RIP Cliff Michelmore

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

96 years old - not a bad innings.

I didn't know he anchored BBC TV coverage of the 1966 and 1970 general elections, as the first election coverage I watched (aged 10) was Feb 1974, when Alastair Burnet had got the gig. My memories of Michelmore on telly are all from the Holiday programme in the late 70s.

[tee rex]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

If this thread loses out to Paul Daniels, OTF will have to hang its head in shame and take a good look at itself. Which is quite difficult to do.

So farewell then, Cliff Michelmore
You were on telly in the evenings
Like Cliff Richard
But not much.

[Sits]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

A far better memory from childhood than Paul Daniles.

Always seemd like a nice chap. Cliff Michelmore that is.

[Jah Womble]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Yes, I (vaguely) remember him as a more serious current affairs presenter before he started interviewing tw*ts in holiday villas.

He also interviewed a seventeen-year-old David Bowie on Tonight in 1964. And then goes and outlives him by two months.

RIP.

[treibeis]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

For some reason, I always used to get him mixed up with Robert Robinson.

[Jah Womble]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Balding men with glasses on telly. See also: James Burke.

[Mumpo]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Yeah, he was always Mr Holiday [insert 70's/80's year here ] for me. What was the jaunty guitar-led theme they used for Holiday in the 70's? The Wiki page lists a few but I'm at work so can't listen.

Sunday evening. Dropped scones hot off the griddle. Cliff Michelmore presenting Holiday. Memories eh.

[blameless]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Cliff Michelmore was one of those TV figures who I remember more being parodied by impressionists or Not the Nine O'Clock News rather than by his own work.

Still, a much, much nicer human being than Paul Daniels.

[Guy Profumo]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

tee rex wrote: If this thread loses out to Paul Daniels, OTF will have to hang its head in shame and take a good look at itself. Which is quite difficult to do.

So farewell then, Cliff Michelmore
You were on telly in the evenings
Like Cliff Richard
But not much.

Don't be daft. We've had mirrors for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and nowadays we've got "selfie" ’phones.

[Jah Womble]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Mumpo wrote: Yeah, he was always Mr Holiday [insert 70's/80's year here ] for me. What was the jaunty guitar-led theme they used for Holiday in the 70's? The Wiki page lists a few but I'm at work so can't listen.

Sunday evening. Dropped scones hot off the griddle. Cliff Michelmore presenting Holiday. Memories eh.

For a short while it was the theme from Shaft. Which, even then, I felt a very odd choice.

[treibeis]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Jah Womble wrote: Balding men with glasses on telly. See also: James Burke.

I always mixed up James Burke with Alan Whicker.

And, as a small child, Michael Rodd and John Craven - probably because I thought they both looked like an Action Man.

[Mumpo]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

blameless wrote: Cliff Michelmore was one of those TV figures who I remember more being parodied by impressionists or Not the Nine O'Clock News rather than by his own work

Ha, I didn't realise NTNON had done Michelmore. Found it on YouTube, it's Mel Smith, excellent. I'll watch it with sound when I get home...

[Jah Womble]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Similarly, Gruff Rhys's impressions of Robin Day and Barry Took - they tended to be 'nothing like', but that wasn't the point. The sledgehammer sending-up of BBC presenters' general smugness was where it was at. (And a million times funnier than the comics who concentrated on getting the voices right.)

I also confused John Craven with Michael Rodd. It was the hair, wasn't it?

[Mumpo]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Jah Womble wrote: Similarly, Gruff Rhys's impressions of Robin Day and Barry Took - they tended to be 'nothing like', but that wasn't the point. The sledgehammer sending-up of BBC presenters' general smugness was where it was a

Oh yeah, Pamela Stephenson's newsreaders were perfect in that respect.

[Capybara]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

I'm not sure why Daniels justifies 'World' while Michelmore only gets 'Film & TV'. I never found Michelmore smug. He was more of a 'reassuring presence', but that's probably an age thing.

[Sean of the Shed]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

If you've ever seen the Family Guy episode where Stewie creates clones of himself and Brian, you'll realise how Michael Rodd came about.

[Gangster Octopus]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Another bit of my childhood dies. I'm of the Tonight generation, so he reminds me of Alan Whicker, Fyfe Robertson, Kenneth Allsop, Julian Pettifer and the great Brian Redhead. That holiday programme always seemed a bit low-brow for him.

[Jah Womble]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Fyfe Robertson. He was always threshing his walking stick through bracken somewhere or other, usually in black and white.

To give some indication of the passing of time here, Robertson was apparently married in 1928...

[Bored Of Education]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Michelnomore

[Satchmo Distel]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

If only others had followed his example:

In 1967 he walked out after Derrick Amoore had required him to to discuss the question of Stansted Airport with a studio audience: “I will not be associated with a third-rate Palladium show,” he stormed.

[Andy C]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Jah Womble wrote:

Yeah, he was always Mr Holiday [insert 70's/80's year here ] for me. What was the jaunty guitar-led theme they used for Holiday in the 70's? The Wiki page lists a few but I'm at work so can't listen.

Sunday evening. Dropped scones hot off the griddle. Cliff Michelmore presenting Holiday. Memories eh.

For a short while it was the theme from Shaft. Which, even then, I felt a very odd choice.

Earlier series had Love's The Castle.

[Various Artist]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Jah Womble wrote: Similarly, Gruff Rhys's impressions of Robin Day and Barry Took

I think you might mean Griff Rhys Jones, Jah – the Super Furries weren't that far ahead of their time. Unless these impressions habitually take place at some music industry insiders' get-togethers the rest of us aren't privy to.

Anyway, RIP Cliff – growing up in the '80s, I was dimly aware my parents' generation knew him from way back when they were young, but I'm of the generation that knew him only as a Holiday presenter. He was one of those old-school types you simply wouldn't see anymore: glasses, nondescript receding hair, avuncular, called "Cliff" – but to me as a kid then he was just what you expected to see from a TV presenter.

longeared had him in the '2015 Xmas Day Dead Pool' thread – without reading through it all, possibly the first accurate prediction therein, despite the carnage the Grim Reaper has wreaked already this year. My response at the time was:

Until longeared's post earlier today, I had no idea Cliff Michelmore was still alive – that's brilliant. He was always on TV when I was growing up in the '80s, then just quietly disappeared from sight so unobtrusively and completely I was never aware of him going nor what had happened to him. I'd merely assumed for years that he couldn't possibly still be living all this time later, but apparently he's just turned 96.

So thanks longeared, otherwise today's news would probably have been a complete shock in that I vaguely assumed he'd gone about 20 years ago.

He remained most memorable to me simply for his name, living proof that Cliff Richard was not the only one in existence with what seemed at the time such an unlikely moniker. Watching The Big Match around the same era did likewise for Elton Welsby.

[Jah Womble]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Various Artists wrote:

Similarly, Gruff Rhys's impressions of Robin Day and Barry Took

I think you might mean Griff Rhys Jones, Jah – the Super Furries weren't that far ahead of their time. Unless these impressions habitually take place at some music industry insiders' get-togethers the rest of us aren't privy to.

Indeed I did - what a plank. The SFA Gruff Rhys flat-shared with my ex (my daughter's mom) once upon a time, and she did speak of evenings involving him and one or two musician mates - occasionally including Cerys Matthews. No mention was ever made, however, of these alcoholic soirees descending into late-night impressions of avuncular BBC hosts of the seventies/early eighties. But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

[longeared]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Cheers VA. I did think of that thread when I heard the news, however Bored won it with Lemmy.

On a similar note though, some of us had a dead pool in the pub last New Years Eve, and I've won that thanks to Michelmore going before Bruce Forsyth, Gazza and Prince Philip.

[Amor de Cosmos]

RIP Cliff Michelmore

Jah Womble wrote: Fyfe Robertson. He was always threshing his walking stick through bracken somewhere or other, usually in black and white.

To give some indication of the passing of time here, Robertson was apparently married in 1928...

The only man to wear a deerstalker on TV without it being a joke.

Robertson flew the short-lived Pan Am Clipper on its Pacific route while working for Picture Post. A trip I remain deeply envious of.