The TV presenter is center screen and looking directly into the camera. He’s formally dressed, fronting a light entertainment show airing live. Both the viewers and his studio audience are poised for a night of merriment.
Without invitation, a tall, smartly dressed man walks into the shot, looking confident. The host eyes him with bemusement.
Seconds later, the host receives a brutal right cross and flinches backward. The studio audience can be heard murmuring in confusion. Cameras pan wildly, trying to track the departing intruder. A faint ripple of applause rises from the audience, then dies.
The attacker, it turns out, assaulted the host to defend his wife’s honor.
No, this isn’t the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony, but a British TV broadcast from nearly 60 years ago. And the two combatants, while not exactly Hollywood A-list, were prominent figures in their time.
The host was Bernard Levin, an author and columnist once described by the Times of London as “the most famous journalist of his day.” His attacker was Desmond Leslie, a former World War II Spitfire pilot turned musician and filmmaker.
On that evening in 1963, Leslie dealt Levin what was likely the first flurry of unscripted punches thrown on live TV.
Unlike with the violence that erupted between Will Smith and Chris Rock on Sunday night – brought about by the latter’s jokes at the expense of the former’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith – studio crew were unable to mute or cut away from the fallout of the initial punch. Today, satellite, cable and digital transmissions are subject to a broadcast delay of between 0.9 and 5 seconds to quickly contain any surprises that might happen on a live show.
In the analog era, local transmissions were virtually instantaneous. This meant that any of the 11 million viewers watching Leslie sock Levin got to see the clipboard-wielding floor manager blunder between them and try to discreetly manhandle the aggressor offstage.
The two men hadn’t been scheduled to meet on the show. Levin was hosting “That Was The Week That Was,” a TV comedy program that helped kick-start a British satire movement, which would later give birth to Monty Python. (Two of the troupe’s members, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, were regular contributors, as was famed children’s author Roald Dahl.)
The show offered a mix of sketches, solo pieces to camera and lighthearted debate. Its targets were institutions, which had previously been considered sacrosanct by the British media: the monarchy, class system, gender roles and relevance of the British Empire.
On the night of the assault, Leslie wasn’t a guest but a member of the audience. He’d come to the studio seeking revenge.
His wife, the singer and actress Agnes Bernelle, had recently been the subject of an unflattering review by Levin in his column for a tabloid newspaper. Levin had poured scorn on Bernelle’s performance in her stage show “Savagery and Delight” during its run at London’s Duchess Theatre.
Before the curtain had risen on the night of the critic’s focus, Leslie was on duty as the sound engineer. He had forgotten to connect the stage speakers, rendering his wife’s performance largely inaudible. He had also left the theater midway through the show.
Bernelle herself was unfazed by the bad reviews that the London dates of her show had attracted: She went so far as to publicly display them alongside the more positive write-ups she’d received at the Dublin Festival.
Today, the punching of Levin is considered an iconic stage invasion, and another colorful episode in Desmond Leslie’s life. The Irishman, who was first cousin once removed to wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was frequently reprimanded during his career as a combat pilot – alleged charges included “writing inappropriate words with his vapor trails” as well as using his aircraft’s wings to clip a pub’s hanging sign.
After moving into the entertainment industry in the 1950s, Leslie became a pioneering composer of electronic music, as well as a prominent UFO enthusiast. He co-wrote 1953’s “Flying Saucers Have Landed,” one of the first books on the subject.
His very public devotion to his wife’s reputation, however, was short lived. Leslie had numerous extramarital affairs, and in the late 1960s he would send Bernelle and their children on holiday while he changed the locks on the family home, Castle Leslie – and moved his second family in.
It seems his sense of chivalry was something he could call upon at his own discretion.
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