Tragic real stories behind Thunderbirds - untimely death to family's devastating words

dailystar.co.uk:

TV icon's life airs.Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted launches on streaming service Britbox on April 14, 2022 and sees Jamie explore the story of 'what made the man who for many made their childhoods.'Gerry Anderson, who died on December 26 2012, would have been 93 years old today (April 14), with the documentary exploring his life - from early childhood, to the death of his brother, marriages and diagnosis with Alzheimer's Disease - interwoven with clips from his classic TV series that many of the real life events inspired.Producer and director Ben Field and Jamie Anderson drew on over 30 hours of unheard archive footage from interviews by Gerry Anderson's biographers - all while digitally recreating the TV icon on screen to 'allow him [Gerry] to appear on screen in order to tell stories from his point of view for the first time.'Including interviews with former colleagues and family members, Jamie Anderson told Daily Star that the documentary reflects "The positivity it [his shows] gave to so many millions, against the great tragedy and sadness of one person's life."Talking about his father's work, he added: "It's not just sci-fi universes, with a load of puppet characters, these are family units, stories and tragedies, heroics, which has come completely from real life."Moments explored in the documentary include his relationship with his older brother Lionel who was a pilot in World War II - who was Gerry's hero - with the documentary suggesting that he was the inspiration for Thunderbirds, after featuring in a film of the same name while stationed at a US airbase.However, Lionel died while out on an operation during the war, and interview clips in the documentary reveal a story from the immediate aftermath of Lionel's.