LOOKING back over the achievements of TV during 1965 is like studying a panoramic photograph of the moon. All is a wasteland except for occasional promising shadows which on closer examination turn out to be the Sea of Despond or the Valley of Blighted Talent.

With the exception of Winston Churchill’s funeral I cannot think of a single programme on Channel 9 during 1965 that has advanced or enlarged by an iota the art, the aims, the grasp or the potentialities of television.

In a year which might best be labelled and forgotten, as The Year That Never Was, it is clear that my annual awards will hardly be included in those annual reports which take such pride in listing the prizes won in remote and undistinguished festivals throughout the world.

BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR – This undoubtedly goes to ATV who, under the tireless chivvying of Lew Grade, has finally produced British TV films that have broken into the America TV networks.

From the series The Saint, Danger Man, and the Baron (yet to be seen), it is possible that Britain could earn something in the region of 10 million dollars in the next two years.

This, for the first time, opens up the golden American market to British TV producers and, for the first time, puts TV into the posture of a significant foreign currency earner.

RASPBERRY OF THE YEAR – This award – an Op Art version of the fruit that periodically emits derisory sounds of contempt – has been tidily won by Rediffusion – the London-based TV company.

Not only was it responsible for the three programmes that received the worst critical receptions of 1965 – Groucho, The New Stars and Garters and Riviera Police – but it has confessed to a sterility and rigidity of creative ideas by its apparent inability to think of anything fresh or novel with which to replace its mouldy programme relics – Double Your Money, Take Your Pick and No Hiding Place.

Rediffusion’s board – which has persistently refused to have anyone from the programme side as one of its directors – has finally admitted, by implication, that its thinking on this matter has been wrong.

Within the past few months it has invited five new men to the board – although only three of them have actually produced programmes and it will be interesting to see what difference this will make in Rediffusion’s performance.

I cannot say that the changes announced by their programme chief, Cyril Bennett, have caused any pulses to race in TV circles.

Best Programme of the Year – The coverage of Winston Churchill’s funeral by both the BBC and ITV. This showed what could be done by outside broadcasts when talent was united for one goal, and when when money was no object. This solemn and momentous occasion was enhanced by this great record of it.

Most Noble Gesture of the Year – ITV’s decision broadcast, entirety, the BBC’s obituary of Richard Dimbleby. This was a most fitting tribute to one of broadcasting’s great personalities. The fact that ITV recognised in this way the achievement of the man who symbolised, more than anyone else, their greatest rival, displayed an adult and becoming sense sense of judgment.

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From the ATV Television Show Book 1962

The television camera has done much to dispense with the need for teasing approaches of this kind. For as the weekly fare of wrestling bouts, broadcast from centres all over Britain, has become more and more a regular Saturday afternoon viewing habit, so the uninitiated spectator, sitting in the comfort of his own sitting-room, has come to learn that this is not just an exhibition of brute force, accompanied by grunts and groans, but, in fact, is a highly specialised business, where an above average degree of physical fitness, a fleetness of foot, a good eye — not forgetting a definite hint of showmanship — are essential ingredients in the making of a good wrestler.

Nothing is more revealing than the television camera. Let a wrestler fall below the standards now expected of him by the armchair enthusiast and he is quick to receive the derision of the millions who, nowadays, watch every wrestling programme which is televised.

And by far the greatest majority of these viewers are women.

Why should this be so?

ATV producers who supervise the transmission of many of these broadcasts admit to being mystified by the appeal of this type of programme to women.

One has tentatively ventured the reason as being ‘because they like seeing these great torsoes throwing each other around.’ Others lack his temerity in offering an explanation and keep quiet.

But there is no denying the appeal — as the large mail addressed to ATV when an exciting bout is cut off in mid-stream testifies. Here again, the majority of the letter writers are women.

As the sport has grown in appeal, so it has thrown up its characters — and its specialists. Commentators Kent Walton and Peter Cockburn, from their seats at the ringsides, Saturday after Saturday, must now be regarded as among the most knowledgeable of wrestling followers in this country. While they describe the action in the ring, pin-pointing by name the holds and the falls, so they also have at hand the expert assistance of such exponents from the world of wrestling itself as Ian Campbell and Tony Mancini, both of whom can provide for the viewer more technical reading of a bout as it takes place.

Campbell and Mancini know wrestling intimately from the inside. Both have been seen by television viewers in action in the ring. Mancini, with his panther-like grace and speed of striking; the bulky, bearded Campbell, using his tremendous strength and his Scottish canniness to mislead and antagonise his opponent — and, not infrequently, the spectators who are watching him!

But it is the regular, top-of-the bill names who have now moved into that select company known as ‘TV personalities’.

Befitting their emergence as popular television favourites, wrestlers of today bring a touch of colour and the suggestion of distant lands in their names, in their flamboyant dressing-gowns, in their peculiarly personal preparations in their corners as they limber up before coming out for the first time to meet an opponent.

Such colourful personalities include the Mohawk Indian, Billy Two Rivers; the West African witch doctor Massanbula; Antonio Mantoro, who hails from Valencia, in Spain; a Sheffield miner who fights under the pseudonym of Young Vulcan; Togo, a 16-stone wrestler from Japan, and Mike Narino, who brings to his wrestling the dash and fire expected of someone born in sunny Italy.

All have become firm favourites with television viewers. Some have gained their following by their sportsmanship and by the expert manner in which they handle themselves — and their opponents — in the ring. Others cut a fine figure, muscles rippling, the embodiment of supreme physical fitness, as they circle an opponent, waiting to get to grips with him.

Such a wresler is Dennis Mitchell from Bradford. With his fair hair crew-cut, and always sporting spotless white trunks, he attracts probably the greatest fan mail of any wrestler who appears regularly in televised wrestling matches.

Peculiarities of dress and style in the ring have become the wrestler’s trade mark. Big Joe Cornelius has very definite views, for instance, on the colour of the tights he wears when fighting. His choice is always black. But his real trade mark is a striking gold lame dressing-gown. He would not dream of appearing in a ring, prior to his introduction to the crowd, unless he was wearing it.

But the brilliance of Cornelius’s pre-fight apparel fades before the feathered head-dress and painted robes and regalia worn by Billy Two Rivers when he strides down the aisle towards the ring, heralded, as always, by a fanfare.

Ducking through the ropes, he performs a few shuffling steps taken from an Indian war-dance. Part of a war-dance is also to be found in one facet of his wrestling technique. And it is invariably followed by the ‘Tomahawk’, a chopping hand blow, usually adminstered as his opponent rebounds from a throw on to the ropes of the ring.

Togo brings the quiet dignity of the East to his ringcraft. This Tokyo-born exponent of Karate (the science of fighting with hands, without using weapons) has endeared himself to wrestling enthusiasts by his habit of bowing to the crowd after every fall, whether taken by him, or scored by him. He repeats the bow at the end of every fight — again irrespective of whether he has won or lost.

And these fighters are not without their academic distinctions. If Mike Marino, with his ability to speak five languages, once thought he had the edge — linguistically — over his fellow wrestlers, he had to bow to the coloured American, Ray Apollon, who can speak seven languages and has a science degree from a Paris university to boot!

Billy Howes is a demolition expert in his home town of Bristol. His hobby is breeding bull mastiffs. But Hungarian Tibor Szakas must have thought him more like a terrier when they clashed in one of the most memorable meetings to be staged in Wembley Town Hall, the setting for some of the best afternoons of wrestling seen on television.

Wembley has the reputation of disliking someone who should, in fact, be one of her favourite wrestling sons. He is Jackie Pallo, dubbed this year ‘Mr. TV’. He is always assured of a barrage of catcalls and shouts of disapproval when he climbs in through the ropes at a Wembley Town Hall promotion.

In fairness to the fair-haired Jackie it must be recorded that in Huddersfield, over a hundred miles from home, he is very popular with the crowds.

If Pallo is the man they dislike at Wembley, then the man ‘they love to hate’ everywhere is short-cropped Mick McManus, the welterweight, who delights in infuriating his opponents and spectators alike with his feints, concealed handshakes and strutting, arrogant postures, while he shouts defiance at everyone — in the ring and outside it.

Who among those who watch television wrestling as a regular habit can forget the classic meeting of Pallo and McManus on the afternoon of this year’s F.A. Cup Final.

For weeks the two had been snapping at each other, anxious to meet in the ring, each determined to lower the others colours, once and for all.

The bout was indeed a needle match. From the first bell both wrestlers gave everything they had. No quarter was asked; none was given. Every trick of the book was produced; every hold tried and found to be wanting. When the final bell went both men were out on their feet. The result: a drawn bout — and the money side-stake went unclaimed.

This fight had everything the wrestling fan wants: excitement, thrills, technical ability, skill and showmanship. If you are a devout follower of wrestling no more need be said.

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Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the British adored variety programmes. And the top variety programme was Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium. It was also probably one of the longest titles in British television.

The Palladium show’s presenters – Tommy Trinder, Bruce Forsyth, Norman Vaughan, Jimmy Tarbuck – became fully fledged stars for compering the programme, with its mix of showbiz acts, audience participation games, popular music and leggy dancers. The queue to guest-star on the show was long, with ATV having the pick of the world’s top talent to choose from every week.

It helped that ATV itself was showbusiness, thanks to businesses its management came from. Val Parnell, the titular head of the Palladium show, was ATV’s managing director and was also in charge of the Moss Empires music halls, theatres and variety circuit. He knew the management of everybody who was anybody. If there was any manager he didn’t know, Bernard Delfont knew them. Delfont’s brother was Lew Grade, deputy managing director (until promotion in 1962) at ATV, and a theatrical agent: he was the management of everybody who was anybody. If he didn’t manage a star, his other brother Leslie did. Even the music at ATV (and today’s Sony-ATV Music is the last gasp of the old ATV empire) was under the management of Val Parnell’s nephew Jack, who also knew everybody in the business.

An appearance on the Palladium was a guarantee of further bookings and a rise up the billing on the circuit. If a “nobody” appeared, they were likely to be signed up by The Grade Organisation and become a “somebody” in pretty quick time. Such was the size of the of this almost incestuous system – ATV, ITC, Moss Empires, Grade Organisation, Delfont Organisation, later even EMI – that the people involved had trouble keeping up.

A, possibly apocryphal, story attaches to Lew Grade. Watching an unknown act on stage, he decided that while they weren’t top-flight, they were not untalented and with the right promotion could go places. When the act ended, he rushed round to meet them. “Your act! It’s great! I’d like to represent you – your current agent is wasting you in a theatre like this!”. “Thanks! We agree,” replied the talent, “and we’re looking to change to someone better!”. “Great!”, said Grade, “I’ll sign you up now and sort your agent out with a finder’s fee. Who is he?”. The act beamed back at him: “Lew Grade!”.

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It was in ATV’s Saturday evening series “Man of the World” that he first caught the eye of a shrewd television executive who saw in his portrayal of a suave, devil-may-care rogue the possibility of something more than what is known in the business as a “oncer”. For the performance of Carlos Thompson, as he charmed his way through situations fraught with danger, was such as to spark off thoughts of a number of programmes reflecting similar escapades, set against backgrounds which could be international in their appeal.

The idea took root—and the “go-ahead” was given for a series of programmes. And the planners of the programmes were told that they had to stick closely to the character that had been created for that one “Man of the World” story. The hero had to be impeccably dressed; sophisticated without being foppish; attractive to women, yet of that stuff of which heroes are made; he must be witty, athletic and very much a man-of-the-world.

A tall order for a character. Equally so for whoever was to take on the role.

Carlos Thompson can truly be said to measure up to the requirements of such casting.

The Argentinian-born Thompson is tall (6ft. 2ins.), dark and handsome. He has been described as a Latin heart-throb. Although born in the heat of South America, he has made his home for a number of years in the cool “and ice” of Switzerland, where he lives with his film star wife Lilli Palmer—3,000 feet up a mountain. The very effort of getting up and down that self-same mountain answers the demand for athletic prowess. He is also robust and quick on his feet—and he has “been around”, having spent much of his adult life in the majority of the capitals of South American countries, in New York, London, and the bigger cities of Europe.

In “Sentimental Agent” he is shown as owning and running an import-export business called Mercury International which has ramifications all over the world. From his own personal experiences Thompson could well be suited for such a job in real life, for he is essentially cosmopolitan—in origin and in outlook. Despite the country of his birth— or perhaps because of it—he claims to be one quarter German, one quarter Spanish, one quarter French, and he speaks eight languages.

In his linen suit —or that cut by a fashionable Savile Row tailor when the occasion demands — his panama hat set at an angle which is neither rakish nor too lacking in character, and his inevitable, specially prepared cigar alight in its ebony holder (and this is his smoking preference as practised in real life), he is the embodiment of the male whom most women secretly hanker after, whom many women openly spend their life looking for.

It was one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the world’s cinema screens from Hollywood who first saw the potential in Carlos Thompson. He owes his career in the competitive world of filmland to the tempestuous Yvonne de Carlo. She it was who spotted him for his first English-speaking films. She lured him to the film capital in California to co-star with her in “Port Algiers”. Based on this picture — to which he had brought a tough apprenticeship in Argentinian films — he was given a Hollywood contract and hailed as a new heart-throb. Roles opposite Lana ‘Turner and Esther Williams followed. Starring parts in “The Flame and the Flesh”, “The Valley of the Kings”, “Magic Fire”, “Thunderstorm” and “Raw Wind of Eden” followed. Then he disappeared from the English-speaking screen.

Where had he gone? By his own admission he recalls: “The Hollywood-stvle life was not for me. I had to decide whether I wanted to return to Hollywood or be myself and live the sort of life I wanted”. He made his decision—and chose Switzerland as his home.

But this did not mean he was lost to films. Austria and Germany are within easy reach — after a tough journey on skis — from his 1800-built converted peasant’s chalet on the Swiss mountainside.

In these countries he has made eighteen films in the last ten years and established himself as one of the Continent’s most sought-after and popular leading men. Witness to this claim was shown while Carlos was on a quiet, private, sightseeing tour around London this spring as a break from househunting for his wife and himself for their stay in Britain to make the “Sentimental Agent” series.

As he strolled through Trafalgar Square, overcoat draped characteristically over his shoulder, cigar-holder at its jaunty angle, the eyes of some members of a visiting party of girls from one of Kent’s most proper finishing schools for young ladies noticed him. Immediately the long hours of training and insistence on decorum were forgotten. “Eet ees Carlos”, shouted the German, Swiss, Austrian girls in the group. In a moment deportment was forgotten and the smiling actor found himself surrounded by excited girls while he tried to keep up a conversation with them in the many different languages with which he was being assailed as his fans recognised him, demanded that he speak to them—of his films and of “home”.

Such is his standing on the Continent. Before long the distinctive accent of the English used in the North Country, in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Birmingham and around Hampstead could well be added to this acclaim.

The son of a writer — his father was an Argentinian newspaper editor — Carlos Thompson is following in Thompson senior’s footsteps. His main hobby is writing. He has written many short stories and at one time seriously considered taking up writing as a career.

His home in Switzerland provides the ideal requirements for a man of letters: he has peace, air like champagne — inducive to good composition — and a wife who likes to read herself and who understands the needs of a creative mind… a far cry this from the role of the modern-day swashbuckler of “Sentimental Agent”.

But Thompson is an adaptable person. He has to be, for to every role he plays he brings his own instinctive interpretation. This is always realism. In ATV’s “Sentimental Agent” he is called on to draw on the vast experience that has been his career to date. One moment he is in danger, another he is in love, in yet another he is in a situation that taxes all his wit, ingenuity and charm — but without doubt he is always in the centre of things. In such situations he gives his all — and who can blame him? Always at the back of his mind, to relish and look forward to, is that snow-covered mountain retreat where visitors, if they have negotiated the difficulties of the journey, are always welcome; but he knows that the unexpected knocks on his thick oak front door will be few and far between.

Truly, a man with a mind of his own — and a place of his own — is Carlos Thompson, “Sentimental Agent”

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