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Russell Harty
Frederic Russell Harty (5 September 1934 – 8 June 1988) was an English television presenter of arts programmes and chat show host.
Harty was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, the son of greengrocer Fred Harty, who ran a fruit-and-vegetable stall on the local market, and Myrtle Rishton. He attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School on West Park Road in Blackburn, where he enjoyed appearing in school plays. It was there that he met English teacher Ronald Eyre, who directed a number of the productions. Thereafter he studied at Exeter College, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in English literature.
On leaving university, Harty taught briefly at Blakey Moor Secondary Modern School in Blackburn, then became an English and drama teacher at Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire. "I got a first-class degree, and was a hopeless teacher," Harty later said. However, his friend and Oxford contemporary Alan Bennett commented in his 2016 memoir Keeping On Keeping On that Harty "had a third-class degree and taught brilliantly". Harty's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also states he was awarded a third-class degree in 1957.
Among Harty's pupils at the Giggleswick School were the journalist and television presenter Richard Whiteley and the actors Graham Hamilton and Anthony Daniels. In the mid-1960s Harty spent a year lecturing in English literature at the City University of New York.
He began his broadcasting career in 1967 when he became a radio producer for the BBC Third Programme, reviewing arts and literature.
He got his first break in 1970 presenting the arts programme Aquarius, that was intended to be London Weekend Television's response to the BBC's Omnibus. One programme involving a "meeting of cultures" saw Harty travelling to Italy in 1974 to engineer an encounter between the entertainer Gracie Fields and the composer William Walton, two fellow Lancastrians then living on the neighbouring islands of Capri and Ischia. A documentary on Salvador Dalí ("Hello Dalí"), directed by Bruce Gowers, won an Emmy. Another award-winning documentary was "Finnan Games" (1975) about a Scottish community, Glenfinnan, where "Bonnie Prince Charlie" raised his standard to begin the Jacobite rising of 1745, and its Highland Games.
In 1972, he interviewed Marc Bolan, who at that time was at the height of his fame as a teen idol and king of glam rock. During the interview, Harty asked Bolan what he thought he would be doing when he was forty or sixty years old, Bolan replied that he didn't think he would live that long. (Bolan subsequently was killed in a car crash at age 29 on 16 September 1977).
Also in 1972, he was given his own series, Russell Harty Plus (later simply titled Russell Harty), conducting lengthy celebrity interviews, on ITV, which placed him against the BBC's Parkinson. Parts of Russell Harty's interview with the Who in 1973 were included in Jeff Stein's 1979 film The Kids Are Alright, providing notable moments, such as Pete Townshend and Keith Moon ripping off each other's shirt sleeves. In 1973 and in 1975 he interviewed David Bowie. In 1975, he also interviewed Alice Cooper and French singer Claude François, and was one of the first to acknowledge the fact that the Paul Anka song "My Way" was based on a French song of Claude's called "Comme d'habitude". He would also interview François again in 1977. The show lasted until 1981 and some of his interviews included show business legends Tony Curtis, Danny Kaye, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, David Carradine, John Gielgud, Diana Dors and Ralph Richardson.[citation needed] In 1973 Harty won a Pye Television Award for being male personality of the year.
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Russell Harty
Frederic Russell Harty (5 September 1934 – 8 June 1988) was an English television presenter of arts programmes and chat show host.
Harty was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, the son of greengrocer Fred Harty, who ran a fruit-and-vegetable stall on the local market, and Myrtle Rishton. He attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School on West Park Road in Blackburn, where he enjoyed appearing in school plays. It was there that he met English teacher Ronald Eyre, who directed a number of the productions. Thereafter he studied at Exeter College, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in English literature.
On leaving university, Harty taught briefly at Blakey Moor Secondary Modern School in Blackburn, then became an English and drama teacher at Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire. "I got a first-class degree, and was a hopeless teacher," Harty later said. However, his friend and Oxford contemporary Alan Bennett commented in his 2016 memoir Keeping On Keeping On that Harty "had a third-class degree and taught brilliantly". Harty's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also states he was awarded a third-class degree in 1957.
Among Harty's pupils at the Giggleswick School were the journalist and television presenter Richard Whiteley and the actors Graham Hamilton and Anthony Daniels. In the mid-1960s Harty spent a year lecturing in English literature at the City University of New York.
He began his broadcasting career in 1967 when he became a radio producer for the BBC Third Programme, reviewing arts and literature.
He got his first break in 1970 presenting the arts programme Aquarius, that was intended to be London Weekend Television's response to the BBC's Omnibus. One programme involving a "meeting of cultures" saw Harty travelling to Italy in 1974 to engineer an encounter between the entertainer Gracie Fields and the composer William Walton, two fellow Lancastrians then living on the neighbouring islands of Capri and Ischia. A documentary on Salvador Dalí ("Hello Dalí"), directed by Bruce Gowers, won an Emmy. Another award-winning documentary was "Finnan Games" (1975) about a Scottish community, Glenfinnan, where "Bonnie Prince Charlie" raised his standard to begin the Jacobite rising of 1745, and its Highland Games.
In 1972, he interviewed Marc Bolan, who at that time was at the height of his fame as a teen idol and king of glam rock. During the interview, Harty asked Bolan what he thought he would be doing when he was forty or sixty years old, Bolan replied that he didn't think he would live that long. (Bolan subsequently was killed in a car crash at age 29 on 16 September 1977).
Also in 1972, he was given his own series, Russell Harty Plus (later simply titled Russell Harty), conducting lengthy celebrity interviews, on ITV, which placed him against the BBC's Parkinson. Parts of Russell Harty's interview with the Who in 1973 were included in Jeff Stein's 1979 film The Kids Are Alright, providing notable moments, such as Pete Townshend and Keith Moon ripping off each other's shirt sleeves. In 1973 and in 1975 he interviewed David Bowie. In 1975, he also interviewed Alice Cooper and French singer Claude François, and was one of the first to acknowledge the fact that the Paul Anka song "My Way" was based on a French song of Claude's called "Comme d'habitude". He would also interview François again in 1977. The show lasted until 1981 and some of his interviews included show business legends Tony Curtis, Danny Kaye, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, David Carradine, John Gielgud, Diana Dors and Ralph Richardson.[citation needed] In 1973 Harty won a Pye Television Award for being male personality of the year.
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