Catacombs Reference LibraryUK Press
Daily and Sunday Mirror
Catacombs Reference LibraryThe Mirror was the top selling UK newspaper of the 1960s and early 1970s (until 1978 when it slipped into second place). The tabloid was published Monday-Saturday as the Daily Mirror, with a Sunday Mirror edition. There regular episode previews in 1975.
Clippings thanks to Martin Landau, Ros Connors, Mike.
Daily Mirror, Thursday 18 October 1973 p9
By CLIFFORD DAVIS Mirror TV Editor
BRITAIN has made a big breakthrough in the Common Market -with a series of TV deals.
Sir Lew Grade, chairman of ATV, announced yesterday that he had fixed up the co-production deals with both the Italian and French TV networks.
"We are making the Common Market work very successfully in TV," Sir Lew said.
"I've been to both Paris and Rome, and both the French and Italians are very keen to get together with us. I now have four co-production deals going with the Italians. They put up half the cost, and we share the profits."
One of these productions is "The Law Giver" now being filmed in Israel with Burt Lancaster as Moses.
Sir Lew said: "We have a TV unit of eighty people out there, camped outside Jerusalem.
"I'm naturally very worried about them, and I offered to fly a charter plane out there to bring them home. But they said they would rather stay as long as they can. They're still filming."
Sir Lew announced production plans totalling £9,500,000 for several new series. Some have already been sold in advance in America for £4.000,000.
The Italians are also helping with three other productions. They are "The Origins of the Mafia," which will be filmed in Sicily, "The Life and Times of William Shakespeare." and a science-fiction series, "Space 1999," which will be filmed here.
French TV are putting. up half the money for "The Life of Offenbach." which will be filmed in France, and "Cabsmash," an adventure series about radio cab drivers, to be filmed here.
And Peter O'Toole has been signed for a series of hour-long films specially made for TV.
Sir Lew said: "I'm particularly pleased about this breakthrough with the French and the Italians. This is the first time these two national networks. which are state-owned, have entered into co-production deals with any British TV organisation."
The UK joined the European Economic Community (the "Common Market", later the EU) on 1 January 1973. UK television, and particularly Lew Grade's ATV, had worked with US co-productions before, but European money opened up a lot of new opportunities when the UK and US economies were badly hit by the 1970s recession and the Europeans were comparatively booming. Space: 1999 was one of the first benefits of the EU.
Friday 26 April 1974 p19
The shy Peter Cushing, "Mr Horror" himself, makes on of his rare TV appearances tonight.
As a guest star in The Zoo Gang (ITV), Cushing, renowned as Baron Frankenstein on the big screen, turns up as a judge who enjoys the high life on the French Riviera.
The beautiful Jacqueline Pearce plays his young ex-dancer wife.
The episode was shot in some of the most attractive spots along the Cote d'Azur.
Fun
Peter said: "I enjoyed it immensely. It meant teaming up again with my old friends John Mills and Barry Morse. It was thirty years since I first appeared with John in "War and Peace."
He is now busy in rehearsals for another TV role-a science- fiction series called Space 1999. "I play an Earthman who is 508 years old," he said. "It's marvellous fun."
Daily Mirror, Saturday 25 May 1974, p15. In 2 of the 3 references, the series is called "Space in 1999". The broadcast date was still January 1975 in the US, instead of September.
Close-Up of the week by Kenneth Hughes
Martin Landau and his wife Barbara Bain, stars of that old favourite Mission Impossible, are back together again.
They're reaching out for the planets in a new and highly-budgeted series called Space in 1999.
And word has it that the very special effects in the series are the most exciting since Stanley Kubrick's film 2001.
The couple are making 24 one-hour episodes at Pinewood Studios for ATV at something like £100,000 an episode which, says Martin, means it is possibly the most expensive television series ever. The series starts in the US next January. ITV will follow later in 1975.
Martin, it will be recalled, was Rollin Hand, master of disguise, in Mission Impossible.
Out there in Space in 1999 he plays Commander John Koenig, chief of Moonbase Alpha where 300 souls of all nationalities work and live together.
But the Moon, due to a vast atomic explosion, is blown out of orbit and spinning through Space. and the base inhabitants are looking for a new planet to live on.
Barbara, who won three Emmy awards in a row as best television actress of the year, plays Dr. Helena Russell who is, as Barbara says, just as much a woman as she is a doctor.
It is all a far cry from home in Beverly Hills or indeed from the house that Martin and Barbara have taken in London overlooking the canal in Little Venice where they are living with their daughters Susan, 13, and Julie, 9.
They will be working at Pinewood until March next year.
Not only were Martin and Barbara in Mission Impossible together - they walked out together because they weren't happy with the way the studio was handling the series.
Martin started work as a cartoonist on a New York newspaper before taking up acting. Barbara was a model. They married in 1957.
Mission Impossible is at present being screened in 69 countries, says Martin.
They hope for the same kind of success and more for Space 1999, which is produced by another husband and wife team Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, creators of Thunderbirds, Stingray and Supercar.
Thurs 30 May 1974 p5
It is an accident that Jill Damas is suddenly making a name for her self. The 22-year-old actress has been quietly learning her trade with a succession of all parts in theatre productions, deciding not to accept any film parts until she really felt she was ready. Now she has made the switch with great success Jill has just finished paying the female lead In "At Your Service" and now she is busy at Pinewood filming a television Space adventure series called "Space 1999" An indication, perhaps, that she is a girl with a big future
Picture by BEN JONES
This is an article by Kenneth Hughes from the Daily Mirror, on Tuesday 31st December 1974 (p13). It features a large picture, credited to Jeff Stone, of a Main Mission scene from the start of Space Brain (shot on Thursday 5th December 1974). The article was published a few weeks afterwards. Note that Space: 1999 was due to start on UK television in spring 1975. It would be held back a further 6 months, until September 1975.
ITV's New Year looks like bringing a big bang - it will certainly get off to a flying start with the launching of British television's most spectacular series ... the £3 million odyssey called SPACE 1999. Pictured above are the cast assembled in their Lunar Base - at Pinewood Studios, Bucks.
Situation The Moon is blown to pieces when atomic waste dumped from Earth explodes. The 300 people living on Moonbase Alpha are thrown out of orbit into Space, and their adventures and misadventures on a chunk of runaway Moan take them through a series Of twenty-four shows. The producers are husband and wife team Sylvia and Gerry Anderson makers of the puppet dramas Thunderbirds and Supercar.
The A T V -backed series is due on the screen in the early Spring. The stars are another husband and wife team, Martin Landau as commander of Moon Base Alpha, and Barbara Bain as Dr Helena Russell, boss of a skilled medical team.
Gerry Anderson promises spectacular effects never attempted before on television.
Kenneth Hughes
Saturday 3 May 1975 p13; Weekend Preview By Kenneth Hughes
ANTHONY VALENTINE is being perfectly beastly again to- night in THRILLER (ITV, 8.40).
He was nasty in "Colditz" and "Callan" and tonight he plays a killer on the run with another man, Filton (Juan Moreno).
They hide In the home of a doctor (Denholm Elliott) and threaten to kill his wife (Clare Neilson) if they are given away.
The doctor's wife, Hilary, is bound, gagged and taken upstairs.
But the villains' plans are upset by a woman journalist who calls at the house.
The baddies are eventually caught, but that is by no means the end of the story.
Anthony has recently returned from filming In Australia. He will soon be appearing in a TV play called "Love Me To Death," in which he stars with Gwen Watford, and as a war lord from Outer Space in spectacular "Space 1999."
Monday 25 August 1975 p15; the bank holiday repeat of Horizon's How On Earth Did They Do That?
ONCE you see how the trick works it spoils the magic. I wish HORIZON (BBC-2, 9.50), hadn't in the first place told us how MGM did the earthquake in "San Francisco," or how the effects were created for "2001 A Space Odyssey." Or how. indeed. ATV is doing interstellar effects in the forthcoming spectacular "Space 1999."
The programme "How On Earth Did They Do That?" is repeated to spread further disillusion. It is fascinating, nevertheless..
MIRROR VERDICT. Takes the fun out of the fantastic.
Thursday, 4th September 1975, p19
An expensive space spectacular blasts off tonight.
Sir Lew Grade spent more than £2,500,000 on the new science fiction series SPACE 1999 (I.T.V., most regions 7.0; London on Saturday).
The drama centres on Moonbase Alpha which, with a population of several hundred, is in danger of being blown apart.
The Moon has been used for dumping atomic waste.
Amid all the excitement we meet Moonbase commander John Koenig (Martin Landau), Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and Professor Bergman (Barry Morse).
There is a lot of technical Space talk and in spite of the awful danger, no one can be blamed for feeling a sense of tedium.
The characters are a serious-minded bunch and in the first story, "Breakaway", show less individuality than the puppet characters in "Thunderbirds", created by the same producers, Sylvia and Gerry Anderson.
MIRROR VERDICT: Too much gravity, but the series should get into orbit.
Thursday 23 September 1975 p17; Preview by Kenneth Hughes
TROUBLE with SPACE 1999 (ITV, 7:00 some regions, others Saturday), ls so much time has to be spent on Moonbase Alpha while the threat to survival is unexplained.
Tonight, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse have another fright on their hands. A very nasty fleet spaceships is attacking.
It all has something to do with a character played by Anthony Valentine, an inhabitant with Isla Blair on a very strange planet. The people are wise and have found peace. They also have very big bald heads.
Although it perhaps sounds a bit confusing, all will be revealed during the course of the story.
I am beginning to like the series.
MIRROR VERDICT: Cracking corn from Outer Space.
Thursday 2 October 1975.
Part of the fun of Space 1999 (ITV most regions 7.0, others at later dates) is how the residents of Moonbase Alpha, spinning around in Space, find a new world every week and encounter some star of stage and screen already living on it. Tonight's is Brian Blessed, that one-time Fancy Smith of Z-Cars
He plays Dr Cabot Rowland, a survivor of an old Space expedition.
Another survivor who helps to keep the temperature up is the lovely Valerie Leon.
Mirror Verdict: Nice to have those stars in Space.
Thursday 9 October 1975 p19
Overcrowding sometimes seems the biggest problem in Space.
The Moon-based voyagers of SPACE 1999 (some ITV regions, 7 pm) never seem short of company.
Tonight they face a maverick spaceship which has caused millions of deaths ... but not enough to leave Moonbase Alpha personnel without new people to meet.
Mirror Verdict: You've got to admit it's inventive.
Thursday 16 October 1975 p19
THERE'S a double helping of the lovely Cyd Hayman for some viewers. She appears in SPACE 1999 (some ITV regions, 7.0; others Saturday) when she gives birth to a baby on the Moon.
Then she turns up again in THE TWO RONNIES (BBC-1, 7.45). The BBC claim it is now getting an audience of Over 16,000,000 viewers which justifies them showing repeats." But there are no plans to make another series before next year. More's The pity.
VERDICT: Let's have some more originals.
Thurs 30 October 1975 p19
Verdicts on today's viewing by Clifford Davis
JOAN COLLINS (left) turns up as 900-year-old beauty from goodness knows where in SPACE 1999 (7.0 some ITV areas; London on Saturday).
As she has been kept alive for so long by cannibalism, things look like taking a turn for the worse for the brave band of Space adventurers.
I find it hard to take all this seriously, but fans tell me "Space 1999" is the best of its kind in years.
VERDICT: A bonanza for sci-fi enthusiasts.
Thursday 13 November 1975 p19.
Lovely Catherine Schell (left) gets into the Space race tonight.
She plays a mystery woman offering paradise to Commander Koenig and his Moonbase crew in Space 1999 (most ITV areas, 7.0, London and Anglia on Saturday)
She tells Koenig about a blissful world of machines which seems to offer a bright future.
No wonder they're drinking toasts on the Moon.
But there has to be a catch ... and only canny Koenig (Martin Landau) can prevent trouble.
Verdict: Great stuff for older Dr Who fans
Thursday 11 December 1975 p18
BARBARA BAIN loses that trim manicured look in SPACE 1999 (ITV, 7.0 some regions, others later in the week).
Her eyebrows are bushy and her hair is thick and black like her teeth- when Barbara, as Dr. Helena Russell, finds herself back In the Stone Age.
You not even may recognise Martin Landau as Commander Koenig. He is hidden behind a lot of hair and whiskers, showing only his eyes and nose.
The folk of Moonbase Alpha discover a Stone Age man in a spacecraft who has lost his crew on their way to explore a planet.
Koenig, arranges rescue party. There are cavemen all over the place and Koenig even gets to be Cave Chief.
VERDICT: Continues to be a fun series.
Caption: Barbara Bain: Normal (left) and the Stone Age version.
19 May 1976 p15
A ROW over which TV channel to watch ended in death for 18-year-old John Roberts, a jury heard yesterday.
Roberts, an apprentice airman, wanted to carry on viewing Tomorrow's World.
Other young airmen in the sick bay at RAF Halton, Bucks., wanted to see Space 1999.
The clash sparked a fight between Roberts and Stephen Phoenix, 17, Reading Crown Court was told.
Roberts was punched several times, and he fell and hit his head on a radiator, killing him said Ralph Gibson, QC. prosecuting.
Phoenix. of Broadhaven, Haverfordwest, in South Wales. denies manslaughter. The case is continuing,
Sunday Mirror 17 October 1976 p27
LONG HAIRED actor-singer Jess Conrad agreed to be shorn for a role in ITV's Space 1999. Especially os the shearer was glamorous Catherine Schell.
But now it's all grow again, because Jess is to play the lead in the provincial tour of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starting in December. And long hair is part of the garb.
Saturday 11 December 1976 p13
What the BBC has NOT told you about its space film INTO INFINITY (BBC-1, 6 pm) is its real name.
It's a one-off film Gerry Anderson - of "Thunderbirds" and "Space 1999" fame - produced in harness with NBC in America. And it has been shown there under the title of "Teachers Guides to Special Treats."
It is the story of three adults and two children 100 years on from now voyaging 24,000 million miles from Earth. And it aims to instruct as it entertains.
Its makers claim that by the time you've sat through its 50 minutes you will have digested Einstein's theory of relativity!
Mr. Anderson hopes you'll love painless learning so much you'll ask for more, and that his film, starring Nick Tate as ship's captain, will be extended into a series.
Nick says: "This is science fact, against Space 1999, which was science fiction.
"There are no monsters; we don't meet people with aerials coming from the top of their heads; we stick to what's known."
Saturday 5 February 1977 p15
ONE actress with a winning switch is Hazel McBride (left). After her recent appearance in the TV period piece "Dickens of London," she will journey through time to "Space 1999,"
And her travels don't end there. The new series of "Van der Valk" shows her ... as an air hostess.
Sunday Mirror 1 May 1977 p27
THE Career and life-style of lovely Cassandra Harris, 28, who will be appearing In ITV's Space 1999 this summer, is something of a puzzle.
With all her attributes of stardom, why isn't Cassandra (right) seen on the screen more often?
And, after six years of living with Dermot Harris (brother of the rumbustious actor Richard) what has she got against marriage 7
Cassandra, who is mother of two children by Dermot, explained: "I committed the unforgivable sin of being an actress who succeeded as a model, Producers thought my move to modelling spelt failure as an actress.
"And about my mistress status: Dermot and I don't have to prove our love with a marriage certificate.
"Most women who insist on marriage are insecure in their relationship. And I'm not."
So there!
Picture: JOE BANGAY
Thursday 16 August 1979 p16
IT'S a minor miracle in this week of blacked-out ITV screens and BBC repeats to find a comedy we're seeing for the first time.
But here's one. The CITIZEN SMITH (BBC-1, 8.0) episode was to have been transmitted last year. But a dispute kept it off the air.
Don't be misled by the title "Spanish Fly". It's the story of a Spanish revolutionary who arrives to help Wolfie Smith (Robert Lindsay) take Tooting by force.
But the Spaniard, Tony Anholt- best known for starring roles in "The Persuaders" and "Space 1999"-won't see the show. He is touring South Africa.
The Sunday Mirror covered the story on 30 September 1979. See Doomwatch Alert reports in other newspapers, which are quite different.
It was like a scene from a science fiction movie.
Police and firemen sealed off a council dump. Scientists gathered around a suspicious looking canister marked "dangerous, radioactive!"
The canister was taken from the tip at Slough, Berkshire to the Atomic Research Station at Harwell for closer examination. The expects came up with the answer: the canister WAS something out of a space film.
It had been used as a prop in the TV series Space 1999, filmed at nearby Pinewood Studios, then thrown out.
Tuesday 25 November 1980 p19
by HILARY KINGSLEY
NICK TATE was not too happy when he agreed to let his baby son appear in a TV thriller... but he's glad he did. Nick, out of work at the time, reluctantly agreed to let ten-week-old Thomas appear as the child of a suspicious couple who conceal a gun in his carry cot.
Then director Douglas Camfield told him: "You can come along too. There's a bit part for you."
When he arrived, Nick was delighted to find the "bit" part was the leading role. He plays top TV journalist Steve Jackson In NUMBER ON END, (BBC-1, 9.25).
"It's a very tight thriller," said Nick. "Steve goes to make an agricultural film in Africa and accidentally discovers something but doesn't recognise its importance,
"All sorts of people begin to do desperate things to stop him revealing it. But he doesn't know what's happening."
Australian-born Nick, 37, is best known as the commander of Space 1999. And he enjoyed playing a different type of part.
"Steve is no James Bond," he said. "Things get hairy, but finding the truth turns out to be a painful process." Nick is Just back from playing' another journalist in Hong Kong for ITV's new Spearhead series,