Hubert Gregg, 89; Longtime Host of BBC Music Program

Hubert Gregg, 89, host of the British Broadcasting Corp. Radio 2 music request program “Thanks for the Memory” for 32 years, died Monday of unspecified causes at his home in Eastbourne, England.

Gregg, an actor, director and stage performer, also wrote the popular song “Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner.” Among the hundreds of other songs he wrote was another World War II-era hit, “I’m Going to Get Lit Up When the Lights Go Up in London.” In his personal wartime service, Gregg was a political warfare executive broadcasting in German.

On stage he appeared in such plays as “French Without Tears,” “While the Sun Shines,” “Off the Record” and -- with John Gielgud -- “Caesar and Cleopatra.” He directed Agatha Christie’s “The Hollow” in London, her first theatrical success, and restaged several comedies, including “The Secretary Bird.”

Gregg played Prince John in a Walt Disney film version of “Robin Hood” and was in the movies “Doctor at Sea,” for which he wrote the music and lyrics, and “The Maggie” which circulated in the U.S. as “High and Dry.” He also wrote two novels -- “April Gentlemen” and “A Day’s Loving” -- and two nonfiction books, “Agatha Christie and All That Mousetrap” and “Thanks for the Memory.”