Eric Maschwitz

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Albert Eric Maschwitz OBE (10 June 1901–27 October 1969), known as Eric Maschwitz and sometimes credited as Holt Marvell, was an English entertainer, writer, broadcaster and broadcasting executive.....

Born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, the descendant of Silesian immigrants, Maschwitz was educated at Repton School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

As a lyricist, Maschwitz wrote the screenplays of several successful films in the 1930s and 40s, but is perhaps best remembered today for his lyrics to 1940s popular songs such as "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and "These Foolish Things".

Maschwitz started his stage acting career in the early 1920s and joined the BBC in 1926. His first radio show was In Town Tonight and his first television show was The Black and White Minstrel Show. In 1939, he went to Hollywood under contract to MGM, where he worked on Goodbye, Mr. Chips (for which he shared an Academy Award nomination) and Queen of Song, among other successful films.

During the Second World War, he served with the Intelligence Corps and became Chief Broadcasting Officer with the 21st Army Group. He left the army as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

In 1958, at the start of the BBC/ITV ratings wars, he rejoined the BBC as Head of Television Light Entertainment. About the job he said, "I don't think the BBC is a cultural organisation. We've got to please the people. The job of a man putting on a show is to get an audience." Maschwitz left to join the rival ITV in 1963.

During the course of his varied entertainment career, Maschwitz also adapted French comedies such as Thirteen For Dinner; wrote the book and lyrics for numerous musicals, amongst them Balalaika, Summer Song, The Ghost Train and Zip Goes a Million; and created Café Collette. He also edited the Radio Times, and even turned his hand to the detective novel: Death at Broadcasting House, co-written with Val Gielgud and published in 1931, revolves around a radio play disrupted by the murder of one of the cast.

Maschwitz was married twice: firstly to Hermione Gingold, who was granted a divorce in 1945, and then immediately to Phyllis Gordon who remained his wife until his death.

He was created an Officer of the British Empire in 1936.