Flamboyant hoofer, choreographer and game-show host
Lionel Blair 1928-2021
With his bouffant hair, gleaming smile and permatan, Lionel Blair was an “allround entertainer who could sing, dance, act, tell jokes and hold together the flimsiest of low-budget television game shows”, said The Daily Telegraph. He described himself as the prototype for the old joke: “Open the fridge and I’ll do a 20-minute turn in the light.” And in recent years, he had specialised in sending up that image, appearing on everything from Ricky Gervais’s Extras – playing himself as a has-been entertainer trying to revive his career by appearing on Celebrity Big Brother – to Celebrity Big Brother itself. But Blair, who has died aged 92, wasn’t just famous for being famous. He was a skilled hoofer and choreographer who’d made his name as one half of a double act with Sammy Davis Jr.
He was born Henry Lionel Ogus in Montreal, Canada in 1928, to parents of Russian and Polish extraction who had emigrated from east London. His father was a barber; his mother a tailor. The family moved back to London when he was two, where they changed their name in reaction to the anti-Semitism of the time. Growing up in Stamford Hill, he and his sister Joyce became obsessed with Fred and Ginger films, and spent all their spare time practising routines at home. During the Blitz, they performed to people sheltering from air raids in their local Tube station. Following his father’s sudden death in 1941, he became the family breadwinner. Having made his professional debut in a production of The Wizard of Oz in 1942, he appeared in a series of straight plays: aged 16, he did a season at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford. But after that the “boy” parts dried up, so he switched to dancing. In the next few years, he appeared in West End musicals; choreographed a number of productions; formed his own dance troupe – the Lionel Blair Dancers; and performed in cabaret and in the variety shows that were a staple of early television. He credited working with Sammy Davis Jr. at the 1961 Royal Variety Performance with transforming his career. They devised a skit that included a joyous rendition of Shall We Dance, and culminated in a dazzling tap routine – which proved a sensation. Davis became a lifelong friend: decades later, he was instrumental in persuading Lionel and Joyce – who had by then become estranged – to reconcile, before her death from cancer in 2006.
Blair had a role in A Hard Day’s Night (1964), and gave up dancing in the mid-1970s to focus on acting. He starred in plays by the likes of Sheridan and Stoppard, and was in the film Absolute Beginners (1986); but these parts were overshadowed by his appearances on a string of game shows ( Give Us a Clue, Name That Tune, Blankety Blank), as well as in panto. He said he could make £100,000 for a six-week run. “Why do you think the stars do pantomime?” he said. In 2006, he was involved in a real-life drama when he and Alan Carr came to the rescue of a man who’d fallen off Blackpool Pier. The man was clinging on by his fingers when the two entertainers appeared, and pulled him to safety.
Owing to his flamboyant persona, Blair was often assumed to be gay, said The Times; he was not, and in 1967 he married Susan, a former model, with whom he had three children. But the “sniggering” innuendo persisted, which led to his children being bullied at school. He usually ignored the jibes, but once, at a charity cricket match, he punched a spectator who called him a “fairy” in front of his daughter.