-winning charity telethon Scramble. For the north-west region, Greaves commentated on many important outside broadcasts, including royal visits to the set of Coronation Street.
His reputation for unflappability was sorely tested in 1981 when an elephant with a questing trunk took an overzealous interest in Greaves's nether regions during a live outside broadcast from Chester Zoo. Denis Norden picked the clip for his out-takes programme It'll Be All Right On The Night and it was subsequently shown on television and on video in some 20 countries around the world, including the United States and Dubai.
Robert Morgan Greaves was born on November 28 1934 at Sale, just outside Manchester, the son of an inspector in an engineering factory and a dinner lady. After Sale Boys' Grammar School, Bob went straight into journalism, joining the Sale and Stretford Guardian and moving on to the Nottingham Evening News before taking a job as northern news editor on the Daily Mail in Manchester. Later, when he worked in television, he continued to cover football for several national newspapers, including the Mail On Sunday.
In 1963 he joined Granada as news editor, but Greaves soon diversified as a reporter and presenter, reading news bulletins and fronting programmes such as Put It In Writing and Police File from 1967. In the 1970s his relish for on-screen work was noted by Clive James, then the television critic of The Observer, who remarked that Greaves was "an ordinary looking man with the most extraordinary energy".
Greaves never let his local celebrity go to his head, and when a woman recognised him in the street and exclaimed to her companion: "Oooh look, it's whosit from wheresit off whatsit!" he considered it a neat summation of the ephemeral nature of fame. He retired in 1999 after 35 years' service.
Bob Greaves, who had been suffering from cancer, is survived by his fifth wife, Sonia Evans, and three of his previous wives, including his first, Maureen Scott, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. His fourth wife, Shirley Jolley, predeceased him.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8424951/Bob-Greaves.html
Robert Morgan Greaves was born on November 28 1934 at Sale, just outside Manchester, the son of an inspector in an engineering factory and a dinner lady. After Sale Boys' Grammar School, Bob went straight into journalism, joining the Sale and Stretford Guardian and moving on to the Nottingham Evening News before taking a job as northern news editor on the Daily Mail in Manchester. Later, when he worked in television, he continued to cover football for several national newspapers, including the Mail On Sunday.
In 1963 he joined Granada as news editor, but Greaves soon diversified as a reporter and presenter, reading news bulletins and fronting programmes such as Put It In Writing and Police File from 1967. In the 1970s his relish for on-screen work was noted by Clive James, then the television critic of The Observer, who remarked that Greaves was "an ordinary looking man with the most extraordinary energy".
Greaves never let his local celebrity go to his head, and when a woman recognised him in the street and exclaimed to her companion: "Oooh look, it's whosit from wheresit off whatsit!" he considered it a neat summation of the ephemeral nature of fame. He retired in 1999 after 35 years' service.
Bob Greaves, who had been suffering from cancer, is survived by his fifth wife, Sonia Evans, and three of his previous wives, including his first, Maureen Scott, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. His fourth wife, Shirley Jolley, predeceased him.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8424951/Bob-Greaves.html
No comments:
Post a Comment