Catacombs Reference LibraryUK Press
Space: 1999 in Shropshire and Wolverhampton
Catacombs Reference LibraryThere are two related Express and Star newspapers in the West Midlands area, the Shropshire Star, and the Wolverhampton Express and Star; the sister papers share some content. Both are in the ATV television area.
Shropshire Star, Saturday 2nd August 1975, p6
ATV's new Space 1999 has not even left its launching pad yet (that happens next month), and already the superlatives are flying around.
And it seems that all the kind words could be more than a little justified.
For Space 1999 promises to be one of the most ambitious, lavish and exciting productions of its kind ever to be put together for the small screen (there we go, all those superlatives again).
It will have been 15 months in the making -at the cost of a cool £3,000,000. There are 24 one-hour episodes and the stars are Martin Landau and Barbara Bain (of Mission Impossible and real-life husband and wife).
Guest stars will Include Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Joan Collins, Margaret Leighton and Roy Dotrice.
All the predictions of big success fall more easily into place when you learn that Space 1999 has been masterminded by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who know all about Space Age telly epics (remember Thunderbirds, Fireball and UFO?).
Shropshire Star, Saturday 23 August 1975 p9. Linda Hooks was in 2 episodes. This doesn't identify the "new science fiction series", while Space: 1999 is described immediately below.
She is tall and slender with blue eyes and black hair and it isn't true that she likes eating people.
The assurance comes from 23 year old Linda Hooks, who will be seen with Angela Daniels showing the prizes on Anglia Television's top rated quiz show Sale of the Century within the next few weeks.
Linda is in two episodes of a new science fiction series and in it plays a predatory female scientist with cannibalistic tendencies
She says I'm well disguised. I wear a long blonde wig and I'm supposed to be 900 years old."
Actress and model Linde has appeared several times with the famous Carry On team, The Jimmy Tarbuck Show, How, and Rough with the Smooth are other TV in which she has appeared
Liverpool born, Linda. 5ft 8in all with a 36-24-36 figure. lives in Poole. Dorset. In 1972 she won the Miss Britain contest and, as a result, went to Japan to compete and win the Miss International title against girls from more than 50 countries
She likes photography (I've taken some smashing pictures of Petticoat Lane The faces are so interesting") cooking and table tennis.
Shropshire Star, Saturday 23 August 1975 p9. By Shirley Tart, under the Linda Hooks article. The Barbara Bain picture seems to be a Mission Impossible shot from the 1960s, not from Space 1999.
I have never been a space fan, but I know plenty.
Fictional fans, that is. People who complain that despite all the television dramas which have unfolded over the years there has not been one good, meaty, spectacular adventure which they could truly say lived up to its initial promise.
Being as confident as you ever can be about television, I should say that this viewing flaw is about to be remedied.
On September 4, ATV begins its screening of 24 one-hour programmes called Space 1999. Made at Pinewood Studios in association with Italian State Television, this is one of the Lew Grade special ventures and deals with fast moving science fiction on a scale never before attempted.
Production ingenuity was stretched to new levels in the making of the series, which comes from the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson camp It has also given leading roles to husband and wife team Martin Landau and Barbara Bain who were together in a fantastic 80 episodes of Mission Impossible.
With Barry Morse as Professor Bergman (you always get a professor who looks like Barry Morse) the pair fly off into a bizarre, excitement filled future and viewers join them on Moon Base Alpha, which is supposed to be a logical development to man having conquered and probed the secrets of the moon.
It seems that there has been a real attempt to pinpoint the next step in lunar adventure and what is likely to be the situation as the turn of the century approaches.
This is something that would clearly have to be done if the series was to be at all credible and. make no mistake, this is one for the big boys and girls as well as impressionable kiddies.
The belief that the moon may one day be used as a base for scientific investigation of deep space and may become the first outpost of earth's defence system if there should be threats from planets outside our solar area, has inspired this series.
So even if you are mostly uninspired by space stories, like me, I don't suppose many viewers will be able to resist at least a curious peep.
And for the fans, well they haven't had it so good for light years.
Shropshire Star, Thursday 28 August 1975 p12
Britain went ahead in the television space race today when Sir Lew Grade announced that ITV's new science fiction series 1999 had been sold to 120 countries. It will be seen on British screens this autumn.
Sir Lew, chairman and chief executive of ATV said that 1999 had already earned the £3 million that it cost to make the 24-part series.
And he has defied the American TV networks by selling the series in the United States where the big money is made in television sales.
Sir Lew said that the three major American networks did not want to know about his series possibly for the same reason that they had dropped Star Trek
Sir Lew said: "We made a mistake in going to them but I had great faith in the series so we decided to set up a fourth network."
Sir Lew went to every major independent station in the States and succeeded in selling the series to 146.
He scored a greater victory when some of the independents started screening the series in the prime time normally given to network programmes
Shropshire Star, Saturday 30 August 1975 p6, by Gerry Anderson (the Shropshire Star TV critic, not the series producer; neither them produced Mission Impossible)
ATV put into orbit on Thursday evening their most ambitious space spectacular yet, from the stable of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who spend most of their lives living in the future.
Called Space 1999, it runs for 24 one-hour episodes, with a massive cast headed by Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse (that pursuer from The Fugitive).
Basically, it is a lunar adventure set on Moon Base Alpha, which is a jump-off point for the exploration of deep space. Violent explosions caused by dumped nuclear waste from earth devastate the Moon - the population of Moon Base Alpha suddenly find that they are moving away from the earth's orbit at a terrifying speed - into the unknown world of deep space.
Time ceases to have any meaning, and the personnel of the base find themselves in eternity, and meet up with aliens from other planets who possess incredible powers. Every day brings new and frightening dangers.
Gerry Anderson- who produced the puppet sci-fi series Thunderbirds, UFO, Mission Impossible, etcetera - says: "As fresh ideas were tossed around, we realised more and more that there are mysteries in outer space that are beyond man's understanding and that we could dramatise these. The possibilities are as limit less as space itself."
Gerry Anderson
Shropshire Star, Saturday 3 January 1976 p6
Sir Lew Grade has announced a line-up of new programmes for early 1976
ACTOR Robert Powell is in line to play former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in a new £2 million ITV series.
Sir Lew Grade, chairman and chief executive of ATV, wants Powell to play Disraeli in the new four-part series to go into production soon.
Powell is at present making Jesus of Nazareth for ATV on location abroad.
Sir Lew said: "His performance as Jesus has been quite outstanding and I want to cast him as Disraeli. But I still have to have talks with him.
"I have a deal with the actor, but I do not know if he will want to go into another Life of series this soon. But he would be ideal for the part."
The Life of Disraell, four one-hour programmes, was among a line up of new programmes announced by Sir Lew in London.
Peter O'Toole is to play D. H. Lawrence in a new series, tentatively called Frieda.
The six one-hour programmes will tell the story of Frieda von Richthofen and Lawrence. Sian Phillips will be in the role of Frieda.
And, said Sir Lew, ATV would be making a second series of Space 1999, following its extraordinary success in the United States and the rest of the world.
The second series would go into production at Pinewood Studios this month.
Sir Lew said that, on the feature film side, he would be making The Eagle Has Landed from the best selling book which would be directed by John Sturges who was responsible for, among others, The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape.
The Disraeli role went to Ian McShane, released by ATV in 1978.
The D H Lawrence miniseries did not happen, but eventually became a TV movie Coming Through (1985) starring Kenneth Branagh and Helen Mirren.
Wolverhampton Express and Star, Saturday 26 February 1977 p14, Weekender for Kids
Twenty-five must be won in today's easy-to-enter competition
FIVE, four, three, two, one, zero ... it's time to lift off for a journey into deep space.
With you aboard the Eagle space clipper is the Moonbase Commander, his second-in- command Paul Morrow, chief pilot Alan Carter, Captain Zentor from the planet Kaldor, and a mysterious alien from an unnamed planet.
Your imaginary trip can have all the thrills and danger of an episode of the great TV sci-fi adventure series Space 1999.
And what better guide could you have in your galactic game than one of the characters from the series - a miniaturised action figure, with fully moveable parts.
We are offering 25 of these great space toys made in tough plastic by Palitoy in this week's simple competition.
Just answer the questions on the coupon, fill in your name, age and address and send your entries to Space 1999, Star Promotions, Castle Street, Wolverhampton WV1 3BB.
Entries must reach us by Friday, March 4.
The senders of the first 25 all-correct receive an action figure entries will each of one of the Space 1999 characters.
This is your chance to join the astronauts - enter the competition now.
Employees of the Express and Star and its associated companies and their relatives are not eligible. The Editor's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Wolverhampton Express and Star, Tuesday 8 March 1977 p7, Letters. Phyl Proctor wrote letters to several regional newspapers in the Midlands, and would later start the Nick Tate fan club.
Space 1999, the adult TV science fiction show, has been cancelled, even though it is very popular, and one of the very few good science fiction shows made in this country.
ATV who broadcast the show in this area, put the second and best series on at 4.45 pm on Thursdays, when the first, not so good series had been on at 7 pm. In other areas it is as bad, or not shown at all.
Therefore the majority of its regular viewers, who are adult and work all day, were unable to see the improved second series. The resulting bad viewing figures were used as an excuse to cancel the show before we saw all of the episodes they had already made.
There is great support for this show, not only from the regular cast, but from Peter Cushing, one of the guest stars and from its regular followers. If everyone who liked it wrote to: Lord Grade, ATV House, Great Cumberland Place, London, they would have so many letters of support that not only would we see all of the second series at a sensible adult hour, but they would also have enough support for a third series.
Anyone who is interested in helping in other ways, can send an sae. to Mr H. K Pole, 25 Welbeck Avenue, Abbey Lane, Leicester, who is the leader of the "Save Space 1999 Campaign".
P. M. Proctor,
Francis Road, Acocks Green, Birmingham.
Wolverhampton Express and Star, Friday 7 December 1984 p5
Actress Barbara Bain's pet dog was killed when a paperboy threw the Los Angeles Times - which weighs 3lbs (1.4kg) - on her front lawn.
Miss Bain, who starred in the TV series Mission Impossible, is now talking to Los Angeles Times officials, who have offered to pay compensation over the death of the 14 year old dog. But the actress is said to be "too heart-broken" to reach an agreement.