Gerry Anderson

***Gerry Anderson***, born April 14, 1929 – December 26, 2012, was an English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist. He remains famous for his futuristic television programmes, especially his 1960s productions filmed with "Supermarionation" (marionette puppets containing electric moving parts).

Anderson's first television production was the 1957 Roberta Leigh children's series The Adventures of Twizzle. Supercar (1961–62) and Fireball XL5 (1962) followed later, both series breaking into the US television market in the early 1960s. In the mid-1960s Anderson produced his most successful series, Thunderbirds. Other television productions of the 1960s include Stingray and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

Anderson also wrote and produced several feature films whose box office performance was unexceptional. Following a shift towards live action productions in the 1970s, he had a long and successful association with media impresario Lew Grade and Grade's company ITC, continuing until the second series of Space: 1999.

After a career lull when a number of new series concepts failed to get off the ground, his career began a new phase in the early 1980s when audience nostalgia for his earlier Supermarionation series (prompted by Saturday morning re-runs in Britain and Australia) led to new Anderson productions being commissioned. Later projects include a 2005 CGI remake of Captain Scarlet entitled Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet.

Gerry Anderson began his career in photography, earning a trainee-ship with the British Colonial Film Unit after the war. He developed an interest in film editing and moved on to Gainsborough Pictures, where he gained further experience. In the mid-1950s, Anderson joined 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 1955. Pentagon was wound up soon after and Anderson and Provis formed a new company, AP Films, for Anderson-Provis Films, with Hill and Read as their partners. Anderson continued his freelance directing work to obtain funds to maintain the fledgling company.

During the production of The Adventures of Twizzle, Anderson started an affair with secretary Sylvia Thamm and ultimately left his wife and children. Following his divorce from his first wife, Anderson married Thamm in November 1960, while he was working on Four Feather Falls.

#### Sylvia Anderson

***Sylvia Anderson*** (née Thomas; March 27, 1927 – March 15, 2016) was an English television and film producer, writer, voice actress and costume designer, best known for her collaborations with Gerry Anderson, her husband between 1960 and 1980.

In addition to serving as co-creator and co-writer on their TV series during the 1960s and early 1970s, Anderson's primary contribution was character development and costume design. She regularly directed the bi-weekly voice recording sessions, and provided the voices of many female and child characters, in particular Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds.

After graduating from the London School of Economics with a degree in sociology and political science, she became a social worker. She emigrated to the United States to live with her first husband, Jack Brookes, an American golfer. Whilst in America she worked as a journalist. After divorcing Brookes in 1950, she married George Thamm in 1952. Anderson returned to the United Kingdom in 1955 and joined the newly founded but short-lived Polytechnic Films as an office assistant in 1957, where, she met Gerry Anderson. Sylvia divorced Thamm in 1959 and married Anderson in 1960.

### Television

#### November 13, 1957: The Adventures of Twizzle (1957–59)

***The Adventures of Twizzle*** follows Twizzle' who uses his abilities to get out of trouble. Twizzle has the ability to extend (or "twizzle") his legs and arms; he wears a pixie-like hat and has a cat companion known as "Footso". "Twizzle" was voiced by Nancy Nevinson who also narrated the series. Denise Bryer did Footso and the other voices. A total of 52 episodes were made in black and white, although only the first, "Twizzle and Footso", is believed to still exist.

#### February 23, 1960: Torchy the Battery Boy (first series only; 1960)

***Torchy the Battery Boy*** was the second television series produced by AP Films and Gerry Anderson, running from 1960 to 1961. The second series of 26 episodes was produced by Associated British-Pathé without the involvement of Anderson and AP Films.

The series followed adventures of the eponymous boy doll with a battery inside him and a lamp in his head, and his master Mr Bumbledrop, voiced by Kenneth Connor (known for his appearances in the Carry On films), who also voiced a number of other characters.

#### February 25, 1960: Four Feather Falls (1960)

***Four Feather Falls*** was the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television. It was based on an idea by Barry Gray, who also wrote the show's music. The 39 13-minute episodes were the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation puppetry. The setting is the late 19th-century fictional Kansas town of Four Feather Falls, where the hero of the series, Tex Tucker, is a sheriff. The four feathers of the title refers to four magical feathers given to Tex by the Indian chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his grandson: two allowed Tex's guns to swivel and fire without being touched whenever he was in danger, and two conferred the power of speech on Tex's horse and dog.

Tex's speaking voice was provided by Nicholas Parsons, and his singing voice by Michael Holliday.