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MacDonald Hobley was born in 1917, the son of the naval chaplain at the cathedral in
Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. Christened Dennys Jack Valentine
McDonald-Hobley, he began his acting career in repertory theatre, under the
stage name Robert Blanchard and toured before the Second World War in
Priestley's Time and the Conways. Hobley
served in the conflict with the Royal Artillery and was involved in an
ultimately abandoned plot to adbuct Adolf Hitler and bring him to Britain. He
served, in the final months of the war in Ceylon, working for a Forces radio
station - which would prove to be a turning point in his career. Shortly
after returning to civvy street, he was selected from over two hundred
applicants to become an announcer for BBC television.
In 1946, when he
took on the BBC job, announcers were still decked out in dinner jackets and
bow ties. The style was incredibly staid, but along with colleagues such as
Jasmine Bligh, Sylvia Peters and Mary Malcolm, MacDonald Hobley was very soon a
famous television face. By 1954, he had been voted TV Personality of the
Year, and was reputedly a favourite of women viewers, his good looks, wit
and charm proving a potent combination.
In
1956, ABC-TV, part of the fledgling commercial channel ITV, offered Hobley a
contract to 'defect' from the BBC. It was an opportunity that he could hardly
refuse - the £100 weekly salary was five times that he was then receiving
from the BBC. However, it was something of a double-edged sword working for
the commercial channel. Although he was happy there, he did find that he was
called upon somewhat too often to make a fool of himself in what he considered
childish programmes. Among his ITV programmes was Yakity-Yak, subtitled
"the dizzy show", which encouraged six girl panellists to give
silly, hair-brained answers to questions - not something that women's groups
would approve of today... The contract ended in 1959, and while he continued
working for ITV, he ensured that he was free to work for other companies. This
meant that while continuing as chair of such programmes as Does the Team
Think?, he was able to pursue roles in the theatre and eventually, appear
in BBC programmes such as It's A Knockout. Hobley worked on It's A
Knockout for two series, before making way for sports commentator, David
Vine. Toward the
end of his career, MacDonald Hobley enjoyed a run in the West End in No Sex
Please - We're British, a long-running stage farce, and made regular
appearances in drama and comedy on television. These usually, perhaps
frustratingly for Hobley, were as announcers or presenters in fictional
situations. Among these were appearances as a radio announcer in The Saint
(The Crooked Ring, 15th July 1965) with Roger Moore, as himself -
announcing! - in The Goodies (Hype Pressure, 28th September
1976) and a role as Todd in one episode of the short-lived Carry On
Laughing television series (Orgy and Bess, 25th January 1975). MacDonald Hobley continued to work in television and radio until his death, aged 70, on
Thursday 30th July 1987. Shortly before his death, he had returned to the
Falklands for a Channel 4 broadcast about the British South Atlantic
dependencies. by
Alan Hayes
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