Gerard Glaister

One of Britain's foremost television producers, Gerard Glaister was responsible for a string of top rating hit series including Dr Finlay's Casebook, Secret Army, Colditz, The Expert and Howard's Way. His biggest success was the road haulage family drama The Brothers (1972-76), which he both devised and produced. Starring Jean Anderson, Patrick O'Connell and Richard Easton, the boardroom and bedroom battles of this squabbling family became a firm Friday then Sunday, night favourite and was later sold to several countries. Howard's Way (1985-90) was described as Britain's answer to Dynasty and was set on the River Hamble. Starring Maurice Colbourne and Jan Harvey, the plots usually involved dodgy business deals, gaudy lifestyles and flashy women. Glaister was born in 1915, the son of a Royal Navy surgeon. He studied acting at RADA and made his West End acting debut in 1939 before serving in the RAF. During the war he was the skipper of a Blenheim bomber and then became a photo reconnaisance pilot in the Western Desert, where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After being demobbed he worked in repertory before joining the BBC as a director in 1957. He worked for nine years on BBC's Dr Finlay's Casebook, the Scottish medical drama which starred Bill Simpson and Andrew Cruickshank. In 1968 he produced the BBC2 detective series, The Xpert, which featured Marius Goring as a pathologist helping police with their investigations. After the enormous success of The Brothers, Glaister co-devised with Brian Degas one of the BBC's biggest hits of the seventies, Colditz (1972-4), the true life drama series about prisoners of war attempting to escape from Colditz castle. The show revived the flagging career of Robert Wagner, who played Canadian airman Phil Carrington, and also featured a host of leading British character actors including Jack Hedley, Edward Hardwicke, Bernard Hepton, Geoffrey Tooone and Jeremy Kemp. The series was based on the book by Major Pat Reid, a survivor of Colditz, who also acted as technical advisor. With Wilfred Greatorex, Glaister went on to create another wartime hit. Secret Army (1977-79) was a series about the activities of Lifeline, an underground resistance movement in Belgium during the Second World War. Glaister produced more than 30 television series and in his later career he both produced and devised the air freight company series Buccaneer (1980) and Trainer (1991), a BBC weekly drama in which a young trainer tries to succeed in the competitive world of horse racing. Shortly after Trainer finished Glaister retired from television.