Christopher Trace

Christopher Leonard Trace
Christopher Trace on Blue Peter
Born	(1933-03-21)21 March 1933 Hambledon, Surrey, England
Died	5 September 1992(1992-09-05) (aged 59) Tower Hamlets, London, England
Cause of death	Throat cancer
Education	Cranleigh School, Surrey Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Occupation	Journalist Actor Television presenter
Known for	Original Blue Peter presenter with Leila Williams
Children	Two

Christopher Leonard Trace (21 March 1933 – 5 September 1992) was an English actor and television presenter, best remembered for his nine years as a presenter of the BBC children's programme Blue Peter.

Trace was the youngest of three children born to Edith (née Morley) and Lawrence Archibald Trace. His two older siblings were Ann and David Morley Trace.

Trace was educated at Cranleigh School, a boarding independent school in the town of Cranleigh in Surrey, which he left early. After working as a farm labourer, he joined the British Army where he studied at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was promoted to Lieutenant in February 1955, but resigned his commission in September 1956.

After Sandhurst, Trace received a commission in the Royal Regiment of Artillery of the British Army in 1953. He had a relatively undistinguished acting career – his greatest screen role being Charlton Heston's body double in Ben-Hur (1959).

At the age of 25, Trace became a presenter of Blue Peter from its first programme, broadcast on 16 October 1958, and stayed with the programme until 24 July 1967. According to the BBC, he gained the job as presenter because he bonded with producer John Hunter Blair over their shared love of model railways.

By 1967, the Blue Peter production team were beginning to find Trace hard to deal with and were looking to replace him on the show, particularly when his wife divorced him for having an affair with a 19-year-old hotel receptionist during a 1965 Blue Peter 'culture-embracing' summer expedition to Norway. Trace often threatened to resign and once the production team were happy that viewers had accepted John Noakes as a member of the team, Trace's next resignation was accepted.