Magnus Magnusson: Magnus Magnusson, who has died aged 77 of pancreatic cancer, was best known as the presiding inquisitor of BBC1 television's quiz show Mastermind, memorable for the daunting black leather chair in which contestants were interrogated and for Magnusson's catchphrase: "I've started, so I'll finish."
The show overshadowed his work as a journalist and author or translator of more than 30 books, but it brought him the national fame which he used to serve his pet causes, among them archaeology, Bible history, conservation and the study of birds. Though he had lived in Scotland since he was nine months old, Magnusson was to the last an Icelander, who declined to abandon his nationality even when it prevented him from using his honorary knighthood for services to national heritage.
In its heyday, Mastermind attracted audiences of 20 million, though they had shrunk to six million by the time the BBC axed the show in 1997, after a run of 25 years. Its big break came in 1973, when it was moved from its late-night slot to peaktime viewing. Though many viewers assumed Magnusson had invented it, the show was developed by BBC producer Bill Wright from a nightmare he had about being interrogated by the Gestapo (as he had been in reality when captured in the Netherlands during the second World War).
Wright correctly thought that to have a contestant being asked searching questions while sitting in a lonely, illuminated chair, with everything framed by ominous music, might have some fascination. Magnusson's contribution was to give it a gravitas that made it respectable to viewers who might have turned their backs derisively on more conventional quizzes.
When, in 1996, Mastermind was second only to A Question of Sport as the longest-running television quiz, Magnusson said the secret of its success was that contestants were "treated with such dignity . . . we are there to play a game, a seriously entertaining game, and we don't want people to be humiliated . . . a lot of people respond to that".
He had the ability to make the interrogation of contestants - on subjects as various as punk rock, beekeeping, burial grounds of London and famous British poisoners - seem like a serious intellectual exploration.
The special subject round was followed by one on general knowledge questions, which Magnusson liked to think of as getting the viewers more involved.
Though Magnusson had his critics - the Guardian's Simon Hattenstone wrote of his "unbearable pomposity" - his confidence and composure were vital to the programme's success. He once got in such a nervous state that he forgot which university he was broadcasting from, but neither the contestants nor the viewers realised anything was amiss.
Magnusson was one of four children of a cultivated Icelander appointed as European manager of the Iceland Co-op. The first stop of the ship carrying him and his family to Europe was at Leith, so they took up residence in Edinburgh.
After Magnusson snr was appointed as Icelandic consul general in Edinburgh, the family home was filled at weekends with Icelandic students from Edinburgh University.
Magnusson was educated at Edinburgh academy, which he enjoyed so much that years later he wrote its history, The Clacken and the Slate (1974), drawing its title from a Robert Louis Stevenson poem. Similar to an English public school, its fees were just affordable, though he took in packed lunches to save money. He launched a bird-watching society at school, and at 14 won an essay competition organised by the RSPB (of which he became president in 1985). His enjoyment of the Icelandic sagas also developed into an adult interest, leading to the books Vikings Expanding Westwards (1973) and Hammer of the North (1976), and the television series Vikings! (1980).
At 18 he went to Jesus College, Oxford, to study English, and was soon writing for the student magazine Isis.
Magnusson would recount with sly self-deprecation his 1953 entry into journalism with the Scottish Daily Express, complete with "posh degree, yellow gloves, a silver-headed cane and an umbrella with holes in it". The chief feature writer, Mamie Baird, thought him a lunatic, but married him the following year. He became assistant editor of the paper, and then moved to the same post at the Scotsman (1961-67). In 1964 he joined the BBC to present the current affairs programme Tonight, and he was one of the creators of the history series Chronicle on BBC2, which ran from 1966 to 1980. Mastermind started in 1972, and from 1979 he edited the Bodley Head Archaeologies series, of which he provided the introductory volume. In the end, as well as having written nearly 20 books, he had translated almost as many and contributed to many more on archaeology and other subjects.
Magnusson won numerous awards in Britain and Iceland, was given honorary doctorates by Edinburgh, York, Paisley, Strathclyde and Napier universities, was rector of Edinburgh University (1975-78), chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University from 2002, and chairman of the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland (1981-89), Scottish National Heritage (1992-99) and the Scottish National Conservancy Council (1991-92).
Mastermind returned to BBC2 in 2003, with John Humphrys putting the questions: Magnusson presented the 2006 winner's prize in the final broadcast last November. Mamie survives him, as do their four children, Sally, Margaret, Anna and Jon, who all work in television. Their fifth child, Siggy, was killed by traffic after jumping off a bus at the age of 11 in 1973.
Magnus Magnusson: born October 12th, 1929; died January 7th, 2007