Sir Harold Donald Secombe was a Welsh actor, comedian, singer and television presenter. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme The Goon Show (1951–1960), playing many characters, most notably Neddie Seagoon. An accomplished tenor, he also appeared in musicals and films – notably as Mr Bumble in Oliver! (1968) – and, in his later years, was a presenter of television shows incorporating hymns and other devotional songs.
Peter Sellers was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series.
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE is a British singer, actress, and songwriter She has had one of the longest careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades.
Dame Lesley Lawson is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenaged model during the swinging '60s in London.
Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sidney James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. The final television series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone.
Noel Ernest Edmonds is an English television presenter, radio DJ, writer, producer, and businessman. Edmonds first became known as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg before moving to BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presented various radio shows and light-entertainment television programmes across 50 years, originally working for the BBC, later Sky UK and Channel 4.
John Jeremy Lloyd, OBE was an English writer, screenwriter, author, poet and actor. He was the co-writer of several successful British sitcoms, including Are You Being Served? and 'Allo 'Allo!.
Juke Box Jury was a music panel show which ran on BBC Television between 1 June 1959 and 27 December 1967. The programme was based on the American show Jukebox Jury, itself an offshoot of a long-running radio series. The American series, which was televised, aired from 1953 to 1959 and was hosted by Peter Potter, Suzanne Alexander, Jean Moorhead, and Lisa Davis.
Kenneth Connor, was a British stage, film and broadcasting actor, who rose to national prominence with his appearances in the Carry On films.
Peter Skellern was an English singer-songwriter and pianist who rose to fame in the 1970s. He had two top twenty hits on the UK Singles Chart - "You're a Lady" (1972), which typifies his signature use of brass bands and choral arrangements for a nostalgic and romantic feel, and "Hold On to Love" (1975). In the 1980s, Skellern formed the band Oasis with Julian Lloyd Webber and Mary Hopkin and established a musical comedy partnership with Richard Stilgoe in cabaret.
The Evening Standard British Film Awards were established in 1973 by London's Evening Standard newspaper. The Standard Awards is the only ceremony "dedicated to British and Irish talent," judged by a panel of "top UK critics." Each ceremony honours films from the previous year.
Keith Joseph Michell was an Australian actor who worked primarily in the United Kingdom, and was best known for his television and film portrayals of King Henry VIII. He appeared extensively in Shakespeare and other classics and musicals in Britain, and was also in several Broadway productions. He was an artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre in the 1970s and later had a recurring role on Murder, She Wrote as the charming thief Dennis Stanton. He was also known for illustrating a collection of Jeremy Lloyd's poems Captain Beaky, and singing the title song from the associated album.
Michael Rudman is an American theatre director.
Weston Woods Studios is a production company that makes audio and short films based on well-known books for children. It was founded in 1953 by Morton Schindel in Weston, Connecticut, and named after the wooded area near his home. The company's first project was Andy and the Lion in 1954, and its first animated film was The Snowy Day in 1964. In 1968, Weston Woods began a long collaboration with animator Gene Deitch. Later, they opened international offices in Henley-on-Thames, England, UK (1972), as well as in Canada (1975), and in Australia (1977). In addition to making the films, the company also conducted interviews with the writers, illustrators, and makers of the films. The films have appeared on children's television programs such as Captain Kangaroo, Eureeka's Castle, and Sammy's Story Shop. In the mid-1980s, the films were released on VHS under the Children's Circle titles, and Wood Knapp Video distributed these releases from 1988 to 1995.
Christmas Night with the Stars is a television show broadcast each Christmas night by the BBC from 1958 to 1972. The show was hosted each year by a leading star of BBC TV and featured specially made short seasonal editions of the previous year's most successful BBC sitcoms and light entertainment programs. Most of the variety segments no longer exist in accordance with the BBC's practice of discarding programmes at the time.
The 1981 New Year Honours in New Zealand were appointments by Elizabeth II on the advice of the New Zealand government to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by New Zealanders. The awards celebrated the passing of 1980 and the beginning of 1981, and were announced on 31 December 1980.
