THE UFO PRESS BOOK by Marc Martin I own a book which I believe is known in fandom as "the UFO press book". I assume this book was sent to the press and/or television stations to promote the UFO series, but I really don't know any of the details of what it was actually used for. The book is not very impressive looking, as it certainly was not intended as a mass-market item. It is comb-bound, and the only photos are on the front and back cover. The front cover contains a grainy color close-up photo of Col. Freeman's nose and sunglasses, in a shot taken while he is piloting the Seagull X-Ray SST in IDENTIFIED. There is a montage of images pasted onto his sunglass-lenses: a Moonbase interior set, the Harlington-Straker studio sign, a UFO, and Sky One. The only words on the front cover are "UFO" and "ITC entertains the World". The back cover mostly contains addresses of ITC offices around the world, and also has a very small color photo of Lt. Nina Barry standing in front of some Moonbase control panels. The 53 pages inside the book look like they were created on a regular typewriter using 1-1/2 line spacing. Rather unexpectedly, the UFO press book mostly contains background information on UFO's regular cast members. Although there is a lot of good information here, the book must have been written early in the filming of the series, as there is an emphasis on the actors who appeared in the first few episodes, and no mention of those who were introduced later. Also, there are several errors or things that were changed before filming started, the most notable being a description of a Gary North character -- a character who never even appears in the series! Also, there is an amusing overemphasis on the beautiful women who do nothing more than appear in the background of SHADO HQ. Below, I have reproduced all of the text on the inside pages of the book. I have tried to keep everything exactly as it appears in the book, without attempting to correct any errors. Be warned that there are lots of spelling, grammatical, and factual errors in the original text, and they have been lovingly preserved here. :-) ------------------------ Beginning of THE UFO PRESS BOOK ---------------------- ITC - Incorporated Television Company Ltd _"U. F. O."_ (A series of one-hour colour films) _Index_ _Page No._ INTRODUCTION 1 ED BISHOP 9 GEORGE SEWELL 13 PETER GORDENO 16 GABRIELLE DRAKE 19 MIKE BILLINGTON TURNED TO ACTING 21 "DICK TURPIN" BECOMES AN ASTRONAUT! 24 "A" STANDS FOR AYSHEA 26 DANCING LEADS TO THE MOON 29 DOLORES MANTEZ - ELECTRIFYING GLAMOUR 30 MOON GIRL IN OUTER SPACE! 32 THE PERFECT SECRETARY - AND NEVER BEEN ONE 34 LOUISA RABAIOTTI - M0DEL BEAUTY 36 "MISS GUYANA" JOINS "U.F.O." 37 KEITH ALEXANDER IS VERY MUCH MAN! 38 BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC 40 MILKY WAY TO THE STARS 42 HARRY BAIRD - ASTRONAUT 43 JON KELLEY GOES UNDERWATER 44 MAXWELL SHAW LOOKING AT THE MEDICAL WORLD 46 BASIL MOSS - A DOUBLE LIFE! 48 BOTH SIDES OF THE CAMERA 49 "U.F.O." TAKES A LOOK AT GIRLS OF 1980'S 51 _"U. F. O."_ (A series of one-hour colour films) Danger from the unknown..... menace from Outer Space..... the Earth in peril from unseen invaders..... fantastic new developments from man's conquest of the moon..... These provide the background, with drama, adventure and romance, to ITC's new Gerry and Sylvia Anderson productions "U.F.O.", a series of vividly exciting one-hour colour films for television. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson have been living in the future throughout much of their professional film-making careers, their names indelibly associated with colourfully imaginative space-fiction films set in the years to come. And "U.F.O." is still in the future, set in the 1980's. The series, which they have devised with their associate of long standing, Reg Hill - who is producer of the programmes - has an outstanding cast of actors and actresses with the leading roles played by Ed Bishop, George Sewell, Peter Gordeno and Gabrielle Drake. So many people claim to have seen flying saucers and other strange objects that the possibility of their existence cannot be denied. And, just as only a few years ago the landing of men on the moon seemed a far-off daydream, so can confirmation of Unidentified Flying Objects come at any time. What are they? Where do they come from? Who are the occupants? What do they want? The questions have an unlimited range of answers - questions that appeal to the imagination as well as to the scientific mind. "U.F.O." accepts the existence of Unidentified Flying Objects by the 1980's. They are believed to be a threat to the safety of Earth, and a highly organised defence system is set up. It is known as "SHADO" - Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation. Closely guarded under a veil of deep secrecy, it is housed in underground quarters beneath a film studio. The studio itself is actual and is also a facade acting as a cover for the SHADO personnel. As man has already conquered the moon, space fiction becomes fact and it is logical that the SHADO organisation should have a base on the moon - a control base for interceptor craft, manned by a large staff which includes some of the most glamorous girls to be seen on television screens, with Gabrielle Drake in command and such lovely operators as Antonia Ellis and Dolores Mantez. "U.F.O." is a dual-production series, its live action filmed at the M-G-M studios, Elstree, and its special effects at the Century 21 Studios, Slough, the most highly developed studios in the world for the making of futuristic screen productions - a veritable world of wizardry to turn illusion into realism. "Supercar", "Fireball XL-5", "Stingray", "Thunderbirds", "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" and "Joe 90" are among the Supermarionation subjects filmed there, and the studio facilities have been used for special effects in numerous other productions. All the experience gained in the production of these futuristic subjects has gone into the mechanics of "U.F.O.", with its Flying Saucers, Earth-to-Moon craft and underwater craft, and its highly sophisticated computerisation. Press-button drinks. And SID. SID is the last word in computers. The initials stand for Space Intruder Detector. It is so advanced that it is almost human in its reactions. It will fascinate the technically minded. So will all the other ingeniously conceived ultra-modernistic devices, but as "U.F.O." is set in the relatively close future there is nothing that goes beyond the bounds of immediate feasibility. But, although vividly imaginative, "U.F.O." is, beyond all else, a series about people...... people who occupy not only Earth but other planets. Each story is as concerned with human problems as with the puzzle and excitement of threats from outer space. It has the largest resident cast ever assembled for a series, although not all appear in every episode. The regulars are headed by Ed Bishop as the SHADO Commander, who is as deeply concerned with the welfare of the people it is his task to protect as he is with the mysteries of space; by George Sewell as his principle lieutenant; Peter Gordeno as the captain of the remarkable Seagull X-Ray craft; Gabrielle Drake as the girl in command of Moonbase. Ed (short for Edward) Bishop is an American from New York who studied drama in London after winning a Fulbright Scholarship, and has lived in England ever since. His West End stage career began as an understudy and small-part actor in "Bye Bye Birdie", followed by "Little Mary Sunshine", "Look Homeward Angel" and then the Broadway production of "The Rehearsal" and "Man and Superman" in Boston (and, later, in London). Returning to England in 1964, he settled down in London and has spent most of his time in television and TV-films, with his feature movie debut in "The Warlover". His stage work has included the role of John Kennedy in Juan Littlewood's production of "Macbird" and the Bristol Old Vic production of "And People All Around". He has appeared in "The Saint" (five times), "The Baron", "Court Martial", "Man in a Suitcase" and many other series, and in the "Doppleganger" film. George Sewell is a late-comer to the acting scene who, much to his own surprise, achieved immediate success in Joan Littlewood's production of "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be", "Sparrows Can't Sing" and "Oh, What a Lovely War" (the last-named introduced him to Broadway audiences). Before this, he had worked in a variety of jobs but was principally a ship's steward on Cunard lines "Queen Mary" and "Caronia" and then a motor-coach courier. He rapidly proved himself to be a natural actor, and his many films and TV productions include roles in "This Sporting Life", "The Informer", "The Vengeance of She", "Robbery", "Doppelganger", "Z Cars", "Mr. Rose", "Man in a Suitcase", "Private Eye" and "The Power Game" (in which he attracted particular attention as Lady Wilder's male friend). Peter Gordeno, who was born in Burma of an Italian-American father and part-Scot-part-Burmese mother, is far better known as a dancer than as an actor. "U.F.O." does, in fact, provide him with his first dramatic role. His London stage debut was as a chorus dancer in "Blue Magic". He was next a chorus dancer in "West Side Story", and later took over the role of Pepe. Cabaret work followed, and he then developed into a singer as well as dancer and also choreographer, and it was his television work that led to his being tested for "U.F.O." Gabrielle Drake, as the girl in command of Moonbase, plays her first running role in a TV series, but viewers will know her for her many guest appearances in such shows as "Intrigue", "The Avengers", "Haunted" and "The Saint" (she also appears with Roger Moore in his feature film "Crossplot"). Just before taking her role in "U.F.O.", she appeared with Bette Davis in "Connecting Rooms". Her acting background dates back to drama training, work with a new experimental theatre in Liverpool, the Malvern Festival Theatre company, the Birmingham Repertory Company and the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, playing mostly in the classics. Her two close colleagues in "U.F.O.'s" Moonbase Control are portrayed by Antonia Ellis and Dolores Mantez, and another young actress with a running role throughout much of the series is the glamorous Ayshea. Because of the futuristic, skin-tight clothes worn by the girls of the 1980's, every actress in the series has been chosen not only for ability and looks, but a shapely figure. Among the other shapely and attractive girls to be seen are Georgina Moon, Shakira Baksh, Penny Spencer, Rosemary Donnelly, Louisa Rabaiotti and with Norma Ronald as the SHADO secretary. Among the actors with character roles to be seen frequently throughout the series are Hairy Baird, Jeremy Wilkin, Jon Kelley, Keith Alexander, Gary Myers, David Weston, Michael Billington and Maxwell Shaw. Each episode also has prominent guest stars, and these include such noted artists as George Cole, Wanda Ventham, Suzan Farmer, Jean Marsh, Tracy Reed and Suzanne Neve. _The Creators of "U.F.O."_ "U.F.O." marks a new chapter in the careers of the three people responsible for creating the series - Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson and Reg Hill, the team responsible for those "Supermarionation" puppet-film hits like "Supercar", "Fireball XL-5", "Stingray", "Thunderbirds" and "Joe 90". Reg Hill (producer of "U.F.O.") has been closely associated with them throughout those years which placed their productions so far ahead of any other puppet pictures. Now, with "U.F.O.", the puppet figures are replaced by human actors and actresses - but still with a futuristic space-age theme, as all of those Supermarionation subjects have been. It is a natural development which follows the Andersons' entry into flesh-and-blood film production with "Doppelganger", and at the same time making use of their wide experience on the technical side of space-fiction production. Gerry Anderson, executive head of Century 21 productions, is a Londoner from Hampstead who has spent the whole of his career in films except for early experience in a photography studio. He entered the industry as a cutting-room assistant and, in the following years, became "dubbing" editor, assembly cutter and television director. The many films he worked on, in one capacity or another, included "Caravan", "Jassy", "Snowbound", "So Long at the Fair", "The Clouded Yellow", "Never Take No For an Answer", "South of Algiers", "Appointment in London", "They Who Dare", "Prize of Gold" and others. Then he and three other film technicians decided to form their own company, and "Supermarionation" was born with the production of "Supercar" which, with the series that followed, made television film history. Sylvia Anderson (who married Gerry Anderson early in the days of the new company) is not only an executive of the company but is responsible for the futuristic fashions in "U.F.O." Viewers know her voice - or, perhaps it should be said, her voices. She has provided the voices for the majority of the heroines in the Supermarionation series - perhaps the most outstanding of all, that of Lady Penelope in "Thunderbirds". She has also voiced many of the children in the programmes. After studying sociology at London University and working for three years in the United States, she entered films as a secretary and became a continuity girl before joining the company which has now become Century 21 Pictures Ltd. Reg Hill, a Londoner, has brought his qualifications as an artist into film-making, and was art director on the company's films until becoming producer. He worked in advertising and in print before wartime service in the RAF, after which he entered the film industry on special effects and modelling work. It was this that led to his interest in puppet film-making. _The Lighting Cameraman_ The Lighting Cameraman on "U.F.O." is Britain's most experienced TV-film photographer, Brendan Stafford, an Irishman from Belfast who has over 500 series' segments to his credit as well as many feature movies. Among the best-known series on which he has worked have been "The Adventures of William Tell", "The Invisible Man", "Danger Man" (both the original half-hour programmes and the one-hour productions seen in America as "Secret Agent"), "Rendezvous", "One Step Beyond", "Sir Francis Drake", "Man of the World", "Sentimental Agent", "The Prisoner", "The Man Who Never Was", and many of "The Saint" segments. As a member of the Irish Film Society, Brendan made 16mm films which he showed to producer Michael Powell, who suggested that he should go to London. So Brendan gave up the portrait studio he was running and plunged into feature films, directing documentaries and then photographing several productions. For a time, he concentrated on direction of such films as "Stranger At My Door", "Proud Canvas" and "Men Against the Sun", but then returned to camerawork and decided to keep to this. Feature film photography took him into television films for Douglas Fairbanks Jnr., and then one series after another. He occasionally returns to feature filming (latest, "Crossplot", starring Roger Moore), but cannot resist the infinite variety offered by series. SOLID BACKGROUND OF ACTING BRINGS STARDOM FOR EDWARD BISHOP Stardom is no overnight success story for Edward Bishop, who reaches stellar status as the chief of the futuristic defence organisation SHADO, in the "U.F.O." series. He has the physical attributes that go with stardom: good looks, a virile figure, exactly six feet in height, weighing 155 pounds and with light brown hair and blue eyes (though his own hair in the series is hidden beneath a tight-fitting platinum blond wig of futuristic cut). A solid background of acting experience has paved the way for him to take advantage of opportunity now that it has come his way - drama training, London stage plays, from being an understudy upwards to leads, a Broadway play, personal success in Joan Littlewood's controversial "Macbird", Bristol Old Vic, varying roles in a lot of television films and a part in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson feature movie "Doppelganger" which led to their selecting him for "U.F.O." Don't call him Edward, no-one else does. He's Ed to everyone and Ed on the billings. He is an American, but proud of English ancestry which dates right back to 1639 when an ancestor left Guildford, Surrey, to sail to New England and become one of the first settlers in Guildford, Connecticut. He married a girl on the voyage who became the mother of his 13 children. Ed was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 11th. His father, now retired, was in banking all his working life, and both parents are now living in St. Petersburg, Florida. It looked as though Ed would follow in his father's footsteps (he's the first actor in the family which, since that early settler and those who followed him in farming, seem to have covered everything from being horse thieves to Generals!), and he studied business administration with this career in mind. But it was not a career that appealed to him. From quite an early age he had had an ambition to become an actor and this ambition was furthered when, during his Army service from 1954 until 1956, he served with the Armed Forces Radio Service at St. John's, Newfoundland, and had his own disc jockey programmes. When he left the Army, his mind was made up. Despite family opposition, he took a two-year course in drama at Boston University and did so well that he won a Fulbright Scholarship to continue his studies at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in England. His professional career began on 15th. July, 1961, as a gregarious, happy-go-lucky American sailor in "Look Homeward Angel" at the Pembroke Theatre, Croydon. "I'd intended to return to America after my LAMDA training," he says, "but one thing followed another in England, and I've lived in London ever since." He went straight from Croydon into the West End production of "Bye Bye Birdie" as an understudy and playing a variety of small parts, but during the nine months' run of the show the man he was understudying, Peter Marshall, remained infuriatingly healthy and Ed didn't go on for him at all. From this, he played an American Indian in "Little Mary Sunshine", and then "Look Homeward Angel" was transferred to the West End and Ed played his original role for four months. Next came full justification for his having decided to remain in England. He was signed in London for the H.M. Tennant production in New York of "The Rehearsal", with Coral Browne. His debut in his own country was therefore on Broadway and with an English accent! "I wouldn't have dared use an English accent in England," he confides," but I felt I could get away with it in America!" "The Rehearsal" ran for sixth months, and he then went to Boston for "Man and Superman", which he did a year later in London with Sean Phillips. Returning to England in 1964, he brought the Bishop family story to the full turn of the wheel by marrying an English girl, Hilary Preen, whom he met in Trafalgar Square when both were among the interested onlookers watching demonstrators gather. His wife is an economist whose own career has faded into the background since their marriage: they have three young children, two daughters and one son. Ed had made one film appearance with a minor role in Steve McQueen's "The Warlover" in the very early days of his career while appearing in "Bye Bye Birdie", and on returning to England he decided to pay more attention to films. He appeared briefly in several productions, including "2001", and in a lot of television films. He was in five episodes of "The Saint" - always as a man of apparent innocence but turning out to be a crook! - and played a variety of roles in "The Baron", "Court Martial", "Man in a Suitcase" and other shows. In the theatre, he attracted considerable attention from the critics with his portrayal of John Kennedy in Joan Littlewood's production of "Macbird", and went to the Bristol Old Vic to co-star with Shirley Knight in "And People All Around". He was also the "voice" of the puppet hero Captain Blue in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson series, "Captain Scarlet", which was responsible for the Andersons giving him a role in their feature film "Doppelganger", in which his performance so impressed them that they remembered him for "U.F.O." FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE FOR GEORGE SEWELL! An acting career came out of the blue for husky George Sewell when, at the age of 35, he stepped onto the professional stage for the first time in his life and established himself more or less overnight with such success that he became one of Britain's busiest actors and now shares top billing in the "U.F.O." series. No drama training. No acting ambitions. No thought of following in the footsteps of his actor brother Danny Sewell - and Danny had nothing whatever to do with George's entry into show business except that he and George met in a London pub for a drink. Danny had another actor with him - Dudley Sutton. And Dudley suddenly looked over his glass and exclaimed: "You know, George, you ought to go along and see Joan Littlewood. She's looking for someone just like you!" Joan Littlewood was just about to produce "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" for her noted Theatre Workshop. "I thought Dudley was joking," George admits, "and I pointed out that I wasn't an actor, anyway. Dudley seemed to think that this would be an advantage because he told me: 'So much the better - Joan doesn't like using actors!' And he challenged me to go along and see her." George accepted the challenge, and no-one could have been more surprised than he was when he was given a role in the production. He has been acting ever since. "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" was the start of a new career for the London-born George who had worked his way through a vast variety of jobs since leaving school at the age of 14 to become a printer's apprentice. Since then, he has travelled around the world several times. He served in the RAF, worked as a bricklayer, courier, barman, window-cleaner, carpenter and anything else that cropped up. The first time he settled down to anything like a regular job was when he became a ship's steward. The trip to New York became as familiar as the journey from home to office for the average commuter. He served on both the Queen Mary and the first Queen Elizabeth, and also on the Caronia on cruises which took him to almost every part of the world. His cheerful manner made him one of the most popular stewards on the Cunard Line, and it was the sort of life that appealed to his roving nature. Between trips, he worked as a barman in London hotels, at race courses, banquets and various other functions. "Then I felt like a change," he says. "I knew countries all over the world, but I didn't know Europe, and that was a continent I very much wanted to explore." So he threw up his job as a liner steward and became a motor-coach courier for a holiday tours company, seeing Europe from the inside instead of from the sea - a job he continued for six summer seasons, with various barman jobs during the winter months. Then came that meeting with his brother in a London pub and the remarkable change in his life which he was able to accept with the same ease that he had taken so many other jobs. It was not merely a question of being a natural actor: "I had met so many people in so many different surroundings that I found it easy to play almost any sort of character producers wanted. I'd learned more from life than I could have learned at any drama school. I'd also learned French and German on my travels, and these languages came in useful, too." After "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be", Joan Littlewood cast him for a part in "Sparrows Can't Sing", and then for the role of Field Marshal Haig in "Oh, What a Lovely War", which went on tour and to Paris, followed by Broadway. "I'd visited New York time and time again as a ship's steward," he exclaims, "but I hadn't expected, when I left the job, that my next visit would be as an actor on Broadway!" Those three plays for the Theatre Workshop were his training in the theatre, and they paved the way to television and films - as often as not as a crook! He played supporting parts in "This Sporting Life", "The Informer", "Deadlier Than the Male", "Kaleidoscope", "The Vengeance of She" and other movies, including Stanley Baker's "Robbery". Television, in particular, has occupied his time - such productions as "Love Story", "Mr. Rose", "The Man in Room 17", "Man in a Suitcase", "The Suspect", "Private Eye", the running role of Lady Wilder's male friend in "The Power Game" and a long list of plays. When he went into the film "Doppelganger", as the security chief who murdered Herbert Lom, he was well on his way to the running role of Colonel Alec Freeman in "U.F.O." Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, impressed by his performance, immediately signed him for this leading role in their first live-action series. PETER GORDENO - DANCER INTO ACTOR Eyebrows may be raised at seeing Peter Gordeno as one of the straight actors in the "U.F.O." series. Peter Gordeno - actor? But there's a Peter Gordeno who's well-known as a dancer and choreographer and has also become known as a singer. As a dancer, he has been seen in numerous London stage shows and also on television, and the Peter Gordeno Dancers were those featured in the successful "Showtime" TV series. It's the same Peter Gordeno, taking another step forward in his remarkable career and appearing as a straight actor for the first time. He admits: "I've had no drama training. But I had no training as a dancer or as a singer, and I mastered choreography on my own." He admits, too: "Gerry and Sylvia Anderson are sticking their necks out by giving me this chance in 'U.F.O.', but so many other people have stuck their necks out by giving me opportunities, and without my letting them down, that I hope I won't disappoint them." The dark-haired, brown-eyed, 5'11" Peter was born in Rangoon, Burma, of an Italian-American father and half-Scot-half-Burmese mother, on 20th June, 1939. War clouds were gathering, and Peter was three when plans were completed for him to be evacuated to Calcutta, India, with his mother and brother. They were lucky to get there. While sheltering in Rangoon Post Office, the city was dive-bombed; soon after they left, the Post Office was hit, killing everyone inside. Peter's father was killed during the war, and the family remained in Calcutta. Peter went to school in the Himalayas and at the age of 17 did "bits and pieces" in cabaret in Calcutta, gradually improving as a dancer to such an extent that an English dancer, Yvonne Scott, invited him to team up with her as a dance act. They did well, appearing in top clubs throughout India until Peter felt that the time had come for him to try his luck in England: "I didn't know a soul in London, had no idea how to make a start and, because I was totally unskilled, had to take all sorts of jobs. I worked in a plastics factory for a time, had a spell as a petrol station attendant and I was working in a coffee bar when I met a showgirl there and she told me of an audition for dancers which was being held the next day. "The audition was for Shirley Bassey's 'Blue Magic'. About a hundred dancers turned up and only two were needed. For some reason, I was asked to stay and after demonstrating a few more steps I got a job." He was one of the "Blue Magic" chorus boys for three months and then, when he heard that "West Side Story" was opening in London, he went along for an audition, was engaged for the chorus, later took over the role of Pepe, and stayed with the show for three years: "My real training in show business." Towards the end of the three years, he did cabaret work as well, and was then asked by TV producer Ernest Maxim to appear in a Kathy Kirby show. And Maxim, who had heard a demo record Peter had made, gave him the chance to sing. "I'd always wanted to sing," he says. "At first, I was very bad; but I improved. Ernest Maxim also stuck his neck out asking me to do the choreography." Things then began to happen rapidly. His demo disc led to his first record of "You're following Me" and "I've Got Eyes". He went into the Max Bygraves show, "Do Re Mi", later into "Man of La Mancha", became more and more in demand as dancer and choreographer on television, then, just before Christmas in 1968, did a solo spot on the David Frost programme in which he sang a ballad as well as danced, followed by a 13-week engagement on the TV "The Saturday Crowd" as singer and dancer, duetting with Anita Harris, and attracting sufficient attention to catch the eye of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who tested him for "U.F.O." Meanwhile, Peter had married an English girl, Angela. Their first son, Peter, was born on 20th. February, 1964; the second, Jeremy, on 20th. October, 1965; and they have since adopted a daughter, Nicola Jean, who was born on 2nd. October, 1968. "The 20th. of the month seems to be my lucky day!" comments this young man whose own birthday is a 20th. as well. GABRIELLE DRAKE - GIRL OF THE FUTURE If Gabrielle Drake (Gay for short) is anything to go by, there are going to be some very lovely girls around in the years to come. She plays a girl of the future in the "U.F.O." series - a girl with a fabulous figure, beauty and super-intelligence. Even the character she portrays, _Gay_ Ellis, has been named after her. Gabrielle Drake is a girl with a future as well as being of the future. Her acting career has progressed in leaps and bounds since she completed her drama training. She's 5'5 1/2", with light brown hair and green eyes, and she says: "I really can't remember the time when I didn't have acting ambitions. I suppose it was amateur drama at school that started it all. My only idea throughout my schooldays was to go on to an acting academy." She was born in Lahore, Pakistan, daughter of a British engineer who was building a sawmill there at the time. "And," she says, "I was literally born in a packing case - at least, in a whole lot of packing cases! Rather than leave my mother at home or in an hotel, my father built a house for her out of hundreds of packing cases that had contained material for the sawmill." Gay was eight before the family returned to England. She went to the Wycombe Abbey School for Girls and while waiting to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art after leaving school, she went to Paris as an _au pair_ girl to look after a family with four children. During her two years at RADA, she won the Bronze Medal, and then joined a group of enthusiastic post-students who had founded a new theatre in Liverpool. The theatre - the Everyman Theatre - was run on experimental lines, and Gay remained there for six months before becoming the youngest acting member at the time during the reopening season of the famed Malvern Theatre Company. She later joined the Birmingham Repertory Company. During three years, her plays ranged from the contemporary to the classics - from Shakespearean heroines to playing a Birmingham shop-girl in "Mr. Kettle and Mrs. Moon". She was also in a number of George Bernard Shaw plays, and this Shavian connection continued with a tour of "Getting Married". Her many roles included Olivia in "Twelfth Night", Isabella in Marlowe's "Edward II" and Sybil in "Private Lives". Moving south, she played the maid, Vera, in a stage version of "The Servant" at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, and then appeared in "Cyrano de Bergerac" at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre. Gay's television debut was as a bio-chemist in "Intrigue", followed by the part of a thoroughly ruthless young lady in an episode of "The Avengers", the role of a University student in "Haunted" and the lead opposite Roger Moore in a segment of "The Saint", which led to her also appearing with him in his feature film "Crossplot". Her other film appearances have included a leading role in the Bette Davis movie "Connecting Rooms". SO MIKE BILLINGTON TURNED TO ACTING If Michael Billington looks almost aggressively fit when playing the role of astronaut Paul Foster in the "U.F.O." series, it's because he is a keep-fit fiend, does a lot of running, spends most of his spare time in the gym, eats health foods and is practically a vegetarian. He's a six-footer, with light brown hair, blue eyes, a 41-inch chest and weighs 182 pounds. He doesn't really like his name because he says it sounds "stuffy," but he's stuck with it now because he has been using it for so long. But he'd appreciate it if you would call him Mike instead of Michael. Mike likes playing tough roles, and hopes this is the way his career will develop. But acting is relatively new. He was 23 before he decided to become an actor (he was born on 24th. December, 1941), but he had been in show business for sometime before this. Born in Blackburn, Lancashire, he is the son of a former factory manager who has retired to the Isle of Man, where he's a local sub-postmaster and runs two grocery shops. Mike himself went from school into the estimating department of a neon sign factory, but was so keen on amateur theatricals that he left after six months to try to get into show biz. "I hadn't really thought of acting professionally," he says. "I felt I might be able to work in the film cutting rooms and become an editor - maybe later on, a director." He _did_ get into the film world, but not on the production side. Arriving in London, he found a job on the distribution side with Warner-Pathe. He was at least in films! Then, wandering around the West End with a pal one day, they looked at the pictures of the lovelies at the non-stop revue show at the Windmill Theatre and went in. Acting on the stage with a lot of lush lovelies seemed a wonderful way to earn a living, so Mike went around to the stage door, asked for an audition, was granted one and found himself behind the footlights in comedy sketches, feeding straight lines to the principal comic and, he adds, "Lifting the dancing dollies in ballet scenes!" He also wrote several of the sketches. From this unexpected entry into the show world, he drifted into musicals as a hoofer, appeared in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and "Little Me", did some cabaret work, and appeared in the "Broadway Goes Latin" TV series. He also worked as a straight man to Danny La Rue for a year. He got around, at last, to the realisation that all this was good fun and earning him a living but that it wasn't what he was really carved out to do. So he took drama and voice production lessons, turned his back on musical shows and concentrated on drama. He had a small part as a police guard and understudy in the West End production of "Incident at Vichy", with Sir Alec Guinness and Anthony Quayle, played one of the footballers in the TV "United" series, and then worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company as small-part player and understudy for a year. Another part in television followed - a small role in "The Prisoner" in which he had a fight scene with Patrick McGoohan, and Rose Tobias Shaw, casting the "U.F.O." series, remembered interviewing him for his role in "The Prisoner", and called him to be tested. The astronaut role emerged, and Mike found himself playing one of the regulars in the series, in which he has something of a roving commission - and some lush girl-friends! DICK TURPIN BECOMES AN ASTRONAUT! David Weston can't complain that he is type-cast, though it would be easy for such a pleasantly good-looking young man to find himself stuck in romantic roles. He has switched from the 18th. century to the future for his role as an astronaut of the 1980's in the "U.F.O." series - but it was as the bold, bad highwayman Dick Turpin in the Walt Disney movie "The Legend of Young Dick Turpin" that David first attracted attention ("And I'd never been on a horse in my life before that!" he exclaims). He was a serf in the film of "Becket" - as the young Saxon monk who became Becket's servant - and Laertes to Richard Chamberlain's "Hamlet" on the stage. The many other roles he has played include a doctor in the film "Doctor in Distress", a "professional type" in "The Beauty Jungle", a young Norwegian in "Heroes of Telemark", in which he was Richard Harris's right-hand man, a biology teacher in a TV play "Ruined Houses" and a touring actor in another TV play "Margaret Mitchell's Solicitors". David himself is a Cockney by birth. His parents run a fish-and-chip shop in Brixton. Nevertheless, it was through an historically regal role that he became a professional actor, and Richard Burton was really responsible. David was playing Henry V the East London Youth Centre and Richard Burton was paying the same role at the Old Vic. When Burton went along to see the amateur production, he went back-stage afterwards, congratulated young David Weston on his performance and advised him to take up acting as a career. David did so, studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, did six months in repertory and then made a very good impression as Romeo in a TV production of "Romeo and Juliet" - a schools' presentation in which Jane Asher was Juliet. He appeared in one of the stories in the "Spread of the Eagle" TV series, played in several films and won stardom for the first time in "Dick Turpin". His part of Gary North in "U.F.O." is his first running role (appearing irregularly) in a series. "A" STANDS FOR AYSHEA A large gold "A" hanging from a thin gold chain identifies her as Ayshea, the girl who plays Operator 2 of SHADO personnel in the "U.F.O." series - and it was because she was wearing it when auditioned for the role that it was decided that she should be the only regular to display any jewellery. Apart from this, she is clad only in a tight-fitting nylon cat suit which encases her from neck to toe, with a belt containing such essentials as lipstick that a girl needs to see her through the day. Ayshea is also the only girl in the series to be seen with her own hair - jet-black hair that goes with dark brown eyes and an exotic glamour that comes of having a father from Kashmir. She has two further distinctions. At 5'3 1/2", she is one of the smaller girls in the cast. And she is the girl who opens the series in the first episode when, wearing a striking orange suit for her "cover" as a film studio girl, the camera tracks behind her for some distance, showing only her very shapely rear portions. Ayshea really is her name, and it's the only name she uses, even for her bank account. Her surname used to be Hague, but it became Brough soon after the series had gone into production and she married her record producer Christopher Brough (son of Peter Brough). Ayshea is pronounced _Eye_-sha. "Which," she agrees, "sounds like a sneeze, and now that I'm married it sounds as though I've got a cough as well!" Ayshea was born at Highgate, London. Her father is a former cosmetic manufacturer who also broadcast for the BBC during the war years; her mother is ex-actress Rosalie Andrews, who gave up the stage when she eloped at the age of 19. Because her mother loved France, Ayshea was brought up there until returning to London to attend the Arts Educational School, and she made her film debut at the age of nine in "Tom Thumb". She studied acting, dancing (classical and modern ballet), singing and modelling, and became a photographic model. But modelling had its complications: "Because I had the face of a twelve-year-old, but a matured figure!" Her extraordinarily, fascinatingly deep singing voice took her into recording (with three singles and her first album made during the production of "U.F.O.") and cabaret. As a cabaret artiste, she has reached top billing on one of the biggest circuits, and it was her singing that provided her with her first major TV break when she guested on the "Discotheque" programme and was asked to remain as a regular singer and commere. The show ran early in 1969, and while in "U.F.O.", Ayshea was signed up for a further series of the programme. Her other TV appearances have included a wide range from "Othello" to "Mickey Dunne". Her movie appearances include "The Winslow Affair" and "Nine Hours to Rama". In the theatre she has appeared in "The King and I" and a mime play at Drury Lane. But her stage, film and TV appearances had nothing whatever to do with her being cast for her role in "U.F.O." - it was an ultra-glamorous picture of her in a Sunday newspaper that did the trick! Of her eye-catching, pale grey catsuit, which at first glance makes one wonder if she has anything on at all except for her belt and insignia, Ayshea says: "I was embarrassed at first because it made me feel naked, although I was covered from head to toe! Now I love it because it makes one feel so free and easy. If this is the clothing of the future, I'm all in favour of it!" ANTONIA ELLIS HAS DANCED AROUND THE WORLD AND NOW REACHES THE MOON! Antonia Ellis has danced her way around much of the world. Now she has danced right off the globe to find herself with a straight acting role on the moon. She is one of the futuristic Moonbase Control operators in the "U.F.O." series. The 5'6 1/2" Antonia, whose real colouring is mid-brown (and not the mauve seen in the series!) with blue eyes, has played straight roles occasionally before this, but her career has been devoted mainly to musical shows. She has played Dandini in "Cinderella", has appeared in "Sweet Charity" and for sometime as soubrette in the "Talk of the Town" show in London; and has been seen in such films as "Casino Royale" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". She comes from Newport, in the Isle of Wight, and is the daughter of dance-band leader Martin Ellis. Antonia intended at first to become a ballet dancer and attended the Elmhurst Theatrical Boarding School with this in mind. But, with the realisation that she was not likely to go far in ballet, she decided to go on to drama school. Then, instead, took a job with an American-Oriental dance company, and found herself travelling to the far ends of the world. She was in Japan for eighteen months: "And when they gave me a kimono to wear, I pointed out that I couldn't pass as Japanese. So they made me half-English!" She danced in Beirut and elsewhere, and then returned to England where the tendency was still for her to be cast in musical shows. Now she adds glamour, minus dancing, to the "U.F.O." series! DOLORES MANTEZ - ELECTRIFYING GLAMOUR Two worlds meet up in a glamorous combustion named Dolores Mantez....... the worlds of Africa and Ireland. The combination is electrifying, as viewers can judge when seeing Miss Mantez as a girl of the future in the "U.F.O." series. The dusky beauty of this striking actress comes of an African father and an Irish mother. Dolores herself was born in Liverpool, but it was in London that the public first saw her as an amateur singer and semi-pro. The semi-professional work came while she was working, for a gown shop, making dresses. And semi-pro work led her into full-time professional singing when she joined a group and appeared in cabaret. She still sings in cabaret and at social functions, but she has become more and more of a straight actress, and this happened by sheer chance when she was visiting her agent. Coming down the stairs was another agent. He didn't know her, but he guessed that her presence in the building meant that she was in show business. "My own agent handled singers," Dolores explains. "This one handled straight players. And at the time he was looking for coloured players to appear in the film, 'Sapphire'. He stopped and spoke to me, and that's how I came to play the part of a student in the picture." Her next role was in a segment of the TV series, "Shadow Squad", and it combined both her existing and new careers: she sang and acted in the story. From then onwards, her acting career developed. She had a five-line role as a nurse in the movie "Life for Ruth", starring Patrick McGoohan - and not so very long afterwards, she was playing opposite him in a "Danger Man" ("Secret Agent") episode titled "Loyalty Always Pays", in which she appeared as an agent in Africa working with the Danger Man, and again with him in a later episode as a West Indian girl. Dolores played a coloured nurse in a children's TV series, appeared in "Human Jungle", "Late Night Extra", "Breakaway" and other shows; toured in two stage musicals, had a light comedy role with Margaret Lockwood in the West End production "Every Other Evening", found success in the London cabaret world, and has played in "Porgy and Bess" in East Berlin. Her TV appearances since then have included a guest role in a "Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)" segment. MOON GIRL IN OUTER SPACE! No casting could be more appropriate in an outer space series. Her name is Georgina Moon - and she is one of the girls to be seen making contact with the moon in the "U.F.O." stories. Moon is her real name, too: it belongs to a petite, 5'2 1/2", fair-haired girl with sparkling blue eyes. And if stardust has been sprinkled on that pretty face, it's because Georgina was born into show business, has been brought up in it and is part and parcel of it. She's Georgina - which sounds ultra-glamorous, and suggests to some people that it might be a stage name - because she has been named after her father, actor-comedian George Moon. Her mother was formerly an ice-skater. Georgina inherits her father's flair for comedy. She can aIso act and dance, and her stage training can be said to have started at the tender age of three when she first went to dance school and very soon appeared in the school's productions at the London Adelphi Theatre. George Moon encouraged his daughter to become an actress right from the start. She was educated at a theatrical school, and she was only 13 when she made her film debut as Dirk Bogarde's daughter in "The Mind Benders" (and she was too young to be allowed to see it because it had an 'X' certificate!). While at school she appeared in children's TV programmes, the stage production of "Toad of Toad Hall" and in several TV commercials. And, at the age of 16, her career began in earnest, playing in such TV shows as the Dickie Henderson comedies, schools programmes, "Vendetta" and then the running role of the pert and pretty maid in "The Liberace Show". Georgina has also appeared in the film, "Carry On Camping". PERFECT SECRETARY - BUT SHE HAS NEVER BEEN ONE A super secretary never changes. The same qualifications that were required yesterday are required today - and they'll be required tomorrow, And if the "U.F.O," series is anything to go by, they will be the same in the 1980's. For the actress who portrays Ed Bishop's perfect secretary is Norma Ronald - and it was Miss Ronald who played that highly efficient secretary to Sir John Wilder, Kay Lingard, in "The Power Game" series. But Norma Ronald has never been a secretary in private life! The Newcastle-born Norma has been an actress since she was 15, when she was taken on as an assistant stage manager and small-part actress by her local repertory company. And her first appearance on the stage was as a fifty-year-old woman! "I became younger as time went on!" she exclaims. "I even got down to portraying girls of my own age!" More and more repertory followed. She went south to join the Leatherhead Repertory Company, and went on to other companies throughout England, The most important were the Joan Littlewood Workshop and the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon. She came around, however, to concentrating more and more on radio and television: "Probably more radio than anything else for sometime because I seemed to have a gift for mimicry and being able to produce virtually any kind of accent." On marrying actor Edward Judd (they met in the TV studios when he looked in for a drink in the bar - and he proposed to her in a bar at St. Ives, in Cornwall!), Norma semi-retired from acting and confined herself to two sound radio series, one with Dick Emery and the other with Deryck Guyler in his "Man From the Ministry", until "The Power Game" was revived and she was persuaded to return. And now she is a secretary again! LOUISA RABAIOTTI - MODEL BEAUTY Glamour is the keynote for a 5'8", 119-pound, excitingly attractive blonde with blue eyes named Louisa Rabaiotti, who is a model as well as being an actress, loves clothes and is seen time and time again in fabulous outfits - plus a lot of bikini posing for travel brochures. And she looks more glamorous than ever in an outfit which covers her from top to toe for her occasional appearances in the "U.F.O." series. It's a close-fitting cat suit. Louisa is English by birth and comes from Sidcup, Kent; but, as her name suggests, she is of Italian blood. Her father, who owns a chain of hotels and restaurants in and around London, is an Italian from Parma; but her mother is Irish. Louisa was one of the girls whose sex-appeal caused such attention in the early "This is Tom Jones....." TV programmes that they were dropped from the series - Tom's fans didn't want to see other girls monopolising him! And she's been in such movies as "Casino Royale" and "Decline and Fall" as well as many other TV shows. Louisa went to finishing school in Florence for a year before starting on her modelling career and that, in turn, has taken her to a lot of countries including visits to Cyprus, Beirut and the Channel Islands. With a father who owns so many restaurants, Louisa has no problems of where to eat. "But," she says, "I'm not greedy - and I have to think of my figure!" "MISS GUYANA" ADDS INTERNATlONAL NOTE TO "U.F.O." Shakira Baksh arrived in Britain in 1967 as "Miss Guyana" in the Miss World contest. She came third. And her dusky glamour adds to the international note of the "U.F.O." series, in which she appears as one of the lovely Moonbase operators. Being chosen "Miss Guyana" did much to open up a show business career for her in England, and that's why she decided to stay instead of returning home. It wasn't long before she had become one of the highest-paid models in the country, her face familiar to British viewers through her being seen so frequently in TV commercials as a girl with a passion for instant coffee. Her exotic appeal soon led to acting offers - and acting is what she really wants to do. This is why she took acting lessons and also accepted as many small parts in films as possible. "All I have had to do," she admits, "is to look decorative - but I have been getting camera experience." The "U.F.O." series gives her plenty of that, although her role calls for little more than looking both busy and glamorous on the Moonbase control panel. But she does, at any rate, appear in numerous episodes. She admits, though, that she is likely to cause some confusion because of her decision to use the name of Shella Baksh instead of Shakira Baksh for her straight acting career after completion of "U.F.O." MAN OR MOUSE? KEITH ALEXANDER IS VERY MUCH MAN! You wouldn't take Keith Alexander to be a mouse. After all, he's a 5'11 1/2" tall, husky, athletic, dark-haired Australian, with a background of sporting activities. And he's very much a young man of the future as the No. One radio operator in the "U.F.O." series. But he admits to being a mouse - at least, the voice of a mouse. It's his voice that is heard when television's most famous mouse, the lovable Topo Gigio, comes to the screen. Keith Alexander's voice, even more than his handsome face, is his fortune. He is heard even more frequently than he is seen. His was the voice of the puppet Sam Loover in the "Joe 90" Supermarionation series; a voice heard again and again as a film commentator; and very often the voice of other people, for he has frequently been called in to "dub" the voices of celebrities for newsreel films when the sound track has been poorly recorded (the most famous of all being when he dubbed the voice of the late President Nehru). Keith has trained his voice so perfectly and so exactingly that he can reproduce the accents of anyone you care to name, with the result that he has played characters of all ages and nationalities - in one show, he portrayed six Greeks and three Portugese in the space of fifteen minutes! It was while he was studying engineering and, later, the law at Adelaide University that he took part in university revues and gained a reputation for imitating the voices of statesmen and celebrities. He also sang. As time went by, he found himself devoting more and more attention to drama until his law tutor suggested that he should try his hand at acting - "To get it out of your system!" Keith didn't get it out of his system. Instead, he went along to see an agent and was sent to two auditions, showing such promise that he was offered roles in two shows and had to decide in a hurry which to take. He chose a role in the J.C. Williamson production of "My Three Angels". The following day, he went along to the Australian Broadcasting Commission for an interview - and got that job, too! Since then, his career hasn't faltered and, early in 1965, he decided to travel to London, where he has been ever since except for numerous visits to America to appear in the Ed Sullivan shows. The many British TV shows in which he has appeared include "Softly, Softly", "Mrs. Thursday" and "No Hiding Place". JEREMY WILKIN - BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC Jeremy Wilkin, who appears as the "Skydiver" Lieutenant in the "U.F.O." series, is a man of two worlds, equally at home as an actor on both sides of the Atlantic, English by birth but nationalised Canadian, with stage experience throughout the United States and Canada, and now so busy in English films and TV shows that he finds it difficult to get away from London. He's blond - very blond. He's blue-eyed. Luckily, he is also husky. "You've got to be tough if you're male and very blond. You have to learn to stand up for yourself as a kid and that teaches you to learn how to use your fists!" He plays Rugby football; and he's a Judo enthusiast - a pastime that has led to his arranging a lot of fight scenes for stage shows. Now and then, he dyes his hair dark: "Simply because being a blond is restricting so far as lots of roles are concerned. But I keep to my natural colouring as much as possible." He's married (to a Canadian girl, former singer Mary Newland) and has four children, two sons and two daughters. Jeremy was born at Byfleet, Surrey, the son of an engineer; but also born right into show business through his musical-comedy actress mother, Greta Fayne, well-known as a star in the C.B. Cochran shows. It was through his mother that Jeremy grew up with a musical appreciation, and he studied the piano for twelve years. Nevertheless, his own ambitions were to become a doctor. He studied medicine as far as taking his pre-med examinations before deciding that, after all, one of the arts had to be his calling, and he hesitated between becoming a concert pianist or an actor. Acting won. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, gained experience in repertory, and made his first London appearance (as a singer!) in "Henry V11", and then "Murder at the Cathedral" before emigrating to Canada and settling in Toronto. He was soon established as a stage and TV actor there, making over 100 TV appearances in such shows as "Ondine" (as the knight), "The Death of Peter Mann", "Colombe" (as the husband), a segment of "Cannonball", and other plays including "Murder Story", "The Cocktail Party" and "The Three Sisters". In the theatre, he played three seasons at Stratford (Ontario) and in "Rhinoceros" and "George Dillon" (the title role); toured America with the Canadian players; appeared in "The Hostage" in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; and reached New York in "The Long and the Short and the Tall". His worst stroke of bad luck, he says, was when in Los Angeles with "The Hostage". He broke a leg when tripping over his Staffordshire Bull Terrier dog, and had to leave the cast. His understudy took over - and won a movie role out of it! Nevertheless, Jeremy is still a dog lover and now has a Dutch Keeshond. Since he returned to England, one part has followed another without a break. He has been in "Court Martial", "Man in a Suitcase" and many other film series; in a "Detective" segment, "The First Lady", "Troubleshooters" and many other video plays. Immediately prior to being cast for "U.F.O.", he was in the feature film "Doppelganger". MILKY WAY TO THE STARS FOR GARY MYERS Television commercials for milk chocolate have paved the way to the stars for Gary Myers, the 6'1", good-looking Australian who is one of the outer space astronauts in the "U F.O." series. His work as star of some twenty-five commercial advertisements has turned him into an actor after a remarkable, globetrotting, take-what-comes-next life of adventure which started in Perth, Australia, where he was born on 22nd. July, 1941. His husky physique (175 pounds - and he has dark brown hair and green eyes) took him into the rank of Physical Training Instructor for three of the six years in which he served in the Australian Army, and after that he decided to work his way around Australia and then around the world. "I was a beach bum for a couple of years, just living off the land," he says. He went to Malaya, lazed all day for months on end on the Gold Coast, lived in Brussels for a year, made his way to Cannes and worked on a yacht as a crew member. He then took a boat to the Bahamas, and next arrived in London. During those years, he took any job that was going. For one spell he picked up glasses in an hotel bar. Another time, he worked in a health store. "Lots of what you might call casual employment," he remarks. "Just jobs to provide me with the money to eat." In London, he met up with a friend who suggested that his looks and physique would be ideal for modelling, so he became a model and found himself in commercials and becoming interested in acting to such an extent that he studied at an Actor's Workshop. So now he's an actor - until his wanderlust takes him off again! HARRY BAIRD - ASTRONAUT Harry Baird has been a sailor, dishwasher, longshoreman. He has twice sailed round the world. And now he takes off into outer space as an astronaut in "U.F.O." The coloured actor from Georgetown, British Guiana (Guyana), might well have followed in his father's footsteps as a lawyer if it hadn't been for his yen to see the world. But his globetrotting came to an end when he arrived in London to visit his brother and decided to study drama which he had enjoyed so much as a schoolboy. For a time, though, he became involved in car racing, but he retired from this to take up judo: it was less dangerous! His drama apprenticeship was with the Actor's Studio in London. He took part in a lot of experimental work, and gained repertory experience at Liverpool and Manchester. Returning to London, he appeared in such plays as "Kismet", "Nude With a Violin", and several others; into TV in "The White Hunter" and "African Patrol" and since then numerous plays and guest spots in series; into films with "He Who Rides a Tiger", "Sapphire" and a long string of other movies, some of them in Italy, right up to "The Italian Job" and "The Untouchables". He's big and muscular - 6'1" in height and weighing 195 pounds. And it's scarcely surprising that he should almost invariably find himself in physically active roles. TV ANNOUNCER JON KELLEY COMES OFF THE AIR TO GO UNDERWATER Noted among British audiences as a TV announcer and compere, Jon Kelley now dons costume and make-up for a contrasting role as the engineer on the futuristic underwater "Skydiver" craft in the "U.F.O." television series. Born in London, of Irish/Jewish descendants, his desires to become an actor can be blamed on a great aunt who ran away to become a circus tight-rope walker! His grandfather, too, was something of a black sheep in the family: leaving Ireland to go to London, he married a Jewish girl in spite of opposition from both his and her relatives, and was later killed in a cable-laying accident. Despite this turbulent family background, the young Jon Kelley was noted for his shyness when he joined the London School of Drama for two years in 1952 From there he went into repertory, making his professional stage debut at Harrogate in Yorkshire as the son in "His Mother's Son". Then, conscripted into the Army, he became a sergeant in the Medical Corps, and saw service in Egypt during the Suez crisis. At the same time, he began announcing with the Forces Broadcasting Service. On returning to Civvy-st., he went back into rep. appearing at such places as Hornchurch, York, Scarborough, Harrogate and Farnham, cast mainly as juvenile characters. A period of unemployment followed, but after visiting a hospital for treatment for a suspected blood disease he was offered a job there, and worked also on building sites and in a theatre to fill in time. An audition as an announcer for the Tyne Tees television station in the north of England then proved fruitful and it wasn't long before he was offered a programme of his own. The next logical step was to move to London and join the Rediffusion company, which he did in 1966, and became a well-known figure, particularly with the younger viewers. But when the various independent companies were reorganised in 1967, he decided to return to acting, and, since then, has done a variety of film and stage work. Married to a former television make-up girl, Jon's family consists of two young daughters. MAXWELL SHAW TAKES A LOOK AT THE MEDICAL WORLD It was, perhaps, an unkind gesture on the part of fate that almost as soon as Maxwell Shaw stepped into the role of a doctor in the "U.F.O." series, he was taken ill and found himself in hospital. Happily, he was able to return for further episodes - "With," he says, "first hand and up-to-date knowledge of the medical world!" Though so much of his time has been spent in the production of plays in recent years, Maxwell Shaw is still one of the very frequently-seen character actors in British movies and TV shows - a Cockney (though his father was born in France) whose dark, handsome looks usually find him in Continental roles. There are, in fact, few nationalities he hasn't portrayed, among them Mexican, Russian, Chinese, Indian, West Indian, Greek, Arabian and most Europeans, and even a Negro in two stage plays. Max's early ambition was not to become an actor, however. He studied art with the intention of becoming a commercial artist, and it was through this that he became interested in costume and stage designing for a repertory company and then, unexpectedly, being asked to play several small roles because the company was short of actors. The roles increased in size and Max became more and more interested in acting. The theatre became his career, not only as an actor but as a producer because at one of the twenty repertory companies with which he worked the producer suddenly walked out and Max was asked to take over. Acting and producing have shared an equal interest for him ever since. London success came to him with the title role in "The Good Soldier Schweik". "The Quare Fellow" and numerous other plays followed, and he made his New York debut in "The Hostage", remaining there for a lot of television work and also meeting, falling in love with, and marrying casting executive Rose Tobias. He eventually returned to London because, he says: "I realised that if I remained in America I would have to go to Hollywood and this would mean giving up the stage. And I didn't want to do that." Back again in London, he continued with a stage career and also films and television - with parts that seemed to go in cycles. "I found myself playing a lot of very gentle roles," he says, "then suddenly I was cast as a very sinister gentleman in one show after another until another switch which took me into romantic roles." Now he is regarded as a thoroughly versatile actor who can step into almost any type of characterisation called for, with TV appearances in such programmes as "The Crunch", "Danger Man" ("Secret Agent"), "Espionage", "Gideon's Way", "The Saint", "Man in a Suitcase", "The Troubleshooters", "Nicholas Nickelby" and a very wide variety of plays. DOUBLE LIFE OF A FUTURISTIC DOCTOR! Basil Moss appears as a doctor in the "U.F.O." series - a medico of the future. Alan Drew is a pop singer and also a song writer. They are, in fact, one and the same man. Basil Moss, actor, uses Alan Drew as a pseudonym for his second career, in which he specialises in romantic ballads. And, of course, he would like to become famous in both spheres. He's proud to carry on the name of Basil Moss. His father was an actor of the same name - a highly respected actor whose career was tragically cut short when he was killed in a car crash. Basil Moss (junior) was a baby at the time. Basil's grandfather was also an actor, so he is very much carrying on a family tradition. He knew, from an early age, that this was what he was going to do. After National Service in the Army, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, played in repertory at Leatherhead and then Guildford, and made his first London appearance in "The Bad Soldier Smith" and "The Affair". His television debut was as a newspaper reporter in the "Deadline Midnight" series. Since then, he has appeared in a wide variety of plays, including "David Copperfield", the D.H. Lawrence stories, "Champion House" and "Love Story". Six feet in height, he has clear blue eyes, brown hair and celebrates his birthday on 25th May. SHANE RIMMER - BOTH SIDES OF THE CAMERA The name of Shane Rimmer can mean different things to different people. Some will think of him as a versatile actor. Others will recognise his name as that of author of a lot of screenplays. Many will think of him right away as a singer. And others will recollect that his voice was heard as that of Scott Tracy in the puppet series "Thunderbirds" and as the voices of numerous other characters in the various puppet series produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Shane Rimmer is many things rolled into one! And in the "U.F.O." series, he turns up from time to time in various characters. His screenwriting career began during the production of the "Thunderbirds" series when he heard that a script was needed in a hurry. He went home, sat down and wrote a story outline - and had it accepted. It was not an unexpected talent. Shane is the son of a Canadian journalist-turned-advertising man. But the Toronto-born Shane opted for a career in radio and he had his own television programme as a disc jockey at Station CHVC, Niagra Falls (starting at 6 o'c every morning) and then became a sports announcer at Oshawa, near Toronto, where he formed a vocal trio (called the Johnny Paul Trio) with two other members of the station. Towards the end of 1953, they decided to try their luck in England and had no success whatever until the act was re-formed and renamed "The Three Deuces" and made their first record. The Three Deuces returned to Canada and continued with a successful cabaret career in clubs at Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, and also went to the Palace in New York. When Shane decided to go "single", he also decided to train as an actor and, after studying in New York, played small parts in Canadian TV shows. His return to singing was in a TV musical "Ring Around the Square" for CBC, and for the same company he then played drama leads and sang in variety shows. He also appeared in two movies, "Flaming Frontier" and "The Runaways", starred in the TV musical variety series "Come Fly With Me", and later returned to London. His footsteps took him to Turkey to sing at American bases. And it was there that he met English dancer Sheila Logan. This was why he decided to settle in England: they married and have since had three sons. In England, Shane soon found himself accepted as a straight actor, and he spent nine months in the TV serial "Compact", which gave him so little time for his singing that he has concentrated more on acting ever since. In fact, the only time he has sung recently has been when visiting his family in Canada and accepting supper club engagements - "To help pay the fares!" he exclaims. Now he writes as well! "U.F.O." SERIES TAKES A LOOK AT GIRLS OF THE 1980's What are girls going to look like in the 1980's? Looking ahead - but nor too far ahead - is one of the requirements of a futuristic series like "U.F.O.", which is set in the 1980's. Looking ahead to an age when the moon will be inhabited by girls from our own planet - to an age when science has taken further leaps forward - to a time when it's accepted that women are doing men's jobs. Sylvia Anderson, who is responsible for the fashions in the series, has the difficult task of predicting fashions as they are likely to be in a decade's time, and has boldly asserted that mini skirts will be back again by then. It also seems, to judge by the girls selected to appear in the series, that they will be taller than today's average. Very few are under 5'5" (Ayshea and Georgina Moon are almost the only representatives of the petite miss!). That's the height of the series' feminine lead, the very shapely Gabrielle Drake. Her Moonbase colleagues, Antonia Ellis and Dolores Mantez, are a little taller. And of those who pop in from time to time, Louisa Rabaiotti can be considered typical: she's 5'8". The girls working on the moon are certainly going to catch the appreciative eye with their flesh-tinted, skin-tight type of cat suits, fitting from the neck downwards and encasing feet and arms right down to the wrists. "Just the bare essentials underneath!" exclaims Gabrielle Drake, who agrees with Ayshea that these costumes make a girl feel free and easy and are the ideal worksuits in thermostatically controlled temperatures (as all offices will certainly be by the 1980's). The girls also wear mauve wigs...when on duty, that is. Only once in the series do they appear without them, revealing their own natural colouring. "Eye-catching," Gabrielle Drake remarks, "and I suppose the trend is already with us. More and more girls are wearing wigs these days, and the time may well arrive when they become something of a uniform." Looking into the 1980's, Miss Drake is convinced that the "U.F.O." styles will be in evidence, though she won't commit herself to actual dates. "Fashions will have changed several times by then!" she exclaims. But she is not sure what stage of equality of sexes will have been reached. "By then," she says, hopefully, "women may have struck a balance. They'll have less equality in some ways; more in others. The suffragette days were far more extremist than now. Women are going to lose out badly if they demand too much independence because they're always going to need men - at least, I sincerely hope so!" What I do hope is that there will be more nursery schools for children - relieving mothers of the burden of looking after them and making it easy to go out to work. And I think "U.F.O." is right when it shows most women holding highly responsible jobs. "But heaven forbid that we should ever lose our femininity!" Gabrielle Drake is not likely to do so, and she certainly doesn't do so in the series! ---------------------------- End of THE UFO PRESS BOOK ------------------------