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(19??– ). British tv and film producer.
Animated
tv series created and produced with Gerry
ANDERSON:
Fireball XL-5 (1962-1963); Stingray (1964-1965); Thunderbirds
(1965-1966); Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968); The
Secret Service (1969).
Animated
tv series co-created with G. Anderson: Joe 90 (1968-1969); The
Secret Service (1969).
Live-action
tv series created and produced with G. Anderson: UFO (co-created with
Hill) (tv series) (1970-1973); Space 1999 (tv series) (1975-77); The
Day after Tomorrow (pilot only) (1976).
Animated
films produced with G. Anderson: Thunderbirds are Go (Lane 1966); Thunderbirds
Six (Lane 1968).
Wrote
with G. Anderson: "Flight of Fancy," "The Lost City,"
"Supercar Take One," "Crash Landing" (1961), "The
Runaway Train," "Precious Cargo," "Operation
Superstork," "Hi-Jack," "Calling Charlie Queen,"
"Space for Mitch," "Atomic Witch Hunt,"
"70-B-Low," "The Sky's the Limit," "Jail
Break," "The Day That Time Stood Still," "Transatlantic
Cable," "King Kool" (1962), episodes of Supercar;
"Planet 46" (1962), "Space Monster" (1963), episodes of Fireball
XL-5; "Stingray" (1964), "A Nut for Marineville,"
"Aquanaut of the Year" (1965), episodes of Stingray;
"Trapped in the Sky" (1965), episode of Thunderbirds; Thunderbirds
Are Go (animated film) (Lane 1966); "The Most Special Agent"
(1968), episode of Joe 90; Thunderbird Six (animated film)
(Brian Burgess, Robert Lynn, and Ken Turner) 1968); Journey to the Far
Side of the Sun [Doppelganger] (co-written with Donald James and
produced with S. Anderson) (Robert Parrish 1969); "A Case for the
Bishop" (1969), episode of The Secret Service;
"Identified" (with Tony Barwick) (and directed) (1970), episode of UFO.
Provided
voice for: Fireball XL-5 (tv series)
1962-1963); "Raptures of the Deep" (1964), "Hostages of the deep" (1965),
episodes of Stingray; Thunderbirds (tv series) 1965-1966); Captain
Scarlet and the Mysterons (tv series) 1967-1968); The Secret Service
(tv series) 1969).
Appeared
in documentaries: I Love Christmas (David Quantick 2001); TV's
Greatest Cars (Nick Bray and Jon-Barrie Waddell 2004); Thunderbirds
Are Go: Factory of Dolls and Rockets (short) (Michael Arick 2004); Thunderbirds
Are Go: History and Appeal (Arick 2004); "1960s" (2007), episode of Children's
TV on Trial; All About Thunderbids (Jeff Simpson 2008).
It must have seemed to the young Sylvia Kramm
like an ideal arrangement at the time—marriage to a successful, wealthy
producer of television series who was willing to grant his beautiful new wife
equal credit for what was surely mostly his own work in creating and producing
a series of television series featuring animated puppets. Charity demands, in
other words, that the various series jointly credited to her and her ex-husband
should be properly eviscerated at length in Gerry Anderson's entry, not this
one, interpreting her co-equal billing, like other commentators, essentially as
a kind gesture from her new husband—though
one could question whether crediting someone for the likes of Fireball XL-5
and Space: 1999 really represent acts of kindness. Her other official work
on these series fell in the realm of providing voices for the animated series, something
she appeared to enjoy doing, and the need to accommodate the co-producer's
desire to contribute in this fashion explains why these series always featured
prominent, if prissy, female roles. If she was otherwise doing anything to earn
her billing as co-creator and co-producer, it came, by most reports, by her
habit of hovering over the shows' creative personnel and doing her best to
ensure that the results of their work were as attractive as possible. If this
is the case, then one must grant her a modicum of credit for the success of
these shows: Yes, the puppet series did display a certain colorful style that may
account for the fact that so many youthful British viewers retain some
affection for them, and the overall look of their best series, UFO,
seemed persuasive and authentic (indeed, she was apparently given official
credit as costume designer for one episode). Yet it is hard to praise her
posited contributions to Space: 1999, a series which generally appeared
flat and austere and even managed to make the beautiful Barbara
BAIN look unattractive;
perhaps Gerry Anderson's efforts to blame her for its failure contributed to
their divorce. But it is equally possible that his attractive wife had simply grown
tired of sharing the stigma of being associated with her husband's consistently
dreadful productions.
Fleeing from the ruins of that series, Sylvia
Anderson at first seemed determined to establish herself as an independent
creator by traveling to Europe and involving herself in the production of a
television series, Star Maidens. Yet this farcical saga of two men
fleeing from a repressively matriarchal planet to seek freedom on the planet
Earth was, for the most part, depressingly similar to her previous
credits—offering, that is, sheer stupidity occasionally enlivened by a visual flair.
The only new element was that, at times, there seems to have been an actual
effort to make it all deliberately comical, for once, but it hard to attribute
this to Sylvia Anderson's influence. After this continental fling, she has
apparently been content to relax and live off the proceeds of a no doubt
generous divorce settlement and a steady stream of residual payments from old
series that have bizarrely retained an audience, and she occasionally surfaces
to appear in nostalgic documentaries. At times, her ex-husband surely misses
her presence—since his Space Precinct (1994-1995), for example, was
both characteristically dire and stylistically dull—and there are those who
undoubtedly long for an artistic reunion that might being back the imagined
glory days of Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.
As Gerry and Sylvia Anderson know from recalling their courtship, and as any
informed science fiction viewer knows from observing the ongoing popularity of
their joint efforts, love is blind.
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