When ITV was launched in 1955, many people seized the opportunity to make programmes for the new television channel. But Roger Lambert, who has died aged 96, was a visionary director who saw the potential for a whole new industry in Britain – producing commercials for the small screen.
When the BBC’s competitor began broadcasting in the London area on 22 September, one of the first advertisements to be seen by viewers in just 100,000 homes was made by Studio Lambert.
The commercial, for Churchman’s No 1 cigarettes, was commissioned by the advertising agency Pritchard, Wood & Partners, which wanted Roger Lambert to animate the cigarettes as stick figures leaping into their box. With no idea how to achieve that, he turned to Frank Hendrix of the Rank Organisation, who made publicity films for cinemas. Hendrix taught him various techniques and tricks, including how to move the camera in an animated film.
While putting together the Churchman’s commercial, they realised the plain white background was rather boring. So Hendrix took an old film can, put it on a stand and shone a light at it – with the reflections creating a stunning mottled effect on the backdrop.
Lambert’s debut on ITV came a year after he took over Studio Lambert, in the heart of London’s Soho, from his elder brother, Peter. It was then a photographic studio, but Peter left to make feature films and Roger abandoned stills cameras with the advent of ITV and turned it into a production company, eventually making up to 100 commercials a year.
He quickly established his own innovative techniques, such as rewinding the film in-camera for double exposures, and won plaudits for his lighting and bold style of directing.
Lambert recalled that other production companies making adverts were “mostly staffed by people from the film industry and their commercials looked like badly lit B-features”. He said Studio Lambert’s work stood out because he “began using stills photography lighting and doing real close-ups and pack shots”.
The company, usually with Lambert directing, produced commercials for big-name brands, from Heinz baked beans, Mr Kipling’s cakes and Guinness beer to Head & Shoulders shampoo, Domestos disinfectant and Slimcea bread.
In 1966, Lambert’s business introduced Arthur the Kattomeat cat to TV ads, scooping food out of the tin with his paw. Dozens of such commercials were made over the next nine years, with many cats – and handlers who were “stranger than the cats”, according to Patrick Hayes, who in 1966 became Studio Lambert’s producer and managed the company.
One cat was “bouncing off the wall and suddenly went barmy”, Hayes recalled; he rushed to his doctor in Soho and asked whether he had something to calm down the animal. “Yes,” the GP replied, “but I’m not sure whether I will calm it or kill it!” In the event, the cat was soon ready for the camera.
Studio Lambert also brought to life Captain Birds Eye in fish finger commercials from 1967, when the white-haired, jolly seafarer was played by the actor John Hewer, with the catchphrase: “Only the best for the captain’s table.”
Many ads were for household products, filmed in the studio, but one Kellogg’s corn flakes advert took Lambert and his team to a Kent castle, with a helicopter flying overhead dropping flakes. A 1971 commercial for the same brand, titled Waking Up, won the gold star at the British Television Advertising Awards.
While some commercials directors such as Alan Parker and Ridley and Tony Scott switched to feature films, and other production companies shot more “glamorous” products, Lambert was happy to stick with what he described as “hardcore professional advertising”, explaining: “I enjoy the problem-solving element of the process and getting a good script which has a genuinely good idea, rather than one that just requires beautiful shots.”
Lambert was born in Hornsey, north London, the second of four children, to artists, Hilda (nee Lawrence) and Walter Lambert. His father painted advertising posters for Ovaltine, Lux and Oxo, as well as the glamorous “Leyland Ladies” portraits in oil for Leyland Motors calendars from 1930. Walter’s own father, Walter Hibbert Lambert, was not only a painter, but also a female impersonator and ventriloquist in music halls under the stage name Lydia Dreams.
The family moved to Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, when Roger was young and, on leaving the town’s grammar school, he studied film-making at Regent Street Polytechnic’s school of photography. He then did national service as a radar mechanic in the Fleet Air Arm.
Lambert began his career as a photographer with a small basement studio in Knightsbridge before taking over Studio Lambert. As the opening of ITV approached, he convinced the J Walter Thompson advertising agency to fund experimental test films of corn flakes being poured in slow motion, creating visuals previously unseen.
His company had its own studios, editing rooms, cameras and in-house staff, unlike many of its rivals, most of which were also different in having previously produced documentaries or industrial films.
Studio Lambert and others soon demonstrated the power of advertising on the small screen and its influence on consumer culture. It became ever more sophisticated and, from 1969, British television commercials were made in colour.
Studio Lambert, rebranded Lamberts in 1985, eventually closed in 1991 on its founder’s retirement.
In 1956, Roger Lambert married Monika Wagner, a German who came to Britain after being orphaned during the second world war. They had three sons: Stephen and Tim, both television producers, and Andy, a director of commercials. Stephen revived the Studio Lambert name when he started his own production company in 2008, subsequently making TV programmes such as Gogglebox and The Traitors.
Lambert’s wife and sons survive him, along with his brother, Trevor, and six grandchildren.
• Roger Lambert, TV commercials director, born 16 February 1928; died 29 December 2024
