Sylvia and Gerry Anderson

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This article is to be divided between the individual pages for Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson and the respective productions

Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson were the British husband and wife production team behind several futuristic children's television shows involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "supermarionation". Their most famous production is Thunderbirds, which was produced by their production company, originally known as AP Films and later renamed Century 21 Productions in collaboration with partners Reg Hill and John Read. The couple married in 1960 and were divorced in 1980. Their creative, and marital partnership concluded during the production of Space: 1999 in the mid-1970s.

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[edit] Start of Collaboration

In the mid-1950s Gerry Anderson joined independent television production company Polytechnic Studios, as a director, where he met cameraman Arthur Provis. After Polytechnic collapsed, Anderson, Provis, Reg Hill and John Read formed Pentagon Films in 1957; secretary Sylvia Thamm later became Anderson's second wife. Pentagon was wound up soon after and Anderson and Provis formed a new company, AP Films, with Hill and Read as partners. Anderson continued his freelance directing work to keep money coming in.

AP Films' first television venture was produced for Granada Television. Created by Roberta Leigh, The Adventures of Twizzle (1957-1958) was a series for young children about a doll with the ability to 'twizzle' his arms and legs to greater lengths. It was Anderson's first work with puppets, and the start of his long and successful collaborations with puppeteer Christine Glanville, special effects technician Derek Meddings and composer/arranger Barry Gray.

During production of Twizzle, Anderson began an affair with Thamm, and eventually left his wife and children. Following his divorce, Anderson and Thamm married, in November 1960. The Adventures of Twizzle was followed by another low budget puppet series with Leigh, Torchy the Battery Boy (1958-59). Although the APF puppet productions made the Andersons world famous, Gerry Anderson was always unhappy about working with puppets, and made them primarily as a means of getting a foot in the door with TV networks, hoped to use them as a stepping stone to his desired goal -- making live action film and TV drama.

AP Films' third series was the children's western fantasy-adventure series Four Feather Falls (1959-1960). During production Provis left the partnership (partly due to personal differences with Anderson) but the company retained the name 'AP Films' for several more years. Despite APF's success with Four Feather Falls, Granada did not commission another series from them, so Anderson took up the offer to direct a film for Anglo-Amalgamated Studios. Crossroads to Crime was a low-budget B-grade crime thriller and although Anderson hoped that its success might enable him to move into mainstream film-making, it failed at the box office.

By this time, APF was in financial trouble and the company was struggling to find a buyer for their new puppet series. They were rescued by a fortuitous meeting with ATV boss Lew Grade who offered to buy the show. This began a long friendship and a very successful professional association between the two men, during which Anderson and his collaborators created some of their best work.

The new series, Supercar, (1960-1961) was created by Anderson and Reg Hill and it marked several important advances for APF. Sylvia Anderson took on a larger role and became a partner in APF. The series was also the debut of 'Supermarionation', the electronic system that made the marionettes more lifelike and convincing on screen. The system used the audio signal from the pre-recorded tapes of the actors' voices to trigger solenoids installed in the puppets' heads, enabling the puppets' lips to move in exact synchronisation with the voices of the actors.

One of Anderson's most successful ventures was inaugurated during the production of Supercar —the establishment of AP Films (Merchandising) Ltd, a separate company set up to handle the licensing of merchandising rights for APF properties; it was headed by Keith Shackleton, an old friend of Anderson's from their National Service days.

APF's innovative mechandising made them a world leader in the field and they licensed a huge range of toys, books, magazines and related items. The worldwide popularity of their TV shows was coupled with astute marketing, and the combination made APF one of the most successful merchandising ventures of the decade. The die-cast metal toys from series such as Thunderbirds were hugely popular at the time and they now number among the most collectible toys of their kind. Models from almost all their series have been produced ever since by companies throughout the world, notably in Japan, where the Anderson series have a dedicated following.

APF's next series was the futuristic space adventure Fireball XL5 (1962) and it was the company's biggest success yet, becoming the first series sold to a US TV network (NBC)—a rarity for British TV programs at that time. After the completion of the series, Lew Grade offered to buy AP Films. Although Anderson was initially reluctant, the deal eventually went ahead, with Grade becoming managing director, and the Andersons, Hill and Read becoming directors of the company.

Shortly after the buy-out, APF began production on a new puppet series, Stingray (1964), the first British children's series to be filmed in colour. For the new production APF moved to new studios in Slough. The new and bigger facilities allowed them to make major improvements in special effects, notably in the underwater sequences, as well as advances in puppetry, with the use of a variety of interchangeable heads for each character to convey different expressions. The series also consolidated Anderson's regular team of voice actors, including Australian actor Ray Barrett, who worked with Anderson until the early Seventies. The versatile, radio-trained actor voiced scores of featured and incidental characters, including Commander Shore and King Titan in Stingray and John Tracy and The Hood in Thunderbirds.

The remarkably effective underwater sequences, devised by Derek Meddings and his team, were shot on 'dry'; underwater sets and the underwater 'look' was created by filming through a thin fish tank, which was specially fitted with air pumps to create different-sized streams of bubbles and stocked with different-sized aquarium fish to enhance the illusion of depth. Additional realism was created with the use of smoke and specially-designed lighting, which simulated the effect of sunight filtering through water.

The special effects on Stingray were a major advance on previous efforts. Meddings and his team became skilled at shooting many kinds of miniature effects with the film running at high speed, giving a more realistic result when slowed down to normal speed. The spectacular shot in the title sequence, in which Stingray bursts out of the water, pursued by a mechanical 'terror fish', was captured on the first take. They also became very adept at creating spectacular and extremely convincing explosive and pyrotechnic effects (an APF 'trademark') as well as creating highly detailed, realistic miniature sets, landscapes and futuristic land, water and air craft of all kinds. They also pioneered a number of miniature now-standard model-making techniques, including the 'cannibalising' of commercial model kits for parts to add realistic detail to vehicles, and the 'weathering' of model finishes to enhance the illusion that they were real vehicles in regular use. Stingray was the company's biggest success to date and remains extremely popular to this day.

[edit] Thunderbirds

APF's next project for ATV was based on a mining disaster that occurred in West Germany in October 1963. This real-life drama inspired Anderson to create a new program format about a rescue organisation, which eventually became his most famous and popular series, Thunderbirds (1964-1966). The dramatic title was inspired by the letter Anderson's older brother Lionel had written to his family during WWII.

It followed the exploits of International Rescue, a secret rescue organisation based on a remote tropical island, set up by ex-astronaut and construction tycoon Jeff Tracy. He is assisted by his five sons Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John (named after five of the real-life Mercury astronauts), brilliant scientist 'Brains', who designed their rescue craft. Their efforts are frequently aided by one or more of their oriental servant Kyrano and his daughter Tin Tin, their London agent Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her trusty butler-chauffeur (and ex-convict) Aloisius Parker. International Rescue jet around the world and even into space on exotic rescue missions in their advanced Thunderbird craft, designated only by their numbers 1 to 5. On their missions they often come up against, and invariably foil, the efforts of an evil mastermind—known commonly as the Hood, though never identified on screen as anyone other than Kyrano's half brother—who is intent on stealing the secrets of the Thunderbirds for his own profit, often exploiting or creating emergencies to lure them into action.

Grade was very enthusiastic about the concept and agreed to back a series of 25-minute episodes (the same length as Stingray), so the Andersons scripted a pilot episode, "Trapped in the Sky", and began production. Gerry initially wanted actress Fenella Fielding to perform the voice of Lady Penelope, but Sylvia convinced her husband to let her play the role. Thunderbirds also marked the start of a long professional association with actor Shane Rimmer, who voiced Scott Tracy.

Production on Thunderbirds had been underway for several months when Grade saw the completed 25-minute version of "Trapped in the Sky". He so excited by the result that he insisted that the episodes be extended to fifty minutes. With a substantial increase in budget, the production was restructured to expand episodes already filmed or in pre-production, and create new 50-minute scripts for the remainder. Grade and others were so convinced that Thunderbirds would be a success that a feature-film version of the series was proposed even before the pilot episode went to air.

APF—now renamed Century 21 Productions—enjoyed its greatest success with Thunderbirds and the series made the Andersons world-famous. The 39-episode series was not initially successful in the United States because it was only given a limited release, although it later became hugely successful in syndication). But it was a major hit with young audiences in the UK, Australia and other countries and retains a huge and dedicated international following that spans several generations.

Thunderbirds also set new standards in special effects, and the work of Meddings and his team remains impressive even today. Among those at the time who were impressed with the SFX work on the series was director Stanley Kubrick, who was at the time in pre-production for his next feature 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick in fact approached Anderson to provide the miniature effects for the movie but Anderson declined, although Kubrick eventually managed to attract a number of key Thunderbirds production staff, including Medding's assistant, Brian Johnson. Joining Meddings' team was 19 year old Michael Trim, who became Medding's assistant to help design the fantastic craft and buildings of Thunderbirds.

One of the notable innovations in Thunderbirds was Meddings' famous "rolling road" and 'rolling sky" system which used scenery elements (road or sky) built as a continuous motor-driven belt, which created a realistic illusion of cars moving along a road, or of aircraft taking off, flying or landing. Meddings' system also greatly improved the lighting and shooting these miniature effects, since it was only the background that moved -- the static model craft were suspended by invisible wires -- and it eliminated the obvious wobbling movements that plagued earlier miniature work of this kind. The first use of the system was in "Trapped In The Sky"; during filming of the climactic landing sequence, one of the radio-controlled models being used accidentally veered out of control and crashed, but Meddings was so impressed with the scene that it was retained and edited in as part of the final cut of the sequence.

Barry Gray's superb theme and incidental music were another inextricable part of the series' appeal, and the stirring Thunderbirds march has become an enduring staple with brass and military bands throughout the world.

During the production of Thunderbirds the Andersons' marriage began to come under increasing strain, and the company also had a setback when the Thunderbirds Are GO feature film flopped. According to interviews published since, Anderson has said that he considered divorce, but this was halted when Sylvia announced that she was pregnant. Their son, Gerry Anderson Jr was born in July 1967.

By that time, production had started on a new series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967), which saw the advent of more realistic puppet characters which, thanks to improvements in electronics which allowed miniaturisation of the lip-sync mechanisms, could now be built closer to normal human proportions. Puppets in prior series had to have recognisably oversized heads to accommodate the bulky components. Reflecting Anderson's long-standing desire to tackle adult-oriented projects, Captain Scarlet had a much darker feel and a gritty realism not found in his earlier shows, and it featured considerably higher levels of violence than either Stingray or Thunderbirds. The plot concerned attempts by an Martian race called The Mysterons, who have the power to take over the bodies of humans after they kill them, but they are opposed by the defence organisation SPECTRUM whose principal agent in the battle of nerves is Captain Scarlet, who comes back to life and becomes indestrucible after being first killed then reproduced and used by The Mysterons in the very first episode. Although it was reasonably successful in first run and was very popular in later syndication, Captain Scarlet was unable to reproduce the global popularity of Thunderbirds, although it remains a cult favourite with fans. Several decades later, Anderson produced a computer-animated version of the series, called Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet.

Century 21's second feature film, Thunderbird 6, was an even bigger failure than the first, and the problems were compounded by their next (and next-to-last) Supermarionation series, Joe 90 (1968). This series returned to more 'kid-friendly' territory, depicting the adventures of a young boy who is also a secret agent and whose scientist father uses a supercomputer called 'BIG RAT' which can 'program' Joe with special knowledge and abilities for his missions. Its relatively poor reception made it the last of the classic Anderson marionette shows.

[edit] Move to Live Action

Anderson's next project took the special effects expertise built up over previous TV projects and combined it with live action. Century 21's third feature film, Doppelgänger (aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun) was a dark, Twilight Zone style sci-fi project about an astronaut who travels to a newly discovered planet on the opposite side of the sun, which proves to be an exact mirror-image of Earth. It starred American actor Roy Thinnes, famed at the time for his role as the protagonist in the American television series The Invaders. Although it was not a major commercial success, Doppelganger was nominated for an Academy Award for its superb special effects.

Century 21's return to television was the abortive series The Secret Service, which this time mixed live action with Supermarionation. The series was inspired by Anderson's love of British comedian Stanley Unwin, who was known for his nonsense language, 'Unwinese', which he created and used on radio, in film and most famously on the 1968 Small Faces LP Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. Despite Anderson's track record and Unwin's popularity, the series was cancelled before its first screening; Lew Grade considered that it would be incomprehensible to American audiences, and thus unsellable. Only 13 episodes were produced, and the series was only shown in a handful of broadcast areas in the UK. Most Anderson fans only got to see it when it was finally released on VHS in the mid-90s.

In 1969 the Andersons began production of a new TV series, UFO, Century 21's first full live-action television series. This sci-fi action-adventure series starred American-born actor Ed Bishop as Commander Straker, head of a secret defence organisation set up to counter an alien invasion. Bishop had previously done worked with Anderson on Captain Scarlet (providing the voice of Captain Blue) and a supporting role in "Doppelgänger" and who also played an American astronaut in The Mouse on the Moon.

The plot of UFO is broadly similar to Captain Scarlet, depicting the invasion of Earth by a mysterious and hostile alien race from beyond the solar system, and the attempt to thwart the alien takeover by a top-secret military force, Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation (SHADO). With typical ingenuity, Century 21 was able to save a considerable amount of money on set construction by having SHADO's subterranean HQ concealed beneath a working film studio, enabling many exteriors to be shot in and around the very studios where the series was being made. The series was originally filmed at MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood but when that studio closed in early 1970, production was moved to Pinewood Studios.

UFO was decidedly more adult in tone than any of the previous puppet series, and it mixed the classic Century 21 futuristic action-adventure and special effects with some very serious dramatic elements: in one episode, Straker is forced to decide between using SHADO's resources to save his critically-injured son, and heading off an alien attack. Another sinister plot element, introduced in the premiere, was that the aliens used humans as a source of organ transplants because their own biology was failing. UFO was moderately successful on first release, but built up a strong cult following over the years, although it too fell short of the global success of Thunderbirds and was the last series made under the Century 21 Productions banner

[edit] Split with Sylvia Anderson and Space: 1999

By this time the relationship between the Andersons had deteriorated, and Gerry Anderson decided not to work with his wife on his next project, the ITC action series The Protectors. It was one of Anderson's few non-original projects. Lew Grade himself was heavily involved in the programme, and cast both the lead actors, Robert Vaughn and Nyree Dawn Porter. The production was difficult for Anderson -- he clashed with the famously difficult Vaughn -- and there were many logistical problems arising from the Europe-wide filming of the show, but it was very successful in both the UK and America. It was produced under the aegis of a new company, Group Three Productions (the three being the Andersons and Reg Hill).

After The Protectors, Anderson worked on several new projects, none of which he was able to realise. A proposed second series of UFO was shelved, and a return to puppetry, a pilot for a series called The Investigator, failed to find a buyer. Elements of the abandoned second series of UFO were eventually turned into what became the most expensive television series ever made up to that time, Space: 1999.

Another futuristic sci-fi adventure, it was based on the implausible premise that a huge thermonuclear explosion on the Moon's surface (caused by dumping of nuclear waste) launches it out of orbit and into interstellar space. It starred American husband-and-wife actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who had gained international TV fame in Mission: Impossible. They were cast at the insistence of Grade, and against Sylvia Anderson's strenuous objections. The series boasted Anderson's customary high production values and eye-catching special effects, and featured a solid supporting cast including Australian actor Nick Tate and British-Canadian actor Barry Morse (best known for his role as Lt. Gerard, the detective who relentlessly pursued Dr. David Kimball (David Janssen) in the famous TV series The Fugitive).

Because of the enormous expense involved in its production, Space: 1999 needed to be sold to a major American network if it was to make its money back. NBC came very close to buying it, but pulled out at the last moment, reputedly because Lew Grade, overestimating the show's potential appeal, kept inflating the price. After NBC passed on it, neither ABC nor CBS showed any interest, and hence Grade was forced to sell it into syndication - precisely the scenario he had hoped to avoid. Because of this, Space:1999 never enjoyed a full network transmission in the States. However, it still proved popular in both the UK and America (where it premiered in September 1975) and Group Three was asked to produce a second season.

The Andersons' marriage broke down irrevocably after the first season of Space: 1999 in 1975; according to Sylvia's autobiography "Yes M'Lady", Gerry announced his intention to separate on the evening of the wrap party. Sylvia severed her ties with Group Three, and to alleviate his financial plight, Gerry Anderson signed away both his share of the profits from the APF/Century 21 shows and their holiday home in Portugal to Lew Grade in return for a one-off payment. It was a decision he later bitterly regretted, because he could not have then foreseen the huge value the shows would have when eventually released on home video.

Between making the two series of Space: 1999, Anderson produced a one-off television special, The Day After Tomorrow, an unsuccessful pilot for a series about two spacefaring families en route to Alpha Centauri. While making this project Anderson met Mary Robins, a secretary working at the studios; they began a relationship and were married in April 1981. A second season of Space: 1999 went into production in 1976 with American producer Fred Freiberger brought in to replace Sylvia Anderson.

According to The Space:1999 Documentary, produced by Kindred Productions for Fanderson, the second series was successful enough that a third almost happened; however, the documentary features Martin Landau stating that the idea was killed because Lew Grade needed money to help finance and promote his pet feature film project Raise The Titanic. Consequently, the budget that would have paid for the third series was redirected into the movie project (which subsequently flopped at the box office). This marked the end of Anderson's association with ATV.

[edit] 1990s - a new audience

The cult appeal of Thunderbirds and the other Supermarionation series grew steadily over the years and was celebrated by comedy and stage productions such as the hit two-man stage revue Thunderbirds FAB. In the early nineties, ITC began releasing home video versions of the Supermarionation shows, and the profile of the shows was further enhanced by productions such as the Dire Straits music video for their single "Calling Elvis", which was made as an affectionate Thunderbirds pastiche (with Anderson co-producing), and by Lady Penelope and Parker appearing in a successful series of UK advertisements for an insurance company.

In 1991, BBC-2 in the UK began a repeat season of Thunderbirds, which rivalled the success of its original run. It became so popular in Britain that toy manufacturers were unable to keep up with the demand for the Tracy Island playset, leading children's show Blue Peter to broadcast a segment showing children how to construct their own. The fan base for the Anderson shows was now worldwide and growing steadily, and Anderson found himself in demand for personal and media appearances.

By now, the original merchandising had become prized collector's items. The original props and puppets from the Supermarionation series grew enormously in value and now rank among the most valuable of all TV memorabilia. A 2002 auction of various items from Anderson shows fetched remarkable prices, with an original Parker marionette selling for UK £38,000 to a Japanese business man. In July 2004, the original studio model of Lady Penelope's pink Rolls-Royce 'FAB-1' (made for the film Thunderbirds Are GO) sold on eBay for £80,000 (about US$143,000).

Other recent auctions include Ron Embleton's stunning end credit paintings which featured in every episode of Captain Scarlet which sold for between £2500-£3500 each and have since been reproduced and marketed by Iconagraph as limited edition collectible artworks.

In 1992, Anderson performed a successful one-man show, An Evening with Gerry Anderson, in which he talked about his career. He also made numerous media and personal appearances to tie in with revivals and DVD releases of Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90.

The renewed interest enabled Anderson to return to television production, but several projects including GFI (an animated update of Thunderbirds) did not make it into production. Finally, in 1994, Anderson was able to get the long-shelved Space Police project into production as Space Precinct. It was followed by Lavender Castle, a children's sci-fi fantasy series combining stop-motion animation and computer-generated imagery.

The same year, Thunderbirds was rescreened on the American Fox network, but this caused considerable controversy because the series was re-titled, and the episodes were re-edited, re-dubbed and shortened to 25 minutes. In a letter widely circulated on the Internet, ITV claimed that the cuts were made because of pressure from Fox's Standards and Practices office, which wanted to remove 'unsavory' or 'inappropriate' elements (drinking, smoking, subservient minorities, excessive violence). It was also claimed that the short attention span of American children made the hour-long format undesirable, and that the mid-1980s sale of the ITV music library to Michael Jackson meant that the music and vocal tracks had to be edited out and redubbed with new voices and music. Fox dropped the series after a handful of the re-edited episodes were aired.

He was originally approached to be involved in the 2004 feature film adaptation of Thunderbirds, directed by Jonathan Frakes, but he soon distanced himself from the project; Sylvia Anderson, however, did become involved and received a "special thanks" credit in the film, which received mixed critical reviews and was a box-office failure in America.

Gerry's failure to have a major hit TV show since the 1970s is a subject for much discussion amongst Anderson fans. One theory is that since the split with his wife Sylvia, he has been unable to create the emotional resonance and character visualisation that Sylvia contributed to the early shows, particularly Thunderbirds. Others have suggested that once he lost the remarkable talent brought together for the shows from Derek Meddings special effects to all the voice and behind the scene talents that created the many wonderful shows, it was virtually impossible to recreate that magical formula.

Unlike her ex-husband, Sylvia Anderson tends to avoid the limelight, although she has written an autobiography titled Yes M'Lady which covers the Thunderbirds era. The book is a rather mild account of her life with Gerry and unlike his biography, avoids 'dishing the dirt' on the breakdown of their marriage. Until recently, Sylvia worked as the UK representative for HBO. Her new book, My Fab Years is to be published in the autumn of 2006.

[edit] Gerry & Silvia Anderson productions

[edit] TV series (and broadcast dates)

[edit] Feature films

(Gerry Anderson had no involvement in the 2004 live action film version of Thunderbirds, although Sylvia Anderson served as a consultant on that project.)

[edit] External links


Gerry Anderson
Television
The Adventures of Twizzle | Torchy the Battery Boy | Four Feather Falls | Supercar | Fireball XL5 | Stingray | Thunderbirds | Captain Scarlet | Joe 90 | The Secret Service | UFO | The Protectors | Space: 1999 | Terrahawks | Dick Spanner, P.I. | Space Precinct | Lavender Castle | New Captain Scarlet
Feature Films
Crossroads to Crime | Thunderbirds Are GO | Thunderbird 6 | Doppelgänger
Companies/Techniques
AP Films | Century 21 Productions | Supermarionation
Notable Collaborators
Sylvia Anderson | David Lane | Barry Gray | Reg Hill | Derek Meddings | John Read | Shane Rimmer
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