BIOGRAPHY
Noel Cronin BEM is the founder of Talking Pictures TV, the British free-to-air vintage film and nostalgia television channel which was launched on 26 May 2015. Born on December 31, 1947, in a small flat in London’s Abbey Road, Noel left school at the age of 14. He worked as a post-boy at Rank Advertising Films Division, before moving on to the Central Office of Information, later becoming a film editor in Soho in the 60s and 70s. Noel was always interested in the heritage of lost and forgotten films, shorts and programmes, and for many years gathered, restored and preserved this wonderful heritage which would otherwise have been lost. His collection, painstakingly restored, became the nucleus for Renown Pictures, a DVD distribution company, and later, the foundation content for the TV channel, Talking Pictures TV.
His career as a producer and editor of films, documentaries and TV series spans several decades, and includes Home For Christmas (1990), Romantic Undertaking (1996), The Ghost of Greville Lodge (2000) and Talkies, a TV series featuring screen stars such as Sam Kydd, Liz Fraser and Patricia Dainton. Over the years, Noel has worked with a huge variety of names in the film business, including Peter Greenaway, Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth, Norman Wisdom, Mickey Rooney, Bernard Hill, Robert Llewellyn, George Cole, Prunella Scales, David Carradine, Gemma Craven, Simon Ward and many more. Talking Pictures TV has featured several well-known performers in original shows, including Caroline Munro, Melvyn Hayes, Paul O’Grady and former Radio 1 DJ, Mike Read. A Talking Pictures TV channel archive programme, The Footage Detectives, which discusses forgotten films, lost TV shows and memories sent in by viewers, has become a Sunday night favourite, co-hosted by Noel and Mike Read.
Now in it’s tenth year, (2025), Talking Pictures TV continues to go from strength to strength, and Noel, in honour of his contribution to conserving and saving British celluloid, has been awarded a British Empire Medal for service worthy of recognition by the Crown.
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