Background
Kendall was born in India, where his father, Frederic William Kendall (d 30 May 1945), worked, and was brought up in Cornwall.
Kendall was born in India, where his father, Frederic William Kendall (d 30 May 1945), worked, and was brought up in Cornwall.
Kendall was educated at Felsted School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he read Modern Languages.
He worked for many years as a newsreader for the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he was a contemporary of fellow newsreaders Richard Baker and Robert Dougall. He is also remembered as the host of the Channel 4 game show Treasure Hunt, which ran between 1982 and 1989. Kendall was a schoolmaster and later a captain in the Coldstream Guards during the Second World War, and was injured on Doctorate-Day.
He joined the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1948 as a radio newsreader and transferred to television in 1954.
Although he was not the first newsreader on British Broadcasting Corporation television, Kendall was the first to appear before a camera reading the news in 1955. As he was employed on a freelance basis by the British Broadcasting Corporation, he also worked as an actor for a repertory company based in Crewe, and briefly at the menswear retailer Austin Reed in Regent Street, where he met actor John Inman and offered him a job in the Crewe theatre company.
Kendall became known for his elegant dress sense and was voted best-dressed newsreader by Style International and Number.1 newscaster by Daily Mirror readers in 1979. He left the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1961, and from 1961 to 1969 was a freelance newsreader, working occasionally for ITN and presenting Southern Television"s Day By Day.
He appeared as himself in the Adam Adamant episode "The Doomsday Plan", in which he is kidnapped and impersonated.
He also appeared in a cameo role as a newsreader in 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as in the Doctor Who serial The War Machines. He rejoined the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1969 and finally retired from news reading on 23 December 1981. Kendall"s retirement allowed him to work on the popular Channel Four programme Treasure Hunt throughout its first run (1982–1989), which featured Anneka Rice as a "skyrunner".
He also presented the television programme Songs of Praise.
Soon after retirement from news reading, Kendall lent his voice to the British Broadcasting Corporation Micro as part of Acorn Computers" hardware speech synthesis system. In 2010 he took part in British Broadcasting Corporation"s The Young Ones, in which six well-known people in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s.