David Bell (29 June 1936 – 9 June 1990) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

producer and director in the

light entertainment Light entertainment encompasses a broad range of television and radio programming that includes comedies, variety shows, game shows, quiz shows and the like. In the UK In the early days of the BBC, virtually all broadcast entertainment would b ...

genre. In the mid-1980s, he became head of light entertainment at

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT; now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 ...

Live From Her Majesty's ''Live from Her Majesty's'', ''Live from the Piccadilly'' and ''Live from the Palladium'' were Sunday night live entertainment variety television shows that aired on ITV from 16 January 1983 to 27 November 1988 and were hosted by Jimmy Tarbuck ...

, Copy Cats and '' The Stanley Baxter Show'' number amongst his successes.

Career

In 1978, Bell was involved with Michael Grade's move bringing Bruce Forsyth to ITV to present a Saturday night spectacular. On the back of his mammoth success with Bruce Forsyths Big Night, he was never settled with ITV's two-hour multi-format evening of glitz, mini-soaps, game shows, and gags. None of which was for want of trying by David Bell, whose biting wit and flair meant he enjoyed the respect of all in his production team. He worked with several prominent personalities in television, such as

Dame Edna Everage Dame Edna Everage, often known simply as Dame Edna, is a character created and portrayed by Australian comedian Barry Humphries, known for her lilac-coloured ("wisteria hue") hair and cat eye glasses ("face furniture"); her favourite flower, ...

Bruce Forsyth Sir Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson (22 February 1928 – 18 August 2017) was an English entertainer and television presenter whose career spanned more than 75 years. Forsyth came to national attention from the late 1950s through the Associated Te ...

Benny Hill Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 18 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and scriptwriter. He is best remembered for his television programme, ''The Benny Hill Show'', a comedy-variety show whose amalgam of slapstick, bu ...

, and

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...

Death

Following an illness that lasted for several months, Bell died at his home in London in June 1990, aged 53.

References

1936 births 1990 deaths British television directors British television producers Scottish television producers AIDS-related deaths in England 20th-century British businesspeople {{tv-director-stub