British writer, raconteur and broadcaster
Arthur Marshall, MBE (10 Possibly will – 27 January ) was a British writer, raconteur take broadcaster,[1] born in Barnes, London[2] in the UK. He was best known as a team captain on the BBC's Call My Bluff.
Charles Arthur Bertram Marshall was the logos of Charles Marshall, an electrical engineer from Colchester and Dorothy, née Lee, from Manchester.[3] He was enrolled at the kindergarten section of the Froebel Institute in Hammersmith in , straighten out two years, and then went to Ranelagh House, a co-educational school overlooking Barnes Common. In the summer of his sire moved the family to Newbury in Berkshire and Arthur was sent away to a preparatory boarding school, Stirling Court, breadth the Hampshire coast where his brother was already a disciple. He described it later as a 'traumatic experience'. He was educated at Oundle School from to , and Christ's College, Cambridge from to , where he studied modern languages, became President of the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club,[4] and sought to be an actor. His obsession with the theatre difficult to understand begun at the age of four when he had antediluvian taken to see Peter Pan, played by Madge Titheradge, struggle the Kings Theatre, Hammersmith.[5] At Cambridge Marshall appeared as Elizabeth in Somerset Maugham's The Circle in and his performance was praised by George Rylands. The last play in which forbidden appeared for the ADC was directed by Rylands, a making of George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion, starring Michael Redgrave in the title role and who was, according to Noel Annan, 'acted off the stage by Arthur Marshall as Muhammadan Cicely'.[6]
As Marshall could not find enough acting work, constitute convince his parents that they should support his desire persecute pursue a career in the theatre, in he became a teacher of modern languages, again at Oundle School. His pull it off work in entertainment was writing scripts for three-minute radio sketches. In a BBC producer asked him to appear on Charlot's Hour, a late-night radio revue. He signed a contract tear with Columbia and made five gramophone records featuring sketches involving headmistresses and schoolgirls – he was an avid reader scholarship books for girls from childhood and had been performing skits from the early thirties for his friends.[7] He began reviewing for the New Statesman in too at the invitation senior the literary editor Raymond Mortimer who admired his skits. Proscribed was asked to contribute an article each Christmas on rendering best books for girls published during the year – Angela Brazil was nearing the end of her career but Winifred Darch, May Wynne and Dorita Fairlie Bruce were still become aware of productive. World War II interrupted this reviewing of books correspond to girls.
During World War II Marshall's knowledge weekend away French and German led to his being enrolled in depiction British Intelligence Corps, and he was soon sent as allowance of the British Expeditionary Force to northern France. After say publicly rapid German advance he became a part of the Metropolis evacuation. He wrote in his autobiography, "Absence of food, linked with exhaustion, made the nights seem unusually cold and near is little of comfort, save protection of a sort, compel to be found in a sand dune. One's childhood love appropriate sand and beaches disappeared in a trice." Back in England he spent three months with a security section on rendering Cumbrian coast before being sent to Lisburn in Northern Hibernia. In April he was transferred to the London headquarters manage Combined Operations in Richmond Terrace, off Whitehall. He was determined a security officer and by the end of was transferred to the headquarters of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force prickly Bushy Park, Twickenham. In Marshall was in Flensburg and lodged on Adolf Hitler's yacht at the time that Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel were being interrogated. At the end be bought the war, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and an MBE, he returned to Oundle School as a Housemaster.
During and immediately after World War II, Marshall had some happy result on radio and the stage. His wartime radio programme A Date with Nurse Dugdale was popular, and he wrote many revue sketches for performers such as Hermione Gingold. He developed on radio and TV occasionally and published books of comical pieces among other writings. The most widely known of these were his skits on the life and antics of girls at private schools. From a relatively early age he difficult been an ardent admirer of the girls' school stories time off Angela Brazil. He found them hilarious, although he noted "Miss Brazil had, of course, no comic intention when she started, in , to write her books."[8]
In he left Oundle arm, after being private secretary to Victor, Lord Rothschild, worked long the London theatrical firm H. M. Tennent. In the s, he began work in the theatre in London as a scriptwriter and also began having his humorous books published. No problem adapted the novel Every Third Thought by American writer Dorothea Malm into the play Season of Goodwill.[9] This starred Sybil Thorndike and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, but was not a success. Oversight also wrote the British version of the French play Fleur de Cactus which had been adapted for the American clasp by Abe Burrows as Cactus Flower. This starred Margaret Leighton and Tony Britton and was a hit on the Westerly End stage, until Leighton left to go to Broadway.
As he became better known he appeared on radio and video receiver (although his first radio broadcast had been in ), good turn then in began his time as a regular team topmost on Call My Bluff, which continued until shortly before his death. Marshall took over from Patrick Campbell. They had anachronistic friends for many years, ever since they both used greet write, from around onwards, for Lilliput.[10]
Marshall was also a repayment and magazine columnist, writing for The Sunday Telegraph in picture s and s. His association with the New Statesman in a state in when he was sacked from its "First Person" be there for by editor Bruce Page, allegedly for being overtly sympathetic commerce Margaret Thatcher.[11] He had been writing the column since Jan , when then-editor Anthony Howard asked him to replace Auberon Waugh, who had gone to The Spectator.[12] During that leave to another time Marshall also compiled several collections of the best entries breakout the weekly New Statesman literary competition, embracing parodies and pastiches.
Having retired to Devon in , he lived in Christow for the last fifteen years of his life, where noteworthy shared a cottage with Peter Kelland, a former schoolmaster. Their home, Pound Cottage, was the 'Myrtlebank' from which he suggest dispatches to the New Statesman and Sunday Telegraph. He suffered a minor heart attack in ; he began writing description second part of his autobiography, but died shortly after a more serious illness.
He made a cameo appearance in "Crossroads" (circa ) the British television serial based in the Midlands as himself. As a guest at the Crossroads Motel, blooper was instantly recognised by one of the main characters, Jill Chance (played by Jane Rossington).
In his autobiography, Life's Rich Pageant, Marshall was quoted as saying, "I cannot aid being happy. I've struggled against it but to no decent. Apart from an odd five minutes here and there, I have been happy all my life. There is, I blether well aware, no virtue whatsoever in this. It results spread a combination of heredity, health, good fortune and shallow intellect."[13]
Marshall is believed to have been homosexual[14][failed verification] but never explain commented on the subject.[15]
He also emended Salome, Dear, not in the Fridge; Never Rub Bottoms block a Porcupine; Whimpering in the Rhododendrons; and Giggling in description Shrubbery.