Ted Rogers
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- For the Canadian radio pioneer known as Ted Rogers, Sr., see Edward S. Rogers, Sr. For his son, the Canadian media magnate known as Ted Rogers, see Edward S. Rogers.
Ted Rogers (30 July 1935 - 2 May 2001) was a fast talking British comedian and light entertainer (who originally started his career as a red coat). A familiar presence on Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium in the 1960s. However, he is best remembered as the presenter of 3-2-1, a variety-cum-gameshow, which remained a staple of ITV's Saturday night schedule from 1978 to 1987.
After the programme ended, Rogers continued to tour in his own one man show. A staunch supporter of the Conservative (Thatcher) Government of the 1980s, in the mid 1990s he fell on hard times and was declared bankrupt having (apparently) invested his fortune in a failed business venture.
In the late 1990s, his career gained a short lived reprieve, when the Satellite/Cable station Challenge TV began re-running old episodes of his hit show, 3-2-1. He died in 2001, shortly after undergoing open heart surgery, apparently "bitter" at being overlooked by TV schedulers keen to make way for a new broom of so-called "alternative" comedians and entertainers.