Geoffrey Hayes (born 13 March 1942 in Stockport, Cheshire) is an English television presenter and actor, best known as the host of Thames Television's top-rated children's show Rainbow from 1973 to 1992. Before that, he had much other work, including a recurring role in BBC1's police drama Z-Cars.
Rumours were rife, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, that Hayes would be working on a new series of Rainbow. Although this did not happen, there was a revival of the show in the United Kingdom, with toys of the show's puppets being reproduced and sold in shops, as well as a tongue-in-cheek book about the show, co-written by Hayes. Hayes also has writing credits for Rainbow and The Great Pony Raid in 1967. Hayes mentioned in a radio interview that "colloquialisms were burdening society" - he is fond of grammar and punctuation.
Hayes is a fan of the Scottish football team Dundee United, having lived in the city in the 1960s. This has been reported as being the reason that one of his Rainbow co-stars, Zippy was coloured tangerine (his team's colours), instead of blue (the colour of rivals Dundee FC) though there is no evidence to support this as Hayes, unlike Zippy, was not associated with the programme from the beginning.
Read more about Geoffrey Hayes: After Rainbow
Famous quotes containing the words geoffrey and/or hayes:
“I change, and so do women too;
But I reflect—which women seldom do.
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from the devil doth proceed;
That drains your purse, that burns your clothes,
That makes a chimney of your nose.”
—Anonymous. “Written on a Looking Glass,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)
“I am happy to be through with the war.”
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