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Norman Giller, the Gruesome Facts

Bio

Details taken from Debrett's People of Today
NORMAN GILLER is a prolific English author and sports historian, who has had 121 books published to date. Born in Stepney, East London on April 18 1940, Norman started out as a copy boy with the London Evening News after leaving Raine's Foudation Grammar School at the age of 15 in 1955. He joined the Stratford Express as a junior reporter in 1957, and later became a ringside reporter and layout specialist with Boxing News. He worked as a sub-editor with the London Evening Standard and the Daily Herald before joining the Daily Express as a football writer in 1964 (chief football reporter 1966-73).

He has been freelancing since January 1974, and his output includes 14 years as a member of the This Is Your Life scriptwriting team, and he has devised several television series including Who's the Greatest? (ITV, 1980s), The Games of 48 and Over the Moon, Brian (with Brian Moore, ITV 1990s), Petrolheads (BBC2 2006); Ricky's Joke Shop (with Ricky Tomlinson, BBC Pilot 2005); he co-produced 63 editions of Stand and Deliver (Sky TV, 1990s), presented by Mike Reid and featuring the likes of Bernard Manning, Cannon & Ball, Ted Rogers, Frank Carson, Stan Boardman, Jim Bowen, Ted Robbins etc. He has collaborated as scriptwriter and co-producer with Top Gear director Brian Klein on more than 50 sports-based videos/DVDs, featuring celebrities such as Gordon Ramsay, Ray Winstone, Alan Hansen, John Motson, Dickie Bird, Frank Bruno, Frankie Dettori, Lawrence Dallaglio, Harry Carpenter, and Jimmy Greaves. He was also scriptwriter for one of the first VHS football videos back in 1981/82, Tottenham: The First 100 Years, presented by Jimmy Greaves. It is now 'an antique' and much sought after by Spurs supporters. Giller recently came out of the closet as a Spurs follower, after many seasons as a press box neutral. He gives all profits from sales of his Tottenham-themed books to the Tottenham Tribute Trust, that helps old players who have hit difficult times.

Giller was a boxing PR for promoters Harry Levene and Mike Barrett, and worked closely with his best pal Terry Lawless in the projection of his star-studded stable of boxers including Frank Bruno, Jim Watt, Maurice Hope, John H. Stracey and Charlie Magri. He also worked as a member of Muhammad Ali's PR team in several of his European fights and counted The Greatest as a good friend. His 99th book focuses on Ali's career.

For several years he collaborated with his old friend Eric Morecambe on a Sportsmile column for the Daily Express and in the Titbits magazine; he also worked on articles with Benny Hill and Tommy Cooper and scripted an adult pantomime for Mike Reid and Barbara Windsor called Pussy In Boots (also featuring Ted Robbins and John Altman). He and Ricky Tomlinson combined with Top Gear director Brian Klein on a BBC comedy pilot called Ricky's Joke Shop., starring Ricky, Jim Bowen and Norman Collier, with a guest appearance by then England goalkeeper David Seaman, who dropped everything he was handed in the shop (well Giller thought it was funny).

His output has also included crosswords and puzzle games with The Times, Daily and Sunday Express, The Sun, Sunday Telegraph and London Evening News. He has compiled the annual Times Sports Jumbo Crossword for 30 consecutive years. Giller was the argument-settling Judge of The Sun for ten years, and he and his sports statistician son Michael set the 2,000 questions for the DVD version of Football Trivial Pursuit. With his then partner Peter Lorenzo and associate Malcolm Rowley, Giller created one of the first major pub quiz competitions in 1974. It was called What's Yours? and had 64 competing pubs in a series sponsored by the Charrington's chain in south-east England. He writes a regular column reflecting on the changing face of newspapers on the Sports Journalists' Association website. His book output includes the following titles

Collected Works

Books

Banks of England (with Gordon Banks) 
Bobby Moore The Master 
Bill Nicholson Revisited
Pelé v Banks, The Save that Shook the World (with Terry Baker)
Danny Blanchflower, This WAS His Life
The Lane of Dreams (with Jimmy Greaves and Steve Perryman)
The Glory and the Grief (with George Graham) 
Football And All That (history of the game)
The Seventies Revisited (with Kevin Keegan) 
The Final Score (with Brian Moore)
ABC Soccer Sense (Tommy Docherty) 
Billy Wright, A Hero for All Seasons (official biography)
The Rat Race (with Tommy Docherty) 
Denis Compton (The Untold Stories)
McFootball, Scottish Heroes of the English Game 
Chopper's Chelsea (Ron Harris/Terry Baker)
Hammers-80 (with Terry Baker and introduced by Sir Trevor Brooking)
The Book of Rugby Lists (with Gareth Edwards) 
Book of Tennis Lists (with John Newcombe)
The Book of Golf Lists 
TV Quiz Trivia
Sports Quiz Trivia
Satzenbrau Sports Puzzle Book 
Satzenbrau TV Puzzle Book
Know What I Mean (with Frank Bruno) 
Eye of the Tiger (with Frank Bruno)
From Zero to Hero (with Frank Bruno) 
The Judge Book of Sports Answers
Watt's My Name (with Jim Watt) 
My Most Memorable Fights (with Henry Cooper)
How to Box (with Henry Cooper) 
Henry Cooper's 100 Greatest Boxers
Mike Tyson. A Biography Mike Tyson, the Release of Power (with Reg Gutteridge)
Crown of Thorns, the World Heavyweight Championship (with Neil Duncanson)
Fighting for Peace (Barry McGuigan biography, with Peter Batt)
The Ali Files, His Fights, His Foes, His Fees, His Fate
World's Greatest Cricket Matches
World's Greatest Football Matches
Golden Heroes (with Dennis Signy)
The Judge (1,001 arguments settled)
The Great Football IQ Quiz Book (The Judge of The Sun)
The Marathon Kings The Golden Milers (with Sir Roger Bannister)
Olympic Heroes (with Brendan Foster)
Olympics Handbook 1980
Olympics Handbook 1984
Book of Cricket Lists (Tom Graveney)
Top Ten Cricket Book (Tom Graveney)
Cricket Heroes (with Eric Morecambe)
Big Fight Quiz Book 
TVIQ Puzzle Book
Jimmy Greaves At Seventy (with Terry Baker and Michael Giller)
The Golden Double (with Terry Baker and Michael Giller)
World Cup 2010 (with Michael Giller)
TOTTENHAM: The Managing Game The Glory-Glory Game (Spurs Writers' Club)

Comedy Novelisations 

Carry On Doctor
Carry On England
Carry On Loving
Carry On Up the Khyber
Carry On Abroad
Carry On Henry
What A Carry On eBook

Novels

A Stolen Life
Mike Baldwin: Mr Heartbreak (introduced by Johnny Briggs)
Hitler's Final Victim
Affairs
The Glory and The Greed (e-novel)
Keys to Paradise (with Jeni Robbins, e-novel)

Books in collaboration with Ricky Tomlinson

Football My Arse
Celebrities My Arse
Cheers My Arse
Reading My Arse (The Search for the Rock Island Line)

Books in collaboration with Jimmy Greaves

This One's On Me
The Final (novel)
The Ball Game (novel)
The Boss (novel)
The Second Half (novel)
Let's Be Honest (with Reg Gutteridge)
Greavsie's Heroes and Entertainers
World Cup History
GOALS! The greatest ever scored
Stop the Game, I Want to Get On
The Book of Football Lists
Taking Sides
Sports Quiz Challenge
Sports Quiz Challenge 2
It's A Funny Old Life
Saint & Greavsie's World Cup Special
The Sixties Revisited
Don’t Shoot the Manager
Greavsie's Greatest The 50 Greatest post-war British strikers
Funny Old Games (with Saint and Greavsie)

Miscellaneous

Gloria Hunniford’s TV Challenge    
Lucky the Fox with Barbara Wright
The Concorde Cub - The First 50 Years (with Cole Mathieson)

Television

This Is Your Life scriptwriter (1981–1995)
including programmes featuring Sir Richard Branson, Sir Jimmy Savile, Frank Bruno, Paul Daniels, Simon Weston, Ruth Madoc, Dan Maskell, Cliff Morgan, Denis Compton, Billy Wright, Peter Shilton, John Surtees, Nigel Mansell, Peter Alliss, Henry Cotton, Terry Lawless, Joe Johnson, James Herbert, Jack 'Kid' Berg, Reg Gutteridge, Mike Reid, Stan Boardman, Benny Green, George Shearing, Helen Shapiro.

Eurovision Preview show with Gloria Hunniford (BBC1 1990)

Who's the Greatest, devisor and scriptwriter of an ITV series that involved celebrities such as: Sir David Frost, Sir Michael Parkinson, Sir Jeffrey Archer, Tom Graveney, Gloria Hunniford, Eamonn Andrews, Tom O'Connor, Stan Boardman, Bernie Winters, Dennis Waterman, Willie Rushton and Sir Henry Cooper.

Stunt Challenge for ITV (two series in the 1980s, scriptwriter with Derek Thompson.

Stand and Deliver for Sky TV (co-producer with Brian Klein of On the Box Productions) 63 comedy programmes featuring, among others, Mike Reid, Norman Collier, Frank Carson, Jim Bowen, Stan Boardman, Ted Rogers, Cannon and Ball and Bernard Manning.
The Games of 48  (ITV 1998, devisor and scriptwriter, with Brian Moore)
Guests included Olympic legends Emil Zátopek, Fanny Blankers-Koen and Bob Mathias, and Hugh Laurie’s gold medallist rowing Dad. 

Petrol heads (2006 for BBC2), devisor and scriptwriter.
Regular panellists were Richard Hammond, Chris Barrie and presenter Neil Morrissey. Featured guests included Eamonn Holmes, Murray Walker, Ricky Tomlinson, Ronan Keating, James May, Philip Glenister.

Over the Moon, Brian (ITV), devisor and scriptwriter
Tribute series to Brian Moore, with guests including Brian Clough and Jack Charlton

Aureus World Sports Awards, Monte Carlo. Screened in more than 200 countries. Two years as chief scriptwrite 2004/05, putting words into the mouths of a myriad of stars including Sean Connery, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, Morgan Freeman, Rod Stewart, David Hasselhoff and sports legends like Ed Moses, John McEnroe, Mark Spitz, Lord Coe, Sir Ian Botham, Sir Bobby Charlton, Gary Player, Dawn Fraser, Franz Klammer and Michael Jordan. Giller described it as: “The greatest gig ever.”  
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