Richard Dimbleby

Richard Dimbleby became known during Worldwar II. He was BBCs' star television interviewer and THE voice of radio news reports during the war.
After the war, in 1955, television was first used during elections, and the BBC reckoned there was only one man to pull this off: Dimbleby.

The rehearsals for the show started on a thursday morning and the show went on air that same day when the first polls were closed. Dimbleby was on-screen almost continuously till dawn. Then the program was closed down till the early morning (Quote from Dimbleby:" Short night, wasn't it?")
The program went on throughout Friday and ended Friday night. Dimbleby had been on national television for almost two full days. And soon the whole world had heard about the event. The show Dimbleby had given became an example for every election program to come in the world!

After these two long days the BBC had been given the idea of having him anchor Panorama every week from September of that year. And every election dimbleby was on the air again, making long days and very short nights...making the impossible possible. Even after the first recorded incidence of an out and out argument during an interview with the soon-to-be Foreign Secretary George Brown and interviewer Robin Day Dimbleby managed to save the day. He concluded the interview with one of the biggest 'scene stealing' lines in television history: "...And a Merry Christmas to all our readers!"

Probably the most memorable quote from Dimbleby comes from one election when a correction on the final results came in. The correction gave the losing candidate one single extra vote which had no effect on the result at all. When the corrected results were handed to Dimbleby he announced with a straight face: "Our apologies to the voter in this constituency whose vote I'm afraid we overlooked."

During his last election program in October 1964 it was clear the man was suffering from cancer. This would eventually kill him in december 1965.