The Unforgettable Hughie Green (2012)

The title of this program is something of a misnomer: unless you are a viewer of a certain generation, you won't have heard of Hughie Green.

For two decades from the mid-Fifties until the late Seventies, he was a mainstay of ITV's entertainment schedule, presenting long- running hits such as DOUBLE YOUR MONEY, OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, and THE SKY'S THE LIMIT. He came across as somewhat cloying in his screen personality (one of his catchphrases being "and I mean that most sincerely," but he had an unrivaled ability to put often nervous members of the public at their ease as they appeared in front of the camera, often for the first time.

Green's career had begun much earlier, when as a result of a pushy mother (who always wanted him to go on the stage), he appeared in several black-and-white British films as a teenage song-and-dance person. By his late teens he had become a star with his own limousine and a bevy of gorgeous girls in tow, before he moved to radio with OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS.

Off-screen Green was a rather arrogant, pushy man, never backward about coming forward and serially unfaithful to his wife. There were numerous stories about his illicit liaisons, culminating in the scandal following the presenter's death in the mid-Nineties that he was actually the father of television personality Paula Yates.

Green's career went into decline after having made an ill-advised tribute to British conservatism at the time of the Winter of Discontent in 1979. Thames Television, his employers at the time, asked him to apologize for what they saw as an overtly political piece; Green refused; and the network abruptly canceled OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS. The BBC revived the show in the mid-Eighties, but engaged Bob Monkhouse as host rather than Green.

From then on, Green faded into obscurity; while continuing to propose new formats for quiz programs to the major networks, no one really wanted to know about him. He died in relative obscurity, a relic of past televisual eras.

This potted biography gave the major details of his life, complete with reminiscences from family and friends. But at no point did we think that his interest was in anything much other than himself.