Career
Blair came to the fore in the 1960s, when, with his dance troupe, he appeared on television variety programmes. He also appeared in the films A Hard Day's Night and Absolute Beginners, cameoed in an episode of The Persuaders! and in television comedy, including the short film, The Plank. In addition, he choreographed films such as Jazz Boat (1960) and The Magic Christian (1969).
Blair is known for being one of the team captains on the gameshow Give Us a Clue from 1979 until the early 1990s and for being the second presenter of the British version of Name That Tune in the 1980s.
For six years, Blair was a team captain on the BBC2 daytime news based quiz Today's the Day. In 2005, he was one of the celebrities taking part in the Channel Five reality series, The Farm. Blair appeared in the 2007 Christmas special of the Ricky Gervais show Extras, as himself, portraying the end-stages of his showbiz career by trying to keep up his profile by appearing on Celebrity Big Brother alongside Lisa Scott-Lee and X Factor contestant Chico. In July 2010, Blair appeared in the "Great British Dog Walks" feature on ITV1's This Morning with his dog Lola. Also in 2010, he took part in the BBC's The Young Ones, in which six celebrities in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s. In December 2010, he appeared briefly in a sketch with Ronnie Corbett and Rob Brydon in BBC1's The One Ronnie. Blair also appeared as the celebrity darter for charity on Bullseye.
On December 24, 2011 (Christmas Eve), he appeared on the ITV program Text Santa with Ant & Dec.
In 2012, he was cast in the film version of Ray Cooney's farce Run For Your Wife.
Read more about this topic: Lionel Blair
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)