| KENT WALTON Tributes taken from various British newspapers |
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| Courtesy of The Daily Telegraph and www.telegraph.co.uk, 27th August 2003. Kent Walton, the former wrestling commentator on World of Sport who died on Sunday aged 86, was instantly recognisable from his husky welcome at 4 o'clock each Saturday afternoon: "Greetings, grapple fans." A smoker who cultivated a mid-Atlantic drawl, Walton hosted the wrestling for all of the 33 years that it appeared, sandwiched between the half-time and full-time football scores; at the end of the allotted time, he would sign off: "Have a good week. . .till next week." When the ITV schedulers finally dropped the sport in 1988, he announced that his lips had been dented by so much time at the microphone. Walton's understated, factual commentary described wrestlers from George Kidd (his favourite), Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus to the less athletic Big Daddy ("Ea-sy, ea-sy") and Giant Haystacks. Walton hotly refuted allegations that the bouts were fixed, and would put into practice on saloon-bar doubters some of the wrestling moves he had learned. In its televised heyday, wrestling attracted as many as 12 million viewers. They included the Queen, whose interest in the sport was mentioned in Richard Crossman's diaries; and Margaret Thatcher, who asked Big Daddy for six signed photographs, and found him useful for conversation in Africa, where he was a household name. The Duke of Edinburgh was said to be captivated by Johnny Kwango's head-butting technique, and Frank Sinatra told Giant Haystacks that British wrestlers were the best entertainers in the world. Kent Walton was born Kenneth Walton Beckett on August 22 1917 in Cairo, where his father was minister of finance in the colonial government. Young Kenneth grew up at Haslemere in Surrey and went to Charterhouse, where he excelled at springboard diving. He went on to the Embassy School of Acting in London and then appeared in rep. On the outbreak of war he joined Bomber Command, and saw action as a radio operator and front-gunner. He also began to modulate his public school accent while mixing with Canadian airmen. After demobilisation, Walton returned to the stage before starting work as a television sports commentator, initially covering football for Rediffusion and tennis at Wimbledon, before his first wrestling commentary from West Ham Baths at 9pm on November 9 1955. Walton had been given the job despite never having been to a bout, so a couple of days before he went down to the gym with Mick McManus and got him to demonstrate the various holds. Soon Walton had mastered the terminology and even began to make up names for moves himself. Wrestling became one of ITV sport's earliest successes, something Walton ascribed to the fact that it portrayed men as they wanted to be, and showed women the sort of men they wanted to meet. "I've seen women having orgasms watching wrestlers," he avowed. He later claimed that, of the hundreds of wrestlers he had met, he had disliked only two, on account of their violent natures. Most wrestlers, he said, "really help each other". Walton combined wrestling commentary with disc jockeying on Radio Luxembourg with the Honey Hit Parade and fronting the first pop programme on British television, Cool For Cats. "Hi," he would say, raising a flat hand in greeting, whilst casually flicking ash from a cigarette in his other. He later hosted another pop programme, Discs A-Go-Go. He also did voice-overs for commercials and went into partnership with Hazel Adair (the Crossroads writer) in Pyramid Films, which made Virgin Witch (1971), a cheap horror movie in which the cast shed their clothes at the slightest opportunity, and Keep It Up Downstairs (1978), a dire sex farce featuring a bed-hopping aristocratic family. Kent Walton remained fond of wrestling, but said in 1996: "It's not the same. I don't really go now. It's mostly up North, isn't it?" He married, in 1949, Lynn Smith. They had a son. By Justine Smith, courtesy of the Daily Mirror and www.mirror.co.uk, August 29th 2003. KENT Walton, the voice of wrestling, has died after hiding his cancer from his wife and son. The 86-year-old, famous for opening his Saturday slot on ITV in the 70s and 80s with: "Hello, grapple fans", only admitted to his illness on his death bed. His wife Lynn, 83, said: "We knew he was ill, but he passed it off as old age. "He only told us last Thursday he had cancer. He died three days later." Born Kenneth Walton Beckett in Canada, the former RAF pilot took up his stage name when he was hired for ITV's World of Sport by Michael Grade - 30 years after running away with the TV chief's mother, Winifred. He married Lynn 52 years ago and they had one son, Lee, now 50. Walton was one of sport's top commentators during the era of Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, but wrestling was dropped in the 80s by Greg Dyke. Lynn, from Haslemere, Surrey, said: "It wasn't thought glamorous enough and then WWF came along." By Philip Purser, courtesy of The Guardian, September 8, 2003. For a third of a century, Kent Walton, who has died aged 86, reigned unchallenged as ITV's commentator on the grunts, groans and theatrical mayhem of professional wrestling until the activity was abruptly banished from the network in 1988. Greg Dyke, then ITV's head of sport, now BBC director-general, ruled that it presented the wrong image to advertisers and viewers. Walton's ritual sign-off, "have a good week... till next week" was heard no more. Though assumed to be a Canadian, he was of English serving-the-empire-stock, born in Cairo, and his real name was Kenneth Walton Beckett. His father was then financial minister in the British protectorate administration. Back in Britain, the young Kenneth was educated at Charterhouse, where he was good at diving. Instead of university, he chose to go on to drama school. He had taken what was traditionally the next step, into a repertory company to gain experience, when the second world war broke out. He flew with the Royal Air Force's bomber command as a wireless operator/air gunner, and latterly, serving with a predominantly Canadian squadron, he began to cultivate a transatlantic accent and manner. He was so successful that in the 1986 edition of Halliwell's Television Companion he was still listed as "Canadian sports commentator in Britain". His intention, presumably, had been to improve his postwar career prospects, especially in the cinema. With the same aim he changed his name to the snappier Kent Walton, and had regular slots as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg by the time the first commercial television contracts were being granted, towards the end of 1954. The pioneer London company, Associated-Rediffusion, had just 10 months to acquire and equip studios, and recruit and train 1,000 staff before it was due to go on the air. Its first head of programmes, Roland Gillett - himself a mid-Atlantic character who had risen to some eminence in American television - gratefully accepted Walton's application. He was assigned to sport, which, in those days, was largely confined to racing and the occasional minority event, such as curling or badminton. No FA or league football matches were allowed to be televised, and the BBC had an exclusive deal for rugby league. Walton had his eye on an alternative pasture, the pop music scene he already knew, but after two months on the air, someone had the desperate idea of covering professional wrestling, which was staged all over London, mostly in public baths or assembly rooms. Walton had never seen wrestling of any kind, but set about making himself an expert. He consulted one of the top wrestlers, Mick McManus, and learnt the proper names for the various holds. Against all odds, that first relay, from West Ham baths, on November 9 1955, featuring Mike Marino and Francis St Clair Gregory, was a great success, and wrestling became a Wednesday evening ITV fixture. The pop music show Walton was to compere, Cool For Cats, came along a year later, but wrestling remained the subject he was best known for, especially after he and it were incorporated into the ITV's new Saturday-afternoon spectacular, World Of Sport, in 1965. Nationwide venues now hosted the bouts, timed to fill the interval between the half-time and full-time football scores. The late Queen Mother was said to be a fan, likewise Margaret Thatcher. Three times over the years a wrestler flung from the ring landed in Walton's lap - Julien Morice, Jackie Pallo and Chris Adams. Together with McManus, Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, they became stars, and the stimulus for a serious BBC documentary by Trevor Philpott. A question he was bound to raise was just how fixed were the fights, how genuine the animosity? Walton said that although wrestlers were on the whole very good mates, they never faked their scowls or threats, and certainly fought to win every time. Against this, it was noticed that when the wrestlers sought a trade union to wrest bigger and bigger fees for themselves, they chose the Variety Artists' Federation. Walton also supplied voice-overs for TV commercials and, with the soap-opera writer Hazel Adair, ventured into film production, not very impressively. In 1949, he married Lynn Smith. She survives him, along with their son. · Kent Walton (Kenneth Walton Beckett), television sports commentator and compere, born August 22 1917; died August 24 2003 By Brian Reade, Daily Mirror, September 13th, 2003. The death of wrestling commentator Kent Walton received a fraction of the media attention it deserved. This man was a legend. Okay so all he did was describe the antics of ludicrously coiffeured, exhibitionisty actors, who dive at the merest touch, feigning injury and anguish as they go about their corrupt, money-grabbing scam. But I'll bet his modern-day equivalents, John Motson, Clive Tyldesley and Martin Tyler receive far more coverage when they snuff it. |
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