Alan Keith

Presenter of 'Your Hundred Best Tunes' since 1959

Alec Kossoff (Alan Keith), actor and disc-jockey: born London 19 October 1908; OBE 1991; married 1941 Pearl Rebuck (one son, one daughter); died London 17 March 2003.

There have been a number of old and, indeed, very old gentlemen who have broadcast frequently on the radio, from grumpy Mr Growser ("It's disgrrraceful!") of Toytown, played by Ralph de Rohan, to the two nameless old gents of Westbourne-on-Sea, played by Eric Barker and Deryck Guyler in Just Fancy. Most of them, like these examples, have been fictional, played by men younger than they seemed: such is the magic of the microphone. But the oldest gentleman of them all to reach truly popular radio fame was Alan Keith.

Never grumpy like Mr Growser, never forgetful like the two old gents, but certainly creaky and comfortably so, he compered the popular record programme Your Hundred Best Tunes for over 40 years, and will be best remembered for these broadcasts rather than for his equally many years as an actor on stage, in films and television.

Alan Keith was born Alec Kossoff in London in 1908. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1926, leaving two years later having won their Silver Medal. He went straight into theatrical work, under the aegis of Basil Dean, who by the Thirties was one of London's busiest stage producers, and was soon to be heard on the BBC as a member of their dramatic stock company, eventually playing in hundreds of radio dramas. At the same time he began to turn up as one of the interviewers in the Saturday-night series In Town Tonight, which gave the nation the catchphrase "Carry on, London!"

His first film appearance was as a receptionist in the RKO-Radio crime thriller The Avenging Hand (1936), a "quota quickie" starring the Hollywood actor Noah Beery, then somewhat down on his luck. Keith's later films included Dangerous Moonlight (1941) and Val Guest's futuristic comedy Give Us the Moon (1944).

His pre-war television appearances began with On the Spot (1938), a live transmission of the famous Edgar Wallace stage play which had its début in 1930 and made Charles Laughton a star. The cast all had to act as Americans, and this would become Keith's speciality. On the Spot achieved brief fame as being the first time in television drama that two additional cameras were used outside the studio. They televised exterior scenes as required, with their cables trailing down two flights of stairs.

Keith continued to play American characters in television, from Smoky Cell (1938) to The Man Who Came to Dinner (1947). Among his other films were The World Owes Me a Living (1944), The Long Knife (1958), a minor Merton Park thriller, and Yesterday's Enemy (1959), a Hammer film set in wartime Burma.

It would be radio, however, that continued to provide Keith with regular employment. He would turn up in features, as BBC documentaries were labelled at that time, and his ability with American accents won him the starring role of Billy the Kid, notorious outlaw of the Old West, in Charles Chilton's extremely popular series Riders of the Range. The Kid was featured in the third series, which was broadcast weekly from April 1950.

But it was as a presenter of gramophone recordings (as disc-jockeys were once known) that Alan Keith's memory will be cherished by millions of radio listeners. As his speaking voice grew older, so his love of nostalgia grew, and this would be the mark of his method. His weekly shows included Among Your Souvenirs, a record request show which ran for six years, The Golden Years, The Years Gone By and, of course, Your Hundred Best Tunes. This series, devoted to classical music, started one Sunday evening in 1959. The original title was The Hundred Best Tunes in the World, and 100 recordings were all that Keith originally intended to play. However the series proved so popular that it was moved from the Light Programme to the Home Service in February 1960 under its new title.

Records in his first ever programme included "Jerusalem", Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and something from Sir Edward Elgar. In due course came operatic arias and duets, ballet suites and symphonies, in fact every kind of serious music that required comfortable and relaxed listening. Keith described his regular listeners as "thoughtful folk sitting around a fire on a winter's night". Intriguingly, despite the inclusion of the word "your" in the title, it was Keith and Keith alone who selected his recordings, and always picked them from the BBC Gramophone Library.

A listeners' poll conducted in 1976 voted "In the Depths of the Temple" from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers as No 1 in their Top Ten, and this was again voted first in a later poll conducted in 1984. Interestingly the second place was also repeated, with "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" by Verdi.

Keith put down his unexpected success to good luck. "I could have played an unpopular first tune in the first programme and the show might have gone straight down the pan," he said.

Denis Gifford

By definition, BBC Radio 1 has to be at the heart of new music, and the Radio 1 listeners of 10 or 20 years ago are now accommodated by Radio 2, writes Spencer Leigh.

However, in the midst of Radio 2's relatively contemporary programming, there is an oasis of calm on Sunday nights: Richard Baker's Melodies for You, Roger Royle's favourite hymns, David Jacobs's love for the 1950s balladeers – and Alan Keith playing the light classics and popular standards which make up Your Hundred Best Tunes.

At 94, and a month older than Alistair Cooke, Keith was the BBC's oldest presenter, and his vocabulary and clarity of speech had much in common in Cooke. He also had links to more modern times as he was the uncle of the late Paul Kossoff, the lead guitarist of Free. Keith was set to announce his retirement and his final programme, which was pre-recorded, will be broadcast on 30 March.

* Denis Gifford died 20 May 2000