Keith Fordyce, who died on March 15 aged 82, was the unlikely frontman for the ITV pop show Ready, Steady, Go! in the early 1960s – unlikely in that he wore a suit and tie and had the look of a suave bank manager who had wandered in by mistake.
Photo: SILVERSIDE/DAILY MAIL/REX
Fordyce was a national serviceman with the RAF in Germany in the early 1950s when he made his first foray into radio with the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Hamburg, working with Raymond Baxter and Cliff Michelmore, and had moved into presenting record programmes. He worked as a disc jockey for Radio Luxembourg and for the BBC Light Programme before being chosen to host Thank Your Lucky Stars on ITV in 1961. Two years later he joined Ready, Steady, Go!
Although he was picked on the strength of his interviewing skills, Fordyce once famously asked the Beatles, who were already topping the bill, if they thought they had a future. But he proved an unflappable host who could hold things together in the event of a mishap. "They were such exciting shows," Fordyce explained. "We never knew what could happen."
Ready, Steady, Go!, which pre-empted the BBC's Top Of The Pops by nearly a year, was an hour-long pop magazine transmitted early on Friday evenings. Enlivened by a throng of 200 gyrating teenagers, it was the show's proud boast that "the weekend starts here!"
The mix of live music and pop interviews conducted by the smooth-talking (and – at 35 – comparatively decrepit) Fordyce, assisted by the token teenager, 19-year-old Cathy McGowan, generated what George Melly called "a tremor of pubescent excitement from Land's End to John O'Groats".
Over its three years on air Ready Steady Go! featured the leading pop artists of the day (Stevie Wonder, Little Richard, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles), and became a showcase for emerging trends in youth culture – fashion, dance moves and slang as well as music.
Fordyce went on to become what he called "an avuncular anchorman" on radio shows such as Easy Beat, Saturday Club, Beat The Record and Sounds Of The 60s, which he launched on Radio 2 in 1983.
He was born Keith Fordyce Marriott on October 15 1928 in Lincoln. From Lincoln School he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read Law. He was president of the Cambridge University Law Society in 1951-52, became active in rowing, squash, soccer and tennis, and founded and edited the university sports magazine Light Blue.
Having drifted into radio during his National Service, and gained further broadcasting experience with Radio Luxembourg, on coming down from Cambridge he occasionally worked for the BBC as a television football commentator under the name Keith Marriott. He also assisted on broadcasts on cricket, motorcycle racing and tennis.
In August 1955, as Keith Fordyce, he became the youngest presenter of the popular morning radio show Housewives' Choice on the Light Programme. He was offered a break into regional television with Westward Television's quiz Treasure Hunt.
His first network appearance on television came in 1961 when he hosted Thank Your Lucky Stars, ITV's answer to Jukebox Jury on the BBC. Pop stars of the day mimed their latest hits, while in a sequence shamelessly modelled on Jukebox Jury called Spin-A-Disc, a panel of celebrities and teenagers passed judgment on recent record releases.
It was during one of these segments in 1962 that the programme discovered a 16-year-old office clerk with a broad Black Country accent called Janice Nicholls. Her invariably enthusiastic verdict "Oi'll give it five" transformed her into a cult television personality.
In January 1963 the Beatles made their first network television appearance on the show when they sang their single Please Please Me. Fordyce transferred to Ready, Steady, Go! later that year.
Fordyce also presented several series on gardening for Westward, and, finding that he enjoyed working in the south-west, moved there in 1969. Meanwhile he continued to expand his work for network radio with the BBC. From 1969 until 1974 he presented Late Night Extra on Radio 2.
Passing a disused Midlands airport in 1971, Fordyce spotted, rotting in the long grass, an old de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft. Being an amateur pilot and aviation enthusiast, he decided to restore it in his back garden. After adding other discarded aircraft to his collection, he set up the Torbay Aircraft Museum, one of only three self-supporting air museums in Britain.
Keith Fordyce is survived by his wife, Anne, and their four daughters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/8422224/Keith-Fordyce.html
He was born Keith Fordyce Marriott on October 15 1928 in Lincoln. From Lincoln School he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read Law. He was president of the Cambridge University Law Society in 1951-52, became active in rowing, squash, soccer and tennis, and founded and edited the university sports magazine Light Blue.
Having drifted into radio during his National Service, and gained further broadcasting experience with Radio Luxembourg, on coming down from Cambridge he occasionally worked for the BBC as a television football commentator under the name Keith Marriott. He also assisted on broadcasts on cricket, motorcycle racing and tennis.
In August 1955, as Keith Fordyce, he became the youngest presenter of the popular morning radio show Housewives' Choice on the Light Programme. He was offered a break into regional television with Westward Television's quiz Treasure Hunt.
His first network appearance on television came in 1961 when he hosted Thank Your Lucky Stars, ITV's answer to Jukebox Jury on the BBC. Pop stars of the day mimed their latest hits, while in a sequence shamelessly modelled on Jukebox Jury called Spin-A-Disc, a panel of celebrities and teenagers passed judgment on recent record releases.
It was during one of these segments in 1962 that the programme discovered a 16-year-old office clerk with a broad Black Country accent called Janice Nicholls. Her invariably enthusiastic verdict "Oi'll give it five" transformed her into a cult television personality.
In January 1963 the Beatles made their first network television appearance on the show when they sang their single Please Please Me. Fordyce transferred to Ready, Steady, Go! later that year.
Fordyce also presented several series on gardening for Westward, and, finding that he enjoyed working in the south-west, moved there in 1969. Meanwhile he continued to expand his work for network radio with the BBC. From 1969 until 1974 he presented Late Night Extra on Radio 2.
Passing a disused Midlands airport in 1971, Fordyce spotted, rotting in the long grass, an old de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft. Being an amateur pilot and aviation enthusiast, he decided to restore it in his back garden. After adding other discarded aircraft to his collection, he set up the Torbay Aircraft Museum, one of only three self-supporting air museums in Britain.
Keith Fordyce is survived by his wife, Anne, and their four daughters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/8422224/Keith-Fordyce.html
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