Profile on Rae Knight

Let me explain from the beginning for those who do not know – Rae Knight, the programme editor of ‘Close Up’ is female, although one would never guess this from her daily post which invariably is addressed to ‘Mr Knight’ or ‘Rae Knight, Esq.’

Rae, I soon learnt, spends most of her time viewing miles and miles of film – ‘I sometimes feel more like a pit pony,’ she says, ‘just, coming up for occasional glimpses of daylight.’ But Rae has not always lived in the dark.

After reading English and History at Oxford for eight months, she had to come down owing to the death of her mother. Rae wanted a job, so she cut out three advertisements from a newspaper – one for a librarian, one to work in an insurance office and one to train as a dentist’s anaesthetist – and applied for them. She was accepted by all three and as she was equally unqualified for each, plumped for the one to train as a dentist’s anaesthetist. She loathed that and gave it up for modelling. However, dress modelling was obviously not Rae’s vocation either – ‘I wanted to laugh whenever I was meant to have a serious face’ – so after a brief spell working in various offices and even for a short time in a chocolate shop, she took a job as a factory hand.

After three weeks working the machines that make bread machines, the output per man (and one woman) must have dropped. Rae was taken off the machines for causing too great a distraction and put on to the administrative side of the factory. There she concentrated on the safety, health and general welfare of the workers.

Rae’s administrative capabilities were widened with marriage and one icy March day found her planting 22,000 cabbages on a small-holding in Kent. As many cabbage planters before her must have found, it is not the most lucrative occupation, so the benefits of an outdoor life were relinquished for a job with the BBC.

During two years there, Rae graduated from working in the film library to becoming a researcher on ‘Tonight’ and there her days of viewing film began. How did the transition to Associated-Rediffusion come about? ‘I just fell into it,’ replies Rae, ‘through someone I met at a party.’

Now, three years later, she is still viewing film, but with rather more fringe benefits. When she first began, the film industry was inclined to look down upon the television world. To be allowed snippets from new films meant constant telephoning and letterwriting to the film companies. Now, they welcome television publicity and Rae is inundated with pamphlets, photographs and invitations to film previews. Recently she was invited to Hollywood for the premier of ‘It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world’, although there is not much hope of being able to accept that. She did go to Southern Spain for the filming of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Many other people also went to Spain in various capacities for that film, and as sleeping accommodation became scarcer, it was arranged that members of some crews should share rooms for the night. Rae, owing to the usual mistake with her name, found she was expected to double up with a strange cameraman, until she found other accommodation.

On another occasion, Rae had arranged an interview with Hugh O’Brien where he was staying in Eaton Terrace. When she arrived, the butler showed her in but left her for a few minutes while consulting Hugh O’Brien. Strains of conversation floated out: ‘…but I’ve got this chap from TV coming…’ When it was at last established that ‘this chap from TV’ and Rae Knight were one and the same person, she was shown in. Hugh O’Brien was obviously pleasantly surprised. Other trips abroad include a visit to Rome to see Charlton Heston when he was making ‘El Cid’; Paris twice – once for ‘Goodbye Again’ to see Françoise Sagan, Yves Montand, Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Perkins, and again for ‘Waltz of the Toreadors’. Rae went to Cannes for the film festival, Madrid for ‘55 Days at Peking’ and even to Munich. That was for the filming of‘The Great Escape’ with John Sturgess and it was on that occasion that Rae gave her first television interview.

Interviewer Nick Barker was meant to be appearing and it had been arranged that he should follow Rae out with a film crew. When there was no sign of either, there was a major panic: Rae rang London to suggest dropping the interview. Instead she became the interviewer and was filmed by a German film crew, which she hired there.

If one day your young daughter should say to you: ‘I want to work in a chocolate shop when I grow up’, don’t despair – just think to what it could lead.