Sir Huw Pyrs Wheldon OBE MC (7 May 1916 – 14 March 1986) was a BBC broadcaster and executive.Wheldon was born in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales and educated at Friars School, Bangor. His father, Sir Wynn Wheldon, was a prominent educationalist, who had been awarded the DSO for gallantry in the First World War. His grandfather, Tomos Jones Wheldon, had been the Moderator of the Calvinist Methodist Church in Wales. His mother, Megan Edwards, was an accomplished pianist.On the outbreak of war in 1939 Wheldon enlisted in the Buffs. He was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1940, but subsequently volunteered for the airborne forces and joined the Royal Ulster Rifles, with whom he flew into Normandy. He was awarded the Military Cross for an act of bravery on D-Day + 1.
The crime is not to avoid failure. The crime is not to give triumph a chance.
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On public service broadcasting: To make the good popular, and the popular good.
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To the extent that programs are manufactured and not made, to the extent that programs are even under the risk of being manufactured and not made, and to the extent that the stereotype is only a manufacture in disguise, the industry has failed. The entire industry exists only to make hand-make programs. - Royal Television Society Convention, Cambridge, 1970
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Fact
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Was cast in a major cameo in Chariots Of Fire but had to pull out because he did not have a Equity card.
2
Served as a paratrooper in the British army during WWII and took part in the D-Day invasion in 1944. He was also in the unit that liberated the Nazi death camp at Belsen, a subject he never talked about.
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There is an RTS (Royal Television Society) Huw Wheldon Lecture held in his honour annually.
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Television Publicity Officer
Producer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Monitor
1962
TV Series documentary producer - 1 episode
Men of Action
1959-1960
TV Series documentary producer - 6 episodes
Portraits of Power
1957-1958
TV Series producer - 9 episodes
Epic Battles
1958
TV Series documentary producer - 3 episodes
Men in Battle
1956-1957
TV Series documentary producer - 9 episodes
Orson Welles' Sketch Book
1955
TV Series producer - 6 episodes
Director
Title
Year
Status
Character
Portraits of Power
1957-1958
TV Series 5 episodes
Epic Battles
1958
TV Series documentary 3 episodes
Men in Battle
1956-1957
TV Series documentary 9 episodes
Orson Welles' Sketch Book
1955
TV Series 7 episodes
Editor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Monitor
TV Series documentary 5 episodes, 1959 - 1961 series editor - 1 episode, 1961
Shelagh Delaney's Salford
1960
TV Short documentary
Architecture of Entertainment
1960
TV Short documentary
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Royal Heritage
1977
TV Series documentary
Monitor
1962
TV Series documentary commentary written by - 1 episode
Paxinou in Athens
1959
TV Movie documentary
Miscellaneous
Title
Year
Status
Character
Monitor
1960-1961
TV Series documentary series editor - 2 episodes
Poet's London
1959
TV Short documentary series editor
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Omnibus
1986
TV Series documentary
Subject
Pantomania: Babes in the Wood
1957
TV Movie
Merry Man
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Auntie: The Inside Story of the BBC
1997
TV Mini-Series documentary
Himself
Call My Bluff
1983-1984
TV Series
Himself / Himself - Panelist
Look Here
1980
TV Series
Himself
Royal Heritage
1977
TV Series documentary
Himself - Presenter (1977)
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture
1976
TV Series documentary
Himself
Russell Harty Plus One
1973
TV Series
Himself
Something to Say
1972
TV Series
Himself
An Evening with...
1969
TV Series
Himself
Now and Then
1967
TV Series documentary short
Himself
Monitor
1958-1965
TV Series documentary
Himself - Presenter / Himself - Commentator / Himself - Narrator / ...
Antonio Gaudi
1961
TV Short documentary
Himself / Narrator
Cranko at Work
1960
TV Short documentary
Himself - Presenter
All Your Own
1952-1958
TV Series
Himself - Presenter
Press Conference
1955
TV Series
Himself - Presenter
Panorama
1953
TV Series documentary
Himself
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
CBS This Morning
2014
TV Series
Himself
Breakfast
2014
TV Series
Himself
The Golden Age of Steam Railways
2012
TV Mini-Series documentary
Himself - TV Presenter, Outside Broadcast from Talyllyn Railway
Acoustic at the BBC
2011
TV Movie
Himself (uncredited)
Timeshift
2007
TV Series documentary
Himself - Children's TV Presenter
The Alchemists of Sound
2003
TV Movie documentary
Himself - Interviewer
Jean Renoir: Part One - From La Belle Époque to World War II