Charles Geoffrey Hayes (13 March 1942 – 30 September 2018) was an English television presenter and actor. He presented Thames Television's children's show '' Rainbow'' from 1972 to 1992.

Early life and education

Hayes had various jobs such as a

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

booking clerk before attending drama school in Manchester and training as an actor. Hayes' most prominent role was the presenter of Thames Television's children's show '' Rainbow'' from 1973 to 1992, replacing original host David Cook. Before this, he worked as an actor, including a recurring role in BBC1's police drama '' Z-Cars''. Hayes also has writing credits for ''Rainbow'' and ''The Great Pony Raid'' in 1967.

Career

Hayes struggled to find work after ''Rainbow'' was cancelled by

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

when the production company, Thames Television, lost its franchise in 1991. He took a job stacking shelves for his local Sainsbury's grocery for four months as he had not yet found an acting job. He spent time as a taxicab driver and then retired some time later. He said that he would like to have done serious acting work after the show ended, but directors could not disassociate him from his role in ''Rainbow''. Hayes starred in a humorous television advert about investing money, making fun of his fall from the top. Hayes appeared in the video for " I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" by

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

tribute band,

No Way Sis No Way Sis were the official Oasis tribute band originating from Glasgow, Scotland. The band had a Top 40 hit single in the UK in 1996 with their EP, ''I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing'', the title track being a cover of the New Seekers ...

. He replicated the role of a taxi driver, just as

Patrick Macnee Daniel Patrick Macnee (6 February 1922 – 25 June 2015) was a British film and television actor. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, he began his acting career in Canada. Despite having some small film roles, Macnee spent much ...

had done in the Oasis video for " Don't Look Back in Anger". Hayes also appeared in the all-star line up for the video of Tony Christie with Peter Kay's single "

Is This the Way to Amarillo? "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo" is a song written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. It is about a man traveling to Amarillo, Texas, to find his girlfriend Marie. Written by two Americans with a strong country-western lyrical theme, the so ...

" In 2002, he was a guest panellist on an episode of '' Never Mind the Buzzcocks''. Hayes was part of the Walkers Crisps campaign for Monster Munch in 2008. The stated objective of the campaign was to find the missing monster puppets from the original 1980s television advertisements for the snack. In the film clip, he mentions that he has heard from Bungle recently. In September 2015, he was a guest on BBC One's '' Pointless Celebrities'' alongside the former Tiswas star Sally James. The pair got through to the final, but did not get a Pointless answer.

Personal life

Hayes married Sarah Williams in 1987. The couple had a son, Tom. Hayes was a fan of the

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

football team Dundee United, having lived in the city in the 1960s. Hayes said that he asked the producers of ''Rainbow'' to make the Zippy puppet tangerine in colour, to match Dundee United's colours rather than the blue of local rivals

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

. He had homes in London and Spain.

Death

Hayes died of pneumonia in hospital on 30 September 2018 aged 76.

References

External links

Geoffrey Hayes
at the British Film Institute * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hayes, Geoffrey 1942 births 2018 deaths Deaths from pneumonia in the United Kingdom English male television actors English television presenters British television presenters British children's television presenters People associated with Dundee People from Stockport Place of death missing