Name Geoffrey Hayes Role Television presenter | Siblings Rory Hayes TV shows Rainbow, Z-Cars | |
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Born 13 March 1942 (age 82) ( 1942-03-13 ) Stockport, Cheshire, England Occupation Television presenter, actor Similar People Roy Skelton, Jane Tucker, Rory Hayes, Allan Prior, Troy Kennedy Martin | ||
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Geoffrey Hayes (born 13 March 1942 in Stockport, Cheshire) is an English television presenter and actor, best known as the host of Thames Television's top-rated children's show Rainbow from 1974 to 1992, replacing original host David Cook. Before that, he had much other work, 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.
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Hayes struggled to find work after Rainbow was cancelled. He continued to work in television and pantomime, but it was not enough to earn a living as an actor, so he took a job stacking shelves for a British supermarket chain, before becoming a taxicab driver. Hayes starred in a humorous television advert about investing money, making fun of his fall from the top.
In 1996, Hayes appeared in the video for "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" by Oasis tribute band, No Way Sis. He replicated the role as a taxi driver, just as Patrick Macnee 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?".
In 2002, he was a guest panellist on an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
In 2008, Hayes was part of the Walkers Crisps campaign for Monster Munch. The stated objective of the campaign is to find the missing monster puppets from the original 1980s television advertisements for the popular snack. In the film clip, he mentions that he has heard from Bungle recently.
On 12 September 2015 he was a guest on BBC1's Pointless Celebrities. He got through to the final but did not get a Pointless answer.
Hayes is a fan of the Scottish football team Dundee United, having lived in the city in the 1960s. Hayes claims to have "begged 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, although Zippy had always been orange from the earliest episodes in 1972, over a year before Hayes joined the series.