Hughie Green

Hugh Hughes Green OStJ (2 February 1920 – 3 May 1997) was an English actor, radio and television presenter, and game show host. Born in Marylebone, London, he was the son of Hugh Aitchison Green, a Scottish former British Army officer from Glasgow who built his fortune supplying canned fish to Allied forces during the First World War, and Violet Elenore Green (née Price), an English woman from Surrey whose father was an Irish gardener. The family maintained a home in Meopham, Kent, where the children lived with their mother while their father conducted business from the Savoy Hotel. Green received his early education at Arnold House School, a boys' preparatory school in the St John's Wood district of Westminster.

Following the collapse of the family business, Green's father directed his stage-obsessed son toward performance. By the age of 14, Green had secured his own BBC Radio programme and organized a touring concert party of child performers billed as Hughie Green and his Gang. After an extensive Canadian tour, he appeared in his first film, Midshipman Easy, in 1935, subsequently traveling to Hollywood, where he appeared in Tom Brown's School Days and performed a cabaret act at the Cocoanut Grove.

Green's Broadway career spanned from 1941 to 1950 and included appearances in the drama Golden Wings and in Captain Brassbound's Conversion. During the Second World War, having been in North America when war was declared, he served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic with RAF Ferry Command. He married Montreal society figure Claire Wilson in 1942, and the couple eventually settled in London in 1947. After returning to Britain, Green engaged in business activities that included the sale of aircraft.

In 1949, Green created a radio talent competition called Opportunity Knocks for BBC Radio, though the series ran for only one season before being cancelled, reportedly on the grounds that it was too American in character for British audiences. Green subsequently brought a lawsuit against the BBC, Carroll Levis, and several associates of Levis, alleging a conspiracy to suppress his programme in favor of Levis's rival show, Discoveries. The case was heard at the High Court in May 1955, with Green represented by Viscount Hailsham. After a twenty-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for the defendants following a deliberation of just twenty minutes. The financial burden of the litigation led Green's creditors to file a bankruptcy petition against him, with a receiving order issued on 8 May 1956. He was not discharged from bankruptcy until 18 June 1958.

Green achieved widespread public recognition in 1955 as host of the ITV quiz programme Double Your Money, which had originated earlier on Radio Luxembourg. During the run of that show, he introduced Monica Rose, a fifteen-year-old Cockney junior accounts clerk who had won eight pounds answering questions on famous women, as a co-host. On 8 November 1966, Green presented Double Your Money from the House of Friendship in Moscow, where Communist Party restrictions prohibited cash prizes and a television set was offered as the top award instead. Green also maintained a periodic on-air rivalry with Take Your Pick host Michael Miles, which both men played for comic effect.

Opportunity Knocks proved to be Green's most enduring and successful format. The show moved to ITV television, first in 1956 and again from 1964, and launched the careers of Les Dawson, Lena Zavaroni, Pam Ayres, and Mary Hopkin, among others. An early discovery through the format was singer Frankie Vaughan, who placed second as part of a duet. Green, who held a pilot's licence, flew a panel of judges between audition venues across Britain in his Cessna aircraft. At its peak, Opportunity Knocks attracted up to 18 million viewers weekly. Green's game show The Sky's the Limit was less successful, dropped by most ITV regional companies after its first run, though it continued in the Yorkshire and Granada regions until 1974 before being cancelled due to low ratings and a dispute between Green and producer Jess Yates.

Green's tenure on Opportunity Knocks ended in controversy. Known for his right-wing political views, he began incorporating political commentary into the family-oriented programme. At the end of 1974 he used the show to urge viewers to wake up to what he characterized as the failings of Harold Wilson's Labour government. In December 1976 he delivered a monologue about the state of the United Kingdom, followed by a choir performing Stand Up and Be Counted, a recording subsequently released as a single in 1977 and widely interpreted as an expression of support for Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher. Thames Television disciplined Green over the incident, but he continued making political statements on air. Following sustained viewer complaints, Thames cancelled the programme in March 1978, replacing it with The Kenny Everett Video Show. In 1983, Green brought legal action against the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, alleging that its 1975–78 version of Opportunity Knocks infringed his copyright. He lost the case, and in 1989 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council rejected his appeal, leaving him with a legal bill of approximately £250,000.

Green was widely recognized for his permanent salesman's smile and Canadian accent. His catchphrase, I mean that most sincerely, became so associated with impressionist Mike Yarwood's impersonation of him that it was sometimes mistakenly attributed to Yarwood. In a 1992 television interview with Phillip Schofield, Green stated that he had originated the phrase himself. As a recording artist, he released singles on the Parlophone, Decca, Columbia, EMI, and Philips labels, and recorded an album, Songs For Children, released on York Records in 1971.

Green had met Claire Wilson on a cruise liner in the mid-1930s when both were teenagers. The couple married in 1942, settled in Montreal, and later moved to London in 1947, where they raised two children in a flat on Baker Street. They separated in 1961 and filed for divorce in March 1975. Green died on 3 May 1997.