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    FLASHBACK: When George Lazenby held forth on the JFK assassination Archived Message

    Posted by Morrissey on May 19, 2020, 12:44 am

    From Pages 20 and 21 of Lobster 58 (Winter 2009-10).....

    Dee time
    Simon Dee left Radio Caroline in 1965 and joined the BBC
    Light Programme where he worked successfully as a record
    presenter. He later became one of several figures hosting Top
    of the Pops before being given his own BBC TV chat show,
    ‘Dee Time’, in April 1967. Down to the present day, the many
    other programmes of this type still follow the original ‘Dee
    Time’ formula: a mixture of live music and interviews with
    contemporary celebrities, politicians and cultural figures. It
    was hugely popular. On one occasion an audience figure as
    high as 18 million was recorded. While Radio Caroline passed
    into temporary obscurity, Dee enjoyed enormous success,
    covering the 1967 Miss World competition and being seen in
    the company of Princess Margaret. In 1969, though, he
    angered the BBC by demanding a pay rise. They dropped ‘Dee
    Time’ and he switched to London Weekend TV where he
    started a new series, ‘The Simon Dee Show’, in January 1970.
    On 28 February 1970 Dee hosted an episode in which he
    interviewed George Lazenby and Diana Rigg, the stars of the
    then current James Bond film ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’.
    Lazenby, who was managed by Ronan O’Rahilly, used his
    appearance on the show to speak at some length about the assassination of JFK.25 He named a number of living US public figures as having played a role in the killing. This was an
    extraordinary direction for a piece of TV to take in 1970 but
    ‘The Simon Dee Show’ was broadcast live and not prerecorded
    and/or edited as would be the case today. London
    Weekend TV told Dee immediately after the programme that
    his show would not be continued and that his contract was
    being terminated.26 The curtailment of ‘The Simon Dee Show’
    ended Dee’s television career.
    -----------------------------
    25 Various accounts say that Lazenby was either drunk, stoned or tripping while making these statements. Dee himself was known to be a regular cannabis user at this time, something that may have accounted for the freewheeling and slightly disorganised nature of some of his shows. This was not the first time Dee had been associated with the murder of JFK. In 1969 he had tried to get a copy of the Zapruder film for broadcasting on Dee Time.

    26 A discussion of the little that is known about this episode is at . Anecdotal evidence suggests that LWT was not unhappy to have a reason to fire Dee. His audience was falling. Further, one of LWT’s shareholders, David Frost, also had a chat show (in a similar format) on the station and was trying to break into the American market. He may have surmised that this would be less likely to occur if he could not demonstrate that action had been taken about the antics of Dee and Lazenby.

    The media in 1970 had not yet left behind the era of Reithian
    deference and was quite capable casting into oblivion individuals who committed minor infractions or told inappropriate jokes. Kenny Everett was sacked by the BBC in 1970 for speculating about whether or not the wife of the Minister of Transport (John Peyton MP) had bribed a driving instructor £5 so that she could pass her driving test.

    https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster58/lobster58.pdf

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