Bob Holness was best known in later life as the presenter of ITV’s long-running children’s general knowledge quiz show Blockbusters, managing his teenage contestants in more than 1,300 episodes from 1983-94 with avuncular ease.
The show - in which contestants moved across a hexagonal board by answering questions prompted by letters of the alphabet to earn a bonus Gold Run - saw Holness keep a firm, headmasterly grip on proceedings while always responding with kindly indulgence to the arch and often repeated inquiry, “Can I have a P, please Bob?”
Gold Run winners went on to feature in four series of Champion Blockbusters (1987-90) with Holness again at the helm. But he also enjoyed an earlier claim to fame as the first British actor to play James Bond, in a radio adaptation of Moonraker in 1956.
Born Robert Wentworth John Holness in Vryheid, Natal, in South Africa on November 12, 1928, he moved to Ashford, Kent with his family at the age of seven. After studies at Maidstone College of Art he returned to South Africa where he gained work as an actor and radio presenter. Returning to Britain, he found work in 1961 with the recently launched Granada Television, presenting local news, narrating current affairs programme World in Action, and was a regular host of Junior Criss Cross Quiz (1957-67).
He gained national television exposure as host of the quiz show Take a Letter (1962-64) and, from 1968, deputised for Eamonn Andrews as presenter of Thames Television’s nightly news programme, Today.
He joined the BBC in 1964, hosting a number of radio shows, including Housewives’ Choice and Midday Spin, on the Light Programme. When Radio 1 launched in 1967 he was part of the original intake of DJs, presenting the daily chat show, Late Night Extra, following it to Radio 2 in 1971.
His voice became recognisable as an announcer on Radio Luxembourg, and, from 1971-82, on BBC television’s The Generation Game. After a decade broadcasting with commercial radio station LBC, during which he was twice voted independent radio personality of the year, he returned to the BBC in 1995 to present shows on Radio 2 and the World Service.
Later small screen appearances included Yorkshire Television’s Raise the Roof quiz (1995-96) and a BBC 2 daytime revival of Call My Bluff (1996-2002).
His cult status led to a number of urban myths, including claims that he had played lead guitar on Derek and the Dominos’ 1972 cover of Eric Clapton’s Layla, and the saxophone on Gerry Rafferty’s 1978 hit Baker Street, both of which he mischievously never denied.
He survived several strokes in his early 70s that were diagnosed only in 2002. He died in his sleep, aged 83, on January 6. He is survived by his wife and three children.
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