Magazine Illustration Part 1: TV Guide

During the 60s, 70s & 80s Searle was a regular contributor to US magazine TV Guide. This image of Bob Hope was his first cover in 1965.

Between 1967-1995 Jerry Alten was Art Director of TV Guide and hired Searle repeatedly.  In correspondence with me he related how dependable Searle was:

"I worked with Ronald for some thirty years. Unfortunately for me most of it was through the mail. As art director of TV Guide magazine I had to contend with 52 covers a year as well as 10 to 12 art needs inside the magazine.

Most of the time I checked a pre-sketch of the work being done because being a weekly magazine everything had to go to the printing plant in 5 or 6 days. Conception of what I wanted took some time as did the fact that my artists and photographers were all over the country and the world. One of the very few people I never requested a pre-sketch from was Ronald. I knew it would always be right on and it always, in 30 years, was."

Jackie Gleason 21st June 1969

'F-Troop' 27th May 1967

Ed Sullivan

Watercolor and ink on paper, 1968 51.8 x 35.2 cm (203/8 x 137/8 in.)

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 Beatrice Arthur and Hermione Baddeley of “Maude”

March 29 – April 4, 1975

March 31st 1979

August 26th-September 1st, 1967 

(1965/10/16) Ronald Searle "Portrait of a Clown" TV Guide p. 20.

'Peyton Place'

(courtesy of David Welch, Childhood Memorabilia, Wentzville,MO; EBAY seller pezdudewelch)


A VISIT TO Gilt-Edge GULCH

by Ronald Searle, TV Guide Sept 1965

Practically everything that can be said
has been said ad nauseam about this sweaty fairy tale and its never-ending success with the ratings. In sheer acreage of human flesh alone, Bonanza must be one of the biggest things to hit the TV screens of the Western world since showgirls.
To spend a day in the studio with the Cartwright family is about as perilous as being shoved into a bullring---with only a fountain pen for protection. The wide open spaces of Nevada reach only as far as the cyclorama; and the hitching post between the studio visitor and the steed that rears to a halt under Ole Pa Cartwright (after a long gallop from one arc light to another)seems too frail.
Here after six years, something should be limping in the State of the Ponderosa. However, gravediggers are certainly not apparent in the atmosphere, which is about as sensitive as that of a baseball locker room. Only Dan "Hoss" Blocker, deep in consultation with his Business Interests over there in the shadows, belies what would seem to be nothing more than a golden crust of cliché spread stickily over Stage 16, at Paramount Studios.
What has Bonanza got that the others haven't got? The answer is Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon, who still retain a sense of belief in the show.

The "Cartwrights" have managed to insulate themselves against the encroachment of better judgment, sex and the Beatles. What other show can boast a father figure who has almost toppled Ringo Starr from the Top 10 with a sentimental ballad called, ironically, "Ringo"?
There is more than a smell of confidence in the Ponderosa ranch house. Right must triumph in the end, and if there has to be any long hair around, it had better be on the hosses -or else. And, hush! That crackle in the undergrowth. Could it be . . . ? You're right. It's money! And that speaks, pardner.
Continue for a visit to Lorne Greene as he prospects for gold in a Sparks, Nevada night club.

Johny Carson, August 31st, 1968

M.A.S.H.

TV Guide Spot illustration 1980s

'Film Publicity: Welcome to a film person' ,1984

As far as I know this is the last cover Searle did for TV Guide, October 27th 1990. The magazine's art director had fun with this one-pasting Freddy Krueger on top of Searle's delightful painting!

"Who Killed Hollywood Society"

These are from Searle's period both illustrating and writing TV Guide articles.

TV Guide July 1975 interior illustrations

'The Saga Of Culture'

'A Drink With Friends'

Sports listing in the same issue (July '75)

'Cost of (satellite) launch'

 'Saddam Hussein' 1972

 'Welsh Woman with Scallion'

 'War'

June 2,1979

TV Guide for January 3rd – 9th, 1976. (Cover Art by Bernie Fuchs)

Within the pages of the magazine is a story entitled “Who Loves Ya, Baby?” by Alan Coren illustrated by Ronald Searle. 

'Phyllis Diller'
1968 Fall Preview Issue

  Don Knotts, 1970.

2nd September 1978

"Wait'll Vogue & Bazaar see this one!"

St.Trinian's Remake

The new St.Trinian's movie is being promoted at the Cannes Film Festival. I'm hoping this re-make has a suitably Searle-esque title sequence.



St Trinian's promises class act
By Stephen Robb
Entertainment reporter, BBC News, in Cannes


Talulah Riley, Caterina Murino and Gemma Arterton star in the film
When the modern version of St Trinian's reaches cinemas this Christmas, its makers promise an anarchic view of British public school life that will be an "antidote to Harry Potter".
At the Cannes Film Festival, its stars Colin Firth and Rupert Everett were among cast and crew discussing the movie about the riotous girls' school, which is currently shooting.
Talulah Riley, who plays one of the unruly pupils, warns: "They will do anything and everything - there's drugs, there's sex, there's tattoos, piercings."
"It's going to shock some people," says co-director Oliver Parker.
"It's curious because certain things will be a bit edgier and more challenging than they were, then again in the early films the girls are puffing away on cigarettes and of course you can't do that now," says Parker.
"I hope we have come up with something that's fresh and stands on its own."
The idea of a new version of an old favourite was suggested by Everett, who worked with Parker on An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Everett takes the dual role of the school headmistress and her brother, memorably played by Alastair Sim in two of the original movies.
"You should never really try and take on a role that has been played to the hilt - there is very little chance that you can do better," he admits.
Firth suggests: "You're very attractive - you're much more attractive than he ever was."


Among the figures used as inspiration for the headmistress is Camilla Parker Bowles, Everett confesses.
"She's a marvellous woman," he says. "She's got a sense of humour, and she likes a drink and a cigarette - she's my kind of girl."
Firth, who also starred in The Importance of Being Earnest, plays an MP planning to turn the school into a respectable institution when it nears bankruptcy.
His battle with the schoolgirls over the fate of St Trinian's sees him "humiliated in as many ways as possible", according to Parker.
"I am begging them to kill me off in this one," says Firth, in response to a question about possible sequels to the film.
St Trinian's has been filming in Trafalgar Square, London
"Let's see how people like this one first," says Parker.

He is co-directing the film with Barnaby Thompson, previously producer on a number of Parker's films.
The cast also includes Mischa Barton, star of US TV series The OC, Casino Royale actress Caterina Murino and TV presenter and comedian Russell Brand.
St Trinian's is due to finish shooting next week, having been filmed in and around Ealing Studios in west London.
Ealing Studios is famed for producing some of Britain's best-loved comedies in the 1940s and 50s, including Whisky Galore and The Ladykillers.
It returned to film-making in 2002 and has made one or two films a year since, but is now aiming to increase that to between three and six a year.
"We will be operating very much as a boutique version of the American studios," says managing director James Spring.
"In the same way that taking on Ealing Studios we have a great responsibility to its history, with St Trinian's we have a great responsibility to that history.
"They are great fun comedies, but with a real anarchic flavour to them.
"The film that we are making is very much based upon the values of the old St Trinian's movies."