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:
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)