MICHAEL PARKINSON. Born in Cudworth, Yorkshire, England, 28 March 1935. Attended Barnsley Grammar School. Married: Mary Heneghan; children: Andrew, Nicholas and Michael. Began career as newspaper journalist, local papers and The Guardian, The Daily Express and The Sunday Times; reporter and producer, Granada Television; executive producer and presenter, London Weekend Television, 1968; leading chat show host, 1970s; presented sporting documentaries among other programmes; chat show host, Channel 10, Australia, 1979-84; co-founder, TV-AM, 1983; presenter, LBC Radio, 1990. Address: IMG, Media House, 3 Burlington Lane, London W4 2TH, England.

TELEVISION SERIES

1969-71 Cinema
1971     Tea Break
1971     Where in the World
1971     The Movie Quiz
1971-82 Parkinson
1979-84 Parkinson in Australia
1983-84 Good Morning Britain
1984-91 Give Us a Clue
1984-86 All Star Secrets
1985     The Skag Kids
1987-88 Parkinson One to One
1991     The Help Squad
1993     Surprise Party

RADIO

Start the Week; Desert Island Discs; The Michael Parkinson Show.

PUBLICATIONS

Football Daft. London: Paul, 1968.

Cricket Mad. London: Paul, 1969.

A to Z of Soccer, with Willis Hall. London: Pelham, 1975.

A Pictorial History of Westerns, with Clyde Jeavons. London: Hamlyn, 1972.

Sporting Fever. London: Paul, 1974.

Football Classified, with Willis Hall. London: Luscombe, 1974.

Best: An Intimate Biography. London: Arrow, 1975.

Bats in the Pavilion. London: Paul, 1977.

The WoofitsDay Out. London: Collins, 1980.

Parkinson's Lore. London: Pavilion, 1981.

The Best of Parkinson. London: Pavilion, 1982.

 

 

   

Michael Parkinson was the most successful of the British chat show hosts who proliferated in the 1970s and earned a lasting reputation as a viewers' favourite. He subsequently exploited his role in variety of other television series.

A Yorkshireman to the core, Michael Parkinson started out as a newspaper journalist but later moved to Granada, where he worked on current affairs programmes, and thence to the BBC, where he joined the 24 Hours team and also indulged his enduring love of sport, producing sports documentaries for London Weekend Television.

Priding himself on his Yorkshireman's "gift of the gab," he made his debut as a chat show host with his own Parkinson show in 1971. Broadcast every Saturday night for the next 11 years, the show became an institution and set the standard for all other television chat show hosts to meet. Relaxed, well-groomed, and attentive to his guests' feelings, he nonetheless proved adept at getting the best out of the celebrities who were persuaded to come on the show, without causing offence. The questions he put were often innocuous and in reality invitations to the guest concerned to assume the central role. The best interviews were with those who had a tale to tell and the confidence to tell it without much prodding from the host; Parkinson was sensible enough not to interrupt unless it was absolutely necessary. At the top of the list of guests Parkinson had the most success in interviewing were Dr Jacob Bronowski, Diana Rigg, Shirley MacLaine, Miss Piggy, Dame Edith Evans, the inimitable raconteur Peter Ustinov, and boxer Mohammed Ali, who responded magnificently to the geniality and flattery that the devoted Parkinson lavished on him.

If Parkinson took a personal dislike to a guest, he tried not to let it show (though viewers were quick to detect any animosity). Among those he later confessed to finding most difficult were comedian Kenneth Williams, who appeared a total of eight times on the show and was quick to use Parkinson as a verbal punchbag, and Rod Hull's Emu, the ventriloquist-dummy bird who wrestled an unusually disheveled Parkinson to the floor to the delight of the audience and the barely-concealed fury of the host himself.

After the long run of Parkinson came to an end in the early 1980s, after 361 shows and 1050 guests, Parkinson worked for a time as a chat show host on Australian television, then busied himself with helping to set up the troubled TV-AM organization in the United Kingdom in 1983. He has since returned to the small screen from time to time in various capacities, sharing his love of sport, periodically resuming his chair as a chat show host, or presiding over game shows.

-David Pickering