- Actor, compère, producer, and playwright. He also invented and presented the famous BBC radio series "Desert Island Discs" which has been running continuously since 29th January 1942 (having been struck with the notion on the night of Monday 3rd November 1941 as a 27-year-old about to go to bed in his digs in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and writing to the BBC's Leslie Perowne at the Gramophone Department of Broadcasting House to pitch the idea).
- He has been posthumously inducted into the Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
- He published 16 stage plays (one of which, "Cold Turkey," was put on in the West End in London, England), and one novel.
- He was voted BBC Radio Personality of the Year in 1979.
- He was Chairman of the Radio and Television Writers' Association, 1957-1959.
- He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to radio broadcasting.
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