This is the story of how vicious latex caricatures of government ministers and pop stars became must-see television, writes Dan Carrier

THE decapitated heads of the Prime Minister and the US President were driven up and down the M1 each week. They were frequently damaged in transit, leading to emergency surgery moments before filming began.
But such was the skill of the craftsmen behind Spitting Image, which spent 12 years poking fun at the great and the good, fans of the series would never have known Ronald Reagan’s nose had had to be re-built moments before he was filmed in bed with Nancy using rubber and wood glue. Made in a workshop in east London but filmed in Birmingham, the puppets made daily sojourns northwards to fit in with studio time.

It has been a long journey from Hollywood to Hampstead for the actress Betsy Blair, writes Gerald Isaaman

BETSY Blair, one-time Queen of Hollywood and teenage wife of Gene Kelly, glides across the kitchen floor in stockinged feet, a reminder in itself of her dashing days as a dancer. Then, aged just 16, she was in the chorus line at New York’s Diamond Horseshoe night club, the unknown Gene Kelly putting her and the high kickers through their paces.
She is now 81 and full of charm and delight, determination and fortitude to go on, despite the death two years ago of her husband, the radical film maker Karel Reisz, with whom she spent the latter half her life.