Michael Miles, the TV quizmaster, dies

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32536, 20 February 1971, Page 3

Michael Miles, the TV quizmaster, dies

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

LONDON, Feb. 19.

Michael Miles, a New Zealander well-known on British television, has died of a heart attack while on a business trip to Malaga in Spain. He was aged 51.

The 6ft 3in quizmaster of television shows similar in style to the New Zealand radio quiz “It’s in the Bag,” was bom in Wellington where he began as a radio announcer on station 2ZB in 1938.

He moved to Australia and later to Singapore where he was a news reader when the Japanese invaded. He escaped in a cattle boat and spent the remainder of the war entertaining troops, mainly in North Africa. He came to Britain 22 years ago and started a radio show for the 8.8. C., "Radio Forfeits,” which proved most successful. He turned to television in 1955 with “Take Your Pick” for Rediffusion. N.Z. PRIZES

Mr Miles’s last show, “Wheel of Fortune," for

Southern Television, followed a similar pattern with easy questions and tempting prizes. One recent glamour prize was a holiday in New Zealand.

His secretary said in London that Mr Miles had been ill on several occasions following collapses in recent years, but had been in good health during 1970. He collapsed on Wednesday at his hotel in Malaga where he was in connection with a new series for the spring, and died of the heart attack later in the day. Mr Miles leaves his wife, Joan, and two children— Sarah, aged 20, and Andrew, aged 17.

Mr Miles was estimated to be making about $40,000 a year from his television quiz shows in the mid-19505.

He frequently publicised New Zealand, and several of his quiz prizes have been trips, to New Zealand disguised as prizes of four pounds of New Zealand butter. One pound was given on the stage at the show and the winner had to make the all-expenses-paid trip to New Zealand to collect the rest.

In the 1960 s his programme competed with "Coronation Street’ for the

top honours, and was in the top 10 programmes more often than any other programme except "Coronation Street.”