Edition:
avatar image
Advertisement
PostMag
Life.Culture.Discovery.

Ted Thomas on his time in the spotlight

Be it radio, TV or film, the bombastic broadcaster - who has given voice to Bruce Lee and Godzilla - has done it all. He talks about his he made a name for himself in his adopted city.

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Ted Thomas on his time in the spotlight

C I got my radio training near Trieste (in Italy) as a broadcaster for the (British) navy: I was a sports reporter. I was OK at sports - soccer, boxing - so I could talk about them intelligently. I was in the Mediterranean for three years or so. Then I was sent to Hong Kong, I was working for naval intelligence. The year was 1955; I was 23. There was a United Nations directive stating that there should be no export to China of goods of strategic value: obviously, ammunition, guns; but it also covered things like oil and paraffin. We set up a coast-watching organisation with five radar stations around Hong Kong; we checked every ship going up to China along the Pearl River. I'd been sent here to catch one or two very famous people who were exporting goods of strategic value. I had to go out to all the islands to set up the radar stations, and I was listening to the radio. I thought, "Geez, it's so f***ing bad; I could get back to what I was doing in the Mediterranean - I could be a sports reporter." So I went to RTHK and introduced myself to a guy called John Wallace - superb broadcaster. He says, "I'm going to a boxing match this evening at the Football Club, doing a commentary. Come along - I'll give you a shot." So we're sitting ringside, and he says, "Now joining me today is a new broadcaster - Ted Thomas, what do you think of the match?" and hands me the microphone, live. The minute I did this boxing commentary, I was in.

I became famous as a horse-racing commentator - I know absolutely f*** all about horses, but I could do the commentary pretty well. I suppose for at least the first year, probably 18 months, I was best known as a commentator at Happy Valley. The radio stuff started to build up. We started a thing called Operation Santa Claus. To this day, I can't get either the South China Morning Post or RTHK to admit that it was started long before they got involved: it started out with the Rediffusion network. I was on the radio five or six days a week; I did a lot of tourism segments including a morning programme called The Pearl in Your Hand. It went into every hotel room in Hong Kong.

RTHK decided I was worth encouraging, so they sent me back to the BBC for about a year. During the time I was with the BBC, they sent me to Canada, to CBC; to America - I worked with the country's most famous broadcaster, at NBC: Walter Winchell. I did a bit of time in Los Angeles - travelling at the Hong Kong government's expense. Civil servants then travelled first class and stayed in first-class hotels. (Having returned to Hong Kong) I was on the radio every day; I was on television three or four days a week. I was, in all modesty, so well known that I couldn't walk through the streets without someone I didn't know saying, "Hi Ted!"

I must be the most prolific voice actor in the history of Hong Kong: I've done over 1,000 movies. I was the (English) voice in four of Bruce Lee's movies; they were halfway through a fifth when he died. Bruce came here from America, where he'd been on a TV series called The Green Hornet. He went to Run Run Shaw and said, "I'm here now; I'm quite famous in America," but Run Run wouldn't give him a job: he wanted too much money. Raymond Chow Man-wai, who'd just left Run Run Shaw, was starting Golden Harvest, and gave Bruce a job. I was doing film dubbing for both - that's how I met Bruce. He'd never had a serious fight in his life, even as a schoolboy; and he admitted it. He was in good shape and as a kung-fu fighter on film he came across very, very well. This is also true of a number of American movie stars - take Mickey Rooney: famous for his hard-hitting movies; never had a fight either. Around that time I was doing more radio and television than any other gweilo in Hong Kong. I've probably been in more movies than any gweilo in Hong Kong. But minor parts - a lot of it was voiceovers, sound effects. I was the (English) voice of Godzilla in the Japanese films. Live-action movie roles were only a dozen or so. I'm more of a ham actor. My biggest part was in The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (2008), alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, who'd won best actress at the European Film Awards that year. I did Ferry to Hong Kong (1959), starring Orson Welles. When the director fell sick, Orson took over directing the movie.

(As a PR executive) I had many airline accounts (in the 1970s): BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation, the precursor to British Airways) in the Far East; Pan American, the biggest airline in the world; and (Dutch carrier) KLM. I did a cargo airline from Luxembourg, which I even flew, taking my car as excess baggage. I'd bought an Aston Martin and I was returning to Hong Kong from the UK. I drove my car onto the plane in Luxembourg, went upstairs to the first-class cabin, where I had a bed, and drove my car off at Kai Tak.

I get called up now and again to do voices. But now it's so different. When I used to go in the dubbing studio, there'd be 10 actors grouped around a microphone, thick with cigarette smoke: you could hardly see the screen. We would take about three days to dub a movie - that's lip-synching. You've got to watch out for certain things - for example, certain sounds are closed-lip sounds, like "m" and "b". It's now so much simpler. They say, "Sit in front of the mic, Ted - that's the character. Just read it." And they can move it back and forward, and fit it in themselves. So you spend no time. Lip-synching dubbing would mean, in the old days, like four or five hours. Now you're there for 15 minutes.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Madeleine Fitzpatrick is a production editor on SCMP’s Style magazine, and specialist publications including 100 Top Tables, the Good Schools Guide and LuxeHomes. Her beats include lifestyle, travel, business, technology, and arts and culture. Her writings have been published by The Economist, Time, Fortune, Prestige, Campaign Asia and China Daily, as well as the SCMP. Madeleine has a degree in Russian and Spanish from Cambridge, and a degree in psychology from HKU. She lives in northeast Lantau with her husband, daughter and Hong Kong village dog.
Advertisement