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ERIC MASCHWITZ - HIS NIGHTINGALE STILL SINGS

Some of the subjects in our 'Famous Residents' section were not born in Derbyshire, but did spend an important part of their life in the county - namely their school days. Here local historian Peter Seddon outlines the entertainment and broadcasting career of Old Reptonian Eric Maschwitz.

A multi-talented 'Old Reptonian' - Eric Maschwitz (1901-69)

Eric Maschwitz developed the Black and White Minstrel Show into a television favourite. In 1961 it was voted 'world's best variety show' at the Montreux Festival

'He has written a few songs that people sing, a few plays that are still occasionally performed; he has had great happiness from women and made several good women unhappy, seen men die beside him in a war, worked hard at too many things, honoured his father and mother and in general done his damnest (which is perhaps a poor substitute for his best). He is congenitally incapable of jealousy, lamentably unsuspicious of other people's motives; he laughs and weeps too readily and is considerably lacking in moral courage.'

This was Eric Maschwitz describing himself in his 1957 autobiography No Chip on my Shoulder - he was an entertainer, writer, broadcaster and broadcasting executive, who was said to know 'simply everyone in showbusiness'.

His Derbyshire-link rests with his schooldays, for his first forays into the entertainment world were made at Repton School, where he started as a pupil around 1912.

Albert Eric Maschwitz was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 10 June 1901, the descendant of Silesian immigrants.

At Repton School he was a frequent contributor of original material to the Reptonian school magazine and began to show a natural talent for using the written and spoken word to entertain.

He went from Repton up to Caius College, Cambridge, and from there embarked on a career in entertainment which embraced the disciplines of radio, television, film, stage, music and the literary world.

He began a stage acting career in the early 1920s but soon began to concentrate his efforts 'behind the scenes'. He joined the BBC in 1926 and in that same year was made Assistant Head of Outside Broadcasting. His first contribution as producer was the tremendously popular light entertainment show In Town Tonight.

In 1927 he became editor of Radio Times, relinquishing that post in 1933 when he was appointed Variety Director of the BBC - at that time the highest-profile role in the British entertainment industry.

In the late 1930's he went to Hollywood under contract to MGM and in the 1930s and 1940s wrote the screenplays of several succesful films. The best-known was the Oscar-winning Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939), which was part-filmed at Repton School - the title of Maschwitz's autobiography No Chip On My Shoulder was a nod to this enduring success.

He also wrote the lyrics for a number of successful stage musicals and operettas. One of his most successful was the 1951 stage musical Zip Goes A Million starring George Formby.

But a wider-known legacy is provided by his popular songs.

The lyrics for both A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square (1940) and These Foolish Things (...Remind me of you...) (1936) were written by Eric Maschwitz. The second was said to be a yearning reference to his brief romance with the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong who he had met in Hollywood. Both songs are still very well-known and have recently enjoyed renewed exposure into the 21st century, having featured in the soundtracks of several film and television productions.

Like most if his generation, Maschwitz's career was interrupted by the Second World War. From August 1939 he was a postal censor based in Liverpool, and from November that year he served with the Secret Intelligence Service in their anti-sabotage arm.

In 1940 he was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and then sent to New York to work for the British Security Co-Ordination. He returned to London in 1942 and briefly supervised radio programmes for broadcasting to the troops. He ended the war as chief broadcasting officer with the 21st Army Group and left the army as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

In 1958 - at the start of the BBC-ITV ratings war - he rejoined the BBC as Head of Television Light Entertainment. His first contribution was to commission the highly-popular Black and White Minstrel Show - Maschwitz developed this into a huge cult success, but it has since been deemed politically incorrect. About his job Maschwitz said: 'I don't think the BBC is a cultural organisation. We've got to please the people. The job of a man putting on a show is to get an audience.'

The more commercial television company of that era liked his style, and in 1963 Maschwitz left the BBC to join ITV.

Maschwitz also found time to write several novels. One of his better ones in a mixed bunch was the detective story Death at Broadcasting House (1931) - the plot revolves around a radio play disrupted by the murder of one of the cast. When writing he often used the Americanised pseudonym Holt Marvell.

As for his claim to have had 'great happiness from women', he was twice married to film stars - first to Hermione Gingold who was granted a divorce in 1945, and then immediately thereafter to Phyllis Gordon, who remained his wife until his death.

Eric Maschwitz died in London on 27 October 1969, aged 68.

Among the multi-talented ranks of Old Reptonians he may not be as well-known today as some of his later counterparts -a certain Jeremy Clarkson comes to mind - but who is to say that the Maschwitz legacy will not in the long-run prove far more enduring and of somewhat greater quality.

Goodbye Mr. Chips and A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square - or Top Gear and the remains of a dodgy perm? Time will tell.

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