From http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2027061.ece

Michael Grade: No more heroes

Lew Grade's cult shows from the Sixties are winning a new
generation of fans. So, asks Robert Sellers, can the ITV boss
Michael Grade match his uncle's golden touch?
Published:Ê30 November 2006

I used to be one of those nerds who'd circle in pen the
programmes I wanted to watch; now I don't even bother looking
at the listings. Why? Because I know there's sod-all on. Of
course, the Sixties and Seventies had their fair share of crud, but
it's no coincidence that the bulk of TV shows being released on
DVD herald from this golden age of British television.

My challenge to Michael Grade in his new role at ITV is to make
shows that once again touch such a popular chord. Pretty much
every cult show back then came from the same stable, ITC - The
Saint, The Prisoner, Thunderbirds, The Persuaders, Danger
Man, Stingray... the list is endless. There are fan clubs for each
individual show, and conventions allow fans to meet their
heroes, now mostly old and grey and rather bemused by all this
idolisation. "They really are anoraks," says Francis Matthews, the
voice of Captain Scarlet. "They dress up and stare at you when
you're signing the autograph as if you're some kind of
extraordinary god!"

All this can't just be nostalgia, people of a certain age wallowing
in the memories of their youth, because all the time these shows
are winning new generations of fans. When ITV4 started
screening much of ITC's output at prime time earlier this year
they were surprised when the shows pulled in the highest
ratings on the channel. And Sky One wouldn't be wasting
millions on a major reworking of The Prisoner, either.

ITC's origins go back to the birth of independent television itself
in 1955 when cigar-chomping entrepreneur Lew Grade brought
Robin Hood to the small screen (played by Richard Greene), in a
series that ran 143 episodes and led to other historical
derring-do in the shape of William Tell and Sir Lancelot.

Desperately creaky today, these shows did give early exposure
to future film stars such as Peter O'Toole, Christopher Lee,
Robert Shaw and Michael Caine.

With the arrival of the spy series Danger Man, Robin Hood and
his stocking-clad imitators looked redundant. Danger Man
changed everything, becoming the blueprint for practically every
future ITC show. In the person of Patrick McGoohan, TV also had
its first big star, but an eccentric one who insisted that his spy
never carry a gun or indulge in promiscuous sex. "Patrick was
Roman Catholic and held strong beliefs," says Clive Donner,
who directed early episodes. "He was also a strange man. I
heard he bought a house near the studios and had some young
daughters so surrounded the place with barbed wire. I think it
was just to protect the children, but there was a certain sense of
paranoia." McGoohan told another director that the basement of
his house was a virtual shelter where he and his family could
live if there was an atomic explosion.

Very different in personality was Roger Moore, who exploded on
to TV screens as the Saint not long after. Ironically, both men
would be approached to play James Bond before Sean Connery
due to their successful ITC series. Moore was just the right sort
of actor to play Simon Templar - good-looking, with a strong
personality and a light comedy touch. "I like to play things for
humour," he says. "Particularly as I was playing a hero because I
consider myself to be devoutly unheroic to the extent of being a
sheer coward. I think any heroism I have is the fact that I did
things physically that I was absolutely petrified of doing."

Danger Man and The Saint, which ran for seven years,
established ITC as the main purveyor of cult Sixties TV, and was
quickly followed by the likes of Man in a Suitcase, The
Champions, and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Grade also
wisely financed the puppet shows of Gerry Anderson, creating a
whole cult sub-genre that remains as popular today as ever.

There was also, of course, The Prisoner, the granddaddy of all
cult TV shows. McGoohan revelled in the fact that many of the
allegorical aspects of his pet project flummoxed audiences, who
kept watching out of a sheer morbid fascination to find out just
what the hell was going on. One day on set, Grade asked
McGoohan: "What's this show about?" McGoohan replied: "I don't
know." Lew barked back. "Well I don't know either so I'd better
find out what it is as I'm backing it."

The influence of another show, Jason King, proved just as
far-reaching, becoming the template for Mike Myers' hugely
popular character Austin Powers, with his chest wig, goofy teeth
and horror show wardrobe. Incredibly, King's alter ego, actor
Peter Wyngarde, was for a brief time the most famous man on
television. "I couldn't go to any country in the world without being
mobbed, physically attacked," he says.

One trip to Australia saw Wyngarde land at Sydney airport
whereupon he was surrounded by women who wrestled him to
the ground, tore at his clothes and grabbed tufts of pubic hair. "It
was as if I was a feast. To be eaten raw. It was terrifying."

Show a picture of Wyngarde's Viva Zapata features or Moore with
a halo above his head and most people will give a smile of
recognition. ITC was making a brand of television shows that
had never existed before and has never been equalled since. All
the people working for them were proper film-makers. Roman
Polanski's cinematographer did The Saint, Lindsay Anderson
got an early directing job through ITC, and several leading
Hollywood screenwriters, exiled from America because of the
McCarthy communist witch hunts, were hired, notably Ring
Lardner Jr who would go on to pen M*A*S*H. Everything was
attacked in a film fashion, not a television fashion. Plus, they
were shot on 35mm film, so each episode was a kind of
mini-movie. "ITC was a very special place to work in," says
director John Hough. "And the people cared. Instead of asking
you to do it quicker and with less quality, they'd push you to excel
yourself. It was creative and interesting, but very disciplined. It
was like Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel on a
nine-to-five contract."

In the Seventies, ITC diversified into science fiction with Space
1999 and Sapphire and Steel, as well as bringing together Tony
Curtis and Roger Moore for The Persuaders. Grade also
employed the variety format to devastating success when he
bankrolled a young American puppeteer called Jim Henson,
when no one else was interested, who came up with The
Muppet Show. "I think Jim always felt that it would be
successful," says Henson's widow, Jane. "He just didn't know
how successful. I think it took all of us by surprise how the
Muppets took off round the world. We used to joke that it played
in more countries than existed."

Grade's most treasured accomplishment was the mini-series
Jesus of Nazareth. Commissioned to film the story of Christ by
the Pope himself, Grade hired Clockwork Orange author Anthony
Burgess and director Franco Zeffirelli to realise his dream. When
the film was completed, the Pope made a speech on the balcony
overlooking St Peter's Square telling everybody to go home and
watch it on TV that evening. You can't get better PR than that.
Jesus was played by Robert Powell, then living with his
girlfriend, former Pan's People dancer Babs. It was a godsend
for the tabloids and within days there was the inevitable
headline: "Jesus living in sin with Pan's People dancer". When
the paper came out, Grade buzzed the head of his press office,
yelling: "What are they trying to do, crucify him?"

That story is typical Grade, and he is the real reason why ITC's
shows were successful and why they have endured for so long.
"Lew was quite simply a gem," Roger Moore remembers. "When
he was at the height of his powers his energy was enormous.
He would get off a plane without any jet lag and just go straight to
work. His health regime consisted of never having butter and
smoking cigars all day long."

In today's media climate, research groups and panels of
executives spend months waffling about whether to do a show or
not; if Grade liked your pitch you had a deal there and then. And
he had little time for lawyers and unwieldy contracts, either; his
handshake was usually enough of a guarantee. Incredibly, no
contract was signed between Grade and McGoohan over The
Prisoner and neither did Moore sign one to do The Persuaders;
it was all based on trust. I doubt that would happen today.
"Lew was very straight and always kept his word," says his
nephew Michael Grade. "He relied entirely on his instincts. And
his judgement was very good. He wouldn't have lasted two
minutes if he had no judgement, or if he was selling crap all the
time. He picked good people and let them get on with it. The
difference now is that everything is done by committee, they
squeeze the life out of creativity."

Robert Sellers' book 'Cult TV: The Golden Age of ITC' is
published by Plexus books