8 Wednesday April 13 2022 | the times
arts
a victim of his own lack of candour
because it meant people didn’t
understand the way he behaved. That
included me, so the only way to really
get to know him was to do this, the
most expensive course of therapy
imaginable. I feel much more
connected to him now.”
Despite his affiliation to the Tardis,
Jamie, 37, appreciated his ringside seat
with one of British television’s great
innovators. “I’ve still got the foam
rubber alien hands I painted that were
on [the 1994-95 series] Space Precinct.
When the BBC reran Thunderbirds in
the early 1990s, my friends suddenly
thought my dad was cool.”
Their personal relationship was
less fulfilling and certainly harder to
define. “There were moments where
he would get very engaged and close
to expressing his pride without ever
fully doing it. He wasn’t cold, but he
didn’t have a very good model for
mother-father-son relationships.”
That is putting it mildly. Gerry’s
parents, Joe and Debbie Abrahams,
were desperately badly suited. He
was an Orthodox Jewish
businessman, she a Christian
secretary pushed into the
marriage by her parents.
Their arguments,
combined with
antisemitic abuse at
school that led them to
change their name toJ
amie Anderson was always a
Doctor Who fan — a bit
awkward when you’re the
son of Gerry Anderson, the
man behind the other
defining children’s
adventure series of the time,
from Thunderbirds to
Stingray. “Dad called it the greatest
tragedy of his life,” Jamie says. “I think
he was mostly joking.. .”
One would hope so for Gerry
Anderson’s life was not short on
tragedy, as a bracingly candid new
documentary reveals. Produced by
Jamie, directed by Benjamin Field and
built around hours of previously
unseen interviews with Gerry (who
died in 2012), Gerry Anderson: A Life
Uncharted explores how his creations
were underpinned by a dysfunctional
upbringing, failed marriages, ruined
friendships and lost fortunes. Yet
rather than sully his achievements,
the film makes them, if anything, all
the more remarkable.
“I meet people all the time who’ve
said that without Dad’s shows their
childhoods would have been terrible,”
Jamie says over Zoom, firmly on brand
in a Space: 1999 T-shirt. “This project
sounded really interesting and, in a
slightly self-indulgent way, I thought I
might learn something. Dad was the
definition of stiff upper lip for the most
part, and from a generation that was
uninterested in introspection. He was
ensuing 15-year run of
shows would enter TV
legend; among them were
Fireball XL5, Stingray,
Thunderbirds, Captain
Scarlet and Joe 90 and
live-action series including
UFO and Space: 1999.
Grade became a surrogate
father figure, the real-life
embodiment of the strong
patriarchs who dominated
his series. “Dad called
him ‘Uncle Lew’,” Jamie
recalls. “He was a figure
of power and authority
when Dad had been
constantly told that his own father
was weak and useless.”
While his career was at its
commercial peak, Gerry’s home life
was again tumultuous. He would later
regret giving Sylvia joint credit for
those series, claiming that she enjoyed
the limelight too much and would
wildly overstate her contribution,
but, he says in the documentary, “she
had a way of getting around me”.
Ugly disputes over creative
ownership would continue for years
after their marriage collapsed in 1980,
the custody case over Gerry Jr leaving
Gerry devastated. “I’m bloody bitter,”
Gerry says in A Life Uncharted. “I hate
her more every day that goes by.” A
version of Sylvia would reappear in
the 1980s series Terrahawks as the
evil crone Zelda who battles goodies
including one Mary Falconer. Gerry
credited Mary Robins, Jamie’s mother,
with “saving my life” when she married
him a few years earlier in 1981.
Terrahawks was a rare bright
spot in the post-Grade years, the
consequences of failing to cultivate
contacts by now apparent. Even so,
Gerry was delighted by the revival of
interest in Supermarionation series,
boosted by BBC reruns, but baffled by
conventions and autograph hunters.
“There was no memorabilia around
the house,” Jamie recalls. “A Penelope
and Parker hung in his office for years,
then we moved house and they ended
up in a bin bag in my wardrobe. He
had a few awards on display, but
everything else was shut away.”
As professional projects sputtered,
Jamie thinks Gerry finally found some
comfort in family life. “He didn’t have
to be on the relentless production line
any more. Being Dad, family time had
to be slightly regimented, but we had a
lot of happy holidays. That feels like
quite a contrast to the man who was
an absent parent for Joy and Linda.”
Gerry’s final years were nonetheless
difficult ones as he succumbed to
Alzheimer’s. A few weeks after his
death at the age of 83, Jamie sat down
with Mary to consider the future.
“We asked ourselves: Do we wrap
everything up? Selfishly, I said no
because I’d always wanted to take up
the mantle. But also the reaction to
his death showed so many people
cared, so it seemed a tragedy to let it
fade away.”
For Jamie, though, the most
important thing is that “the spirit of
Anderson” should be kept alive. “Dad’s
shows promoted global and family
unity,” he says. “There’s something
very poignant about this positive
outlook coming from such terrible
negativity. Stories need to be told
about people doing the right things
against the odds and for the common
good. If somebody’s net benefit to the
world is so many millions of people
having a happy time, that is quite
remarkable.”Anderson when he was ten, made
Gerry’s “the most miserable childhood
it’s possible to imagine”.
The family fell on hard times and
were living in relative poverty in
Neasden when Gerry’s idolised older
brother Lionel, whose escapades in
the RAF directly inspired many of
his heroes, was shot down in 1944.
Debbie’s reaction — “Why was it
Lionel? It should have been you” —
was carried by Gerry for the rest
of a life dogged by feelings of low
self-esteem. A brutal antisemitic
streak also surfaced in Debbie, who
resented converting to Judaism.
If Gerry’s young life was drenched in
sadness and disappointment, his first
professional steps were initially almost
as dispiriting when dermatitis put paid
to his hopes of working in ornamental
plastering. However, a traineeship with
the British Colonial Film Unit opened
doors, and he gradually learnt film-
making techniques, teaming up with
the cinematographer and producer
Arthur Provis to make a Ricicles
advert. Featuring Noddy, it caught the
eye of the author Roberta Leigh,
whose idea for a puppet series called
The Adventures of Twizzle would
kick-start Gerry’s television career.
Yet this lifelong association with “the
little bastards” would embarrass him
and drive him to push old-fashioned
entertainment to its technical limits.
“He wanted to be directing huge
live-action epics,” Jamie says. “He felt
puppets were a step down and for the
rest of his life he’d pick away at things
he thought should have been better.”
Another Anderson leitmotif was
also rapidly established: an inability
to maintain relationships. His first
marriage to Betty broke up in 1960
and he became estranged from their
daughters, Joy and Linda, just as
he later would be from Gerry Jr,
his son with his professional
partner and second wife,
Sylvia. Professionally too,
he fell out with early
collaborators including
Leigh and Provis.
The ideas never
stopped flowing, but
financial security only
arrived with the TV boss
Lew Grade in 1961. TheA Penelope
and Parker
hung in his
office,
then they
ended up
in a bin
bag in my
wardrobe
My life with the
man who created
Thunderbirds
Gerry Anderson’s son Jamie tells Gabriel Tate about
the tragedy that lay behind his father’s genius
Gerry and Sylvia
Anderson, centre, with
the Stingray model.
Left: Thunderbirds.
Below: Gerry in 2001Gerry Anderson: A
Life Uncharted is on
BritBox from Thursday.
Stand By for Action!
Gerry Anderson in
Concert is at Symphony
Hall, Birmingham
on SaturdayALAMY; CHRIS WARE/GETTY IMAGES