Colonel White Meets Mark Saber [The Vise] Three 2020: Life and Times of South African Actor Donald Gray (1914-1978)

If you were fortunate to own a black and white television set in the 1950's then you probably remember Mark Saber, the urbane one-armed British private detective who always got his man no matter what the odds were. For one hundred and fifty four episodes Saber drove his Porsche through the streets of London with a series of five different assistants, two different secretaries, and his girlfriend, Ann, at his side. The shows appeared in America under various titles as The Vise, Detective's Diary, and Saber of London and in Great Britain as Mark Saber and Saber of London. The remarkable success of Mark Saber was due largely to actor Donald Gray, who began life as Elred Tidbury on his father's Ostrich farm in Cape Province, South Africa. This story follows Gray as he grows up in South Africa ends up in 1930's Hollywood as the winner of Paramount Pictures Search for the world's most beautiful man, arrives in England just in time to witness the decline of its movie industry, gets his big break just as World War II begins and finally, as a member of the celebrated King's Own Scottish Borderers, suffers a serious life-altering injury in the Normandy campaign after D Day. We cheer him on in the ten years that he sruggles to get his career back together, gets married, starts a family, and finally gets world-wide acclaim as the intrepid Mark Saber, and we suffer with him through the bad times in the poignant last years of his life. Trevor Jordan's book is not only a brilliant and interesting history of early film, radio and television in America and Great Britain, but it is also a tribute to the talent and ability of Donald Gray, and his emergence as one of the most beloved and respected entertainers of his time. Description written by Barbara Allen.