BBC Blue Peter icon died penniless after dismissal from show for 'being difficult'
A Blue Peter legend sadly passed away penniless after a nine-year stint on the renowned BBC children's show.
Christopher Trace embarked on his presenting journey at the tender age of 25 in 1958, and was the one to kick off the inaugural episode alongside co-host Leila Williams.
His television career flourished as he secured a regular presenting gig on the BBC Schools programme Signpost in 1961, a role he held for four years. Before his Blue Peter tenure, Trace even dabbled in acting, featuring in films such as The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1959 and Urge to Kill in 1960.
He also served as Charlton Heston's body double in the 1959 cinematic masterpiece Ben-Hur. Regrettably, things took a turn for the worse for the gifted star.
By 1967, Blue Peter chiefs were reportedly eager to replace Christopher on the show, citing his challenging behaviour on set, according to the Express.
His personal life also spiralled when his wife Margaret Cattrall sought divorce following Trace's infidelity with a 19 year old during a Blue Peter excursion to Norway, reports the Daily Record.
Christopher and his wife Meg were parents to two children, Jonathan and Jessica.
Trace bid farewell to Blue Peter in 1967 and gambled on a fresh business venture as a writer and production manager at a feature film company. Unfortunately, the job didn't pan out, resulting in the loss of his life savings.
Trace was declared bankrupt in 1973, just two years after tying the knot with Prudence Da. He found himself pulling pints in a Norwich pub and driving taxis to make ends meet.
Eventually, he managed to revive his television career by working on BBC's Nationwide, presenting regional programmes in East Anglia and hosting the breakfast radio show on BBC Norwich.
A source from that time recalled: "I remember him being strong on screen on BBC East.
"He was only there as his wife had kicked him out, he'd lost all his money and was drinking and eventually he went off to run a pub in Norwich."
However, by the mid-1970s, Trace largely stepped back from his media career and dabbled in various odd jobs.
One of these roles included a general manager position at an engineering factory.
Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community hereand get the latest news sent straight to your messages.
While working there, he lost two toes in an industrial accident and stopped coming into work.
Sadly, Trace passed away on 5 September 1992 at the age of 59 from oesophageal cancer, after battling the disease for the last five years of his life.
At the time of his death, he was residing in Walthamstow and was dependent on benefits.
In his final days, Trace was visited in hospital by fellow presenters Valerie Singleton and Biddy Baxter.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
a few seconds ago
- Daily Mirror
Strictly champion Ore Oduba reveals secret struggle while on BBC show - 'It was hard'
The 39-year-old TV presenter - who started losing his locks in 2009 and resorted to using hair loss spray, then tablets to try and reverse the balding Ore Oduba says hiding his hair loss when he did Strictly Come Dancing was "hard but absolutely necessary". The 39-year-old TV presenter - who started losing his locks in 2009 and resorted to using hair loss spray, then tablets to try and reverse the balding - took desperate measures to hide his bald patches when he took part in the hit BBC Latin and ballroom dance show in 2016. Taking to Instagram to share a timeline of his hair loss journey in a picture carousel on Tuesday, Ore wrote next to his Strictly publicity shot: "Hiding my hair loss during Strictly was hard but absolutely necessary. "I'd visit my trusted barber every Friday night so my hair and hairline was tight and tidy, my fibres did the rest." The star and his professional dance partner, Joanne Clifton, 41, won Strictly Come Dancing in 2016. And Ore could not have his head in his hands to react to the shock of winning as the star feared he would have messed up his hair. Captioning a photo of him reacting to winning Strictly Come Dancing in the same photo carousel, Ore wrote: "My mind fully emptied from the shock... but I still had the wherewithal to know not to touch my hair when I had my head in my hands for fear it would look messy or out of place on camera." Elsewhere in the photo carousel, Ore admitted he feared losing his TV career if he had shaved or gone bald in 2019. Captioning a red carpet photo of him, the star explained: "It'd been nearly 10 years of hair insecurity and I was desperate to just shave it off. "But here's the really sad thing ... I didn't know any bald presenters on TV (that hadn't been actors or pop stars before, I see you Marvin Humes and Ross Kemp!) and I was SURE I'd never get a job again if I went shaved or bald." And Ore also revealed in the photo carousel that he would ask picture editors to "colour in my hair" so people would not notice his bald patches. Captioning a publicity shot of him taken in 2015, Ore revealed: "My TV profile was starting to rise, and by now I'm pretty adept in my hair 'system' routine. "I was even confident enough to ask photographers/editors to 'colour' in my hair so you couldn't notice even when you zoomed in pictures."
Daily Mail
a few seconds ago
- Daily Mail
Strictly star Alex Kingston's VERY racy start to her career revealed: Actress was a nude life model before starring in raunchy roles that saw her strip off for the camera
Alex Kingston's raunchy start to her career has been revealed after she became the third star to sign up for this year's Strictly Come Dancing. Her journey from butcher's daughter to internationally acclaimed actress and the latest star to sign up for the BBC 's flagship show began almost 30 years ago. And it certainly was a risqué beginning to stardom, with Alex, 62, earning extra cash as a nude life model for artists before going on to star in the 1996 romp The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. The series was an adaptation of the novel Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe and charts the bed-hopping antics of the criminal's daughter brought up in society. And the show was Alex's springboard to fame and brought her to worldwide attention, not least for the number of bodice-ripping scenes she featured in. Since then, Alex, who has starred in Doctor Who and EastEnders, has never been shy about stripping off in front of the camera. It certainly was a risqué beginning to stardom, with Alex, 62, earning extra cash as a nude life model for artists before going on to star in the 1996 romp The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. Two years later, she appeared alongside Clive Owen as Jani de Villiers in the gambling flick Croupier, where movie fans could bet on getting more than a glimpse of her impressive curves. In 2000, in the film Essex Boys, came more raunchy scenes with her leading man. The film is loosely based on events in December 1995 that culminated in the murders of three drug dealers in Rettendon, Essex, UK, and she played femme fatale Lisa Locke. And in the 2011 series Marchlands, Alex was seen in the buff yet again when she played Helen Maynard in a supernatural drama following the lives of three families who live in the same remote house in different time period, and in the 2019 series The Widow, she locked lips with co-star Siobhan Finneran. But in a recent interview with The Telegraph, she said she had managed to avoid the horrors of the Harvey Weinstein-style casting couch predators. She grew up the daughter of a butcher and an art teacher, making her screen debut aged 17 as Grange Hill bully Jill Harcourt. She told the publication last year: 'Casting couch culture still existed when I came out of drama school. If you were a young girl, you'd likely encounter something at some point – I have friends who did – and, if you were on the up, people might question how you got there. 'I was too naive to read the signs and in a weird way that protected me, because I never went for "the drink in the pub".' Her role in Moll Flanders earned her a Bafta nomination and a fruitful new career path as ER's Elizabeth Corday. Nowadays, such demands would require intimacy coordinators and, while she is relieved such provisions are in place for her drama-student daughter Salome ('although she's very ballsy, she can look after herself'), she regards her own blasé attitude with fondness. 'I was a life-drawing model so I was very used to being naked around people. After one of Moll's earliest sex scenes, the first AD [assistant director] jumped into bed and the three of us had a post-coital fag together because we thought it was funny. You couldn't do that nowadays, which is probably a good thing', she added. But she did infamously bite the tongue of a male co-star in a stage play – leaving him needing stitches in his tongue. She was unhappy when the unnamed lead used his tongue in their kissing scenes and issued a warning to him to stop the saucy smooch. The actor refused, and Alex bit his tongue while they were mid-performance - and it was only the next day she realised the severity of what she had done. She told The Graham Norton Show in 2011: 'Interestingly, and I'm not going to mention the actor's name... I did do a job once. I did a play and at the end of the play there was a kiss and we'd been doing this for a long time, a long run, and this actor, every time we did this kiss, he would stick his tongue down my throat... 'So I said, "If you do that again I will bite your tongue", and I think he thought I was joking so the next performance he did it again and I bit his tongue and clung on for a while, and didn't think anything of it. 'And then the next day, when we were backstage and I bumped into him, he was just having soup and I couldn't understand why he wasn't eating anything more substantial, so I said, "You're only having soup?" and he said, "I've got four stitches in my tongue". 'I had actually bitten through his tongue! I warned him!' Alex's very colourful career comes as she's set to add another string to her bow - as a Strictly contestant. Speaking to The One Show hosts Roman Kemp and Alex Scott on Monday about her upcoming stint, the actress teased: 'My hips don't lie'. Alex notably appeared in US drama ER from 1997 to 2005 alongside George Clooney. She also took on a recurring role in Doctor Who, playing River Song - the love interest of Matt Smith's incarnation of the Doctor and the daughter of Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill). Alex briefly reprised her role during Peter Capaldi's stint on the BBC sci-fi show and has also leant her voice to a number of audio releases in the franchise. Alex has previously spoken about her desire to sign up for Strictly, revealing she and her close friend Sarah Hadland - who competed last year - had discussed it. 'Sarah Hadland and I talked about how much we'd like to do Strictly Come Dancing,' she said in 2019.
The Sun
a few seconds ago
- The Sun
Huge BBC drama to return for TWO more series after replacing Holby City
A HUGE BBC drama is returning for two more series after it replaced Holby City, the corporation has announced. School drama Waterloo Road returned to screens two years ago after the BBC cancelled medical drama Holby City in order to move TV investment away from London. 2 Now the series has been recommissioned for at least two more runs. The BBC says the Manchester-set programme's return, which began in 2006 and ran until 2015 before it was brought back to screens in 2023, will allow it to continue with its investment in creative talent in the north of England. Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, said: "I'm delighted that Waterloo Road will be opening its corridors once again, with two more series of the hit drama about to start filming. "The show continues to entertain the audience who love to follow both the staff and pupils and, with a new series heading to BBC iPlayer and BBC One next month, they don't have long to wait." The next series will see Jon Richardson make his debut as the school's new media studies teacher next month, and the show has already seen Lindsey Coulson replace comedian Jason Manford, who played Steven Savage, as new headteacher, Dame Stella Drake. During its time on TV, Waterloo Road has explored storylines such as the cost-of-living crisis, coercive control, neurodivergence, work-place politics, family drama, grief, and young love. The show has provided a launch pad for the careers of stars such as Lucien Laviscount, Rege-Jean Page and Chelsee Healey, as well as Phoebe Dynevor, whose sister Hattie Dynevor joined the series in 2024, and Adam Thomas, who returned when the series was rebooted in 2023 and remains on the show. Cameron Roach, Waterloo Road executive producer, said: 'When the BBC commissioned the reboot of Waterloo Road, we had hoped it might run for a few seasons. "But to be commissioned for further series, bringing the total episodes since relaunch to 70 hours, is a huge achievement and a reflection of the incredible creative teams in front of and behind the camera. "As well as continuing to celebrate emerging talent, the show is fast gaining a reputation for working with the best comedy talent, as Jon Richardson joins the cast this season. "As a team we're incredibly proud that a very British show can be such an enduring success for the BBC and continue to bring in new generations of viewers." Filming for the two new series will begin in Greater Manchester later this year, with the first of the pair to launch next year.
