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Famous Like Me > Writer > F > Daniel Farson

Profile of Daniel Farson on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Daniel Farson  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 8th January 1927
   
Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois, USA
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Daniel Farson (1927-1997) was a British writer and broadcaster who, although relatively obscure in his later life, was a highly prominent public figure in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Daniel Farson interviewing for People in Trouble in 1958.

Son of the Canadian journalist Negley Farson, his childhood was mostly divided between Britain and North America, although he visited Germany with his father while Negley was reporting on the Nazi regime, and was patted on the head by Adolf Hitler, who described him as a "good Aryan boy". He briefly attended the British public school Wellington College, whose militaristic regime was not to his taste; Farson had become intensely aware of his homosexuality, which would sporadically cause him great emotional strain. As a teenager he worked as a parliamentary correspondent, and was pursued in the House of Commons by the predatory Labour MP Tom Driberg. In later years, Farson would sometimes be accused of himself having predatory instincts towards young males, but shortly before his death opposed the reduction in the gay age of consent to 16 because he feared that it might empower such predators.

Farson shot to fame in the 1950s when he joined Associated-Rediffusion, the first commercial television company to operate in Britain. Here he took risks that few television interviewers (certainly not those employed at the still very conservative BBC) would dare to take at the time. In his series "Out of Step" (1957) and "People in Trouble" (1958) - never shown at the same time throughout the ITV network, but much repeated in various regions well into the early 1960s - he dealt with issues of social exclusion and alienation that most of the media at the time preferred to sweep under the carpet (in this he was helped, of course, by the fact that as a gay man - a term he would not himself use even when it came to be much preferred to "homosexual" - in 1950s Britain he could himself have fitted into the criteria of both series). The most famous editions of these series are the "Out of Step" programme on nudism (the term "naturism" had yet to become commonplace), which claimed to show the first naked woman on British television, and the "People in Trouble" programme on mixed marriages (a highly sensitive issue at the time as post-war immigrants tentatively began to integrate into British life); their fame is at least partially down to the fact that they were repeated comparatively recently, in 1982 (on the fledgling Channel 4).

Another 1958 Farson series, entitled "Keeping in Step", looked at establishment institutions such as public schools from a distinctly more distanced perspective than that seen on virtually all BBC programmes (and even most other Associated-Rediffusion programmes) of the time. A regular guest on Farson's programmes at this stage was James Wentworth Day, a rampantly reactionary British writer of the Agrarian Right school, who would come out with opinions which even then seemed archaic and often racist - most infamously his rant in the programme on mixed marriages, in which he referred to mixed-race children as "coffee-coloured little imps" and argued that black people must be less "civilised" than white people because "a couple of generations ago they were eating each other". Farson would usually respond to these diatribes with a polite statement along the lines of "I couldn't disagree with you more, but at least you do say what you really feel".

However, Wentworth Day's appearances would rapidly come to an end when he claimed that all homosexuals should be hung, and Farson sensed from the look in his eyes that Wentworth Day was not saying it just to be as reactionary as possible; he genuinely meant it. Farson insisted that the episode of "People in Trouble" in which Wentworth Day had made those remarks - concerning transvestism - was scrapped before it had been completed. He publicly insisted that the Independent Television Authority would ban it (an unconvincing argument because he had never been afraid to push the envelope previously), but in reality Farson was terrified that Wentworth Day would sense his own homosexuality and possibly attempt to bring him to trial - a trial which would inevitably have been a high-profile event comparable to that of Oscar Wilde. After this, Farson immediately froze Wentworth Day out of his life and his programmes.

Farson's broadcasting career, however, continued to go from strength to strength. "Farson's Guide To The British" (1959-1960) took a critical eye at a nation in transition and was the first public expression of his long-term quest for the true identity of Jack the Ripper. Other series included "Farson in Australia" (1961) and "Dan Farson Meets ..." (1962), which usually featured popular singers of the time. The one-off programme "Beat City" (1963) was an atmospheric evocation of the Liverpool scene which had given birth to The Beatles and the sociological factors which had brought it into being. But his greatest moment was probably "Living For Kicks" (1960), a documentary which captured the frustrations and uncertainties of British teenagers in the post-Elvis, pre-Beatles era. Telling many harsh truths about the social context of the time - its closing lines are almost identical to the conclusion reached by Dennis Potter in his first book "The Glittering Coffin", published almost simultaneously - it caused intense moral outrage in many circles.

The Daily Sketch, a tabloid paper then owned by Associated Newspapers (who ironically were the "Associated" in Associated-Rediffusion, although they had sold their stake in the company by this time), led the chorus of revulsion (at the time, the Daily Mail was a broadsheet and, although right-wing, was a more serious paper than it is today, while the Sketch played the role of "Outraged of Middle England" that is now occupied by the Mail; the two papers were merged in 1971, at which point the Mail became a tabloid - most of the sensationalist aspects of today's Mail were actually inherited from the Sketch). The Daily Mirror, then as now a left-leaning tabloid (although generally a more serious paper than it is today) inclined to regard the Associated Newspapers stable as overtly reactionary and conservative (in all senses), responded with a defence of British teenagers; a considerable war of words then developed between the two papers, with the Mirror's well-remembered TV commercials ("The Daily Mirror *backs* the young!") representing its position on the matter. "Living For Kicks", driven by Farson's inherent curiousity and fascination with the aspects of society swept under the rug by the establishment, can now be seen as simultaneously a period piece and many years ahead of its time.

In 1962, Farson made a documentary for Associated-Rediffusion about pub entertainment in the East End of London where he lived, called "Time Gentlemen Please" (this led directly to the company's later series "Stars and Garters", with which Farson was not, however, personally involved). Soon after this he bought a pub in the East End with the explicit intent of reviving old-time Music Hall, but this failed and the money he lost would have bought a row of houses at the time (1963). By the end of 1964 he had resigned from Associated-Rediffusion (by then renamed Rediffusion London) and would keep a lower public profile for the rest of his life.

He remained, however, a prolific author and a prominent figure in the art world; he wrote the authorised biography of Francis Bacon (at Bacon's insistence this was not published until after the artist's death) and a "portrait" of the artists Gilbert and George, he devised the Channel 4 art quiz "Gallery" and he worked as art critic for The Mail on Sunday (oddly, another Associated Newspapers title). He also wrote travel books (notably one on Turkey), the book version of the children's TV series "The Clifton House Mystery" (produced by HTV West for ITV in 1978), a biography of the "Dracula" author Bram Stoker, an appreciation of "Marie Lloyd and Music Hall" and a recollection of "Soho in the Fifties" (a time and a place in which he had found one of his few natural homes). While living at his father's old house in North Devon he established a close friendship with the writer Henry Williamson (ironically an Agrarian Right ally of James Wentworth Day); Farson paid tribute to Williamson with a book entitled "Henry: An Appreciation of Henry Williamson" published in 1982, five years after Williamson's death.

In later years Farson's alcoholism became so crippling that many were surprised that he survived to the age of 70 - this is very similar to the case of Jeffrey Bernard. He knew he was dying of cancer in March 1997 when his compelling and (sometimes overtly) self-depreciating autobiography, "Never A Normal Man" (a phrase actually used to describe his father, not himself) was published. When he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Midweek" to promote this book, his hangover was so profound that his voice sounded as though it was coming from the back of a cupboard; none of these personal faults, however, dented the affection in which he was held even among those friends who were frequently infuriated by his erratic behaviour. He died in November 1997.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Daniel Farson