Remembering Lionel Blair

The all-round entertainer has died aged 92.

Lionel Blair, born on December 12th, 1928, in Montréal, Québec, Canada as Lionel Ogus became a regular on stage and television across a seventy-year career. He grew up in London and headed into the world of showbiz aged 14 an actor, appearing in musical productions with his elder sister Joyce.

His group of performers ‘The Lionel Blair Dance Group‘ appeared on many television programmes including for ATV Sunday Night at the London Palladium, The Bruce Forsyth Show, Saturday Spectacular and The Cliff Richard Show to name a few.

Lionel asks Twitter to play along ‘Give Us a Clue Style’.

As himself, he appeared as a host on Saturday Variety (ATV), Name That Tune (Thames), Lunchtime with Wogan (ATV) and Summer Central (Central TV) while also a regular on the game show and sketch show circuit including The Kenny Everett Television Show (BBC), Mike and Bernie Winters (ATV), The Golden Shot (ATV), The Generation Game (BBC) and Countdown (Channel 4). There were also occasional movie appearances including in The Beatles feature film A Hard Day’s Night.

In the mid-1970s he was a regular on ATV’s talent show for ITV, New Faces.

Acting roles in later years saw him cameo as himself in Last of the Summer Wine and Emmerdale while he had a stint in the 2003 era of Crossroads as dancing instructor Valentine Starwood and a guest spot on Doctors as Michael Cave. He’ll however be likely best remembered for his long-running team captain role on Thames Television’s game show Give Us A Clue.

Lionel appears on Celebrity Big Brother

He reached a new audience with Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 5) and had been a frequented of Crinkley Bottom on BBC One in the 1990s with Noel’s House Party, including an infamous ‘gotcha’ in 1994 that saw Lionel give a record-breaking stare to a theatre heckler. (Noel Edmonds in one of his many disguises.) In 2017 he joined Channel 5 reality TV show, The Real Marigold Hotel, and travelled around India with other older celebrities.

In 2007, Blair was diagnosed with and recovered from prostate cancer.

With some of his co-stars on The Real Marigold Hotel