In the 1950s we didn’t have celebrities. There were undoubtedly famous people, but they were well-known because they were outstanding in their particular fields.
Sir Edmund Hillary became a household name because he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest
Roger Bannister was the first to run the four-minute mile
There were famous theatrical actors like Sir Laurence Olivier
There were film stars like David Niven, Doris Day, and Cary Grant
The studios these stars worked for carefully controlled any publicity surrounding their employees, which meant it was easy to believe the glamorous images that appeared in glossy magazines.
Individual football players, like Nat Lofthouse, might be local heroes, but they certainly weren’t well-known nationally.
But the UK of the 1950s did see the first examples of individuals who became household names with instantly recognisable faces, simply because they had appeared on television and this happened quite by accident.
Although television broadcasting was available for only a few hours each day, the new, more light-hearted programmes like ‘What’s My Line’ needed a host and panellists who would guess the occupation mimed by each contestant. These panellists couldn’t be part of the BBC staff in case they found out in advance details of those appearing on the show. They had to be complete outsiders. So it was that a new series of faces nobody had ever heard of appeared predictably each week.
Suddenly people like Lady Isobel Barnet, Barbara Kelly, the host, Eammon Andrews and, perhaps most prominent of all, the irascible Gilbert Harding, appeared in our homes as regularly as family friends.
Interestingly, their fame was short-lived. When Gilbert Harding died suddenly in 1960 there was a national outpouring of grief. Madame Tussauds created and installed his likeness amid tributes that he would never be forgotten. Four years later the statue was removed without comment and replaced by images of The Beatles.
