Esther Rantzen details 'personal reasons' she is grateful to Michael Parkinson

18 August 2023 , 18:57

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Dame Esther Rantzen (Image: Steve Reigate)

I have deeply personal reasons to be grateful to Michael Parkinson, “Parky”. We were friends and he was the best kind of friend, one who reached out to me when I needed help.

Two particular occasions I remember especially. Once, when my late husband Desmond was, as happens from time to time in television, in the middle of a public firestorm, Michael rang me and offered his advice to us both. He was practical, he de-escalated the chaos, he suggested the best way forward and he was right. The second was when Desi [Desmond] died, and I was planning his memorial service.

Desi had written a piece about a village cricket match, and I knew only one person who had the style and knowledge to read it in church, Parky. It was a big ask but he said he’d look at it. So he tweaked it a little to make it a fraction more accurate. And he read it so brilliantly he had the congregation in stitches.

My children still remember that, more than 20 years ago, with gratitude, and so do I. When it came to Parky, I was also a fan. I suppose it’s rare for someone who has been an interviewee, and a rival interviewer, and a friend, to describe themselves as a fan, but that’s what I was. From the moment I first met him.

Sir Michael Parkinson, who has died aged 88 (ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

That was in the mid-Sixties: Parky was a film reporter on the nightly current affairs programme, and I was a lowly researcher. I used to watch him stride through the office, I sat next to him in our hospitality room, and I thought then (and now) that I had never seen a better-looking man.

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That’s the thing with Parky, he was not only a consummate journalist, as a writer and a broadcaster, but he was handsome, and charming, and he had that authentic Yorkshire accent and attitude that meant he was always his own man. So no wonder he flew straight to the top of the TV ladder and stayed there.

But despite all his other assets, it was the journalism which kept him there, and filled theatres into his late eighties. I went to one of his theatre shows. The clips [he showed] from his TV shows were glorious. It is no coincidence whenever an A-list star has died over the past 20 years, the interview the broadcasters choose to replay has inevitably been Parky’s.

Esther on Parkinson with Bernard Manning

Invariably his is the most revealing, the funniest or the most moving. Simply, the best. And in my case, it was also the most challenging interview I’ve ever taken part in. Parky had rung me direct. This was in 1977, and my programme That’s Life! was topping the ratings.

I met his researcher in a restaurant, and she asked me about my career. As I got up to go back to my office, I thought to ask who else was on the show? She said: “Bernard Manning.” Through the gloom she saw me flinch. “Don’t you like him?” she asked. I shook my head, “He’s so racist” and I left. I wasn’t worried about appearing on Parkinson, although it was such a huge Saturday night show.

It took me ages to choose a dress but I was looking forward to talking to Parky. We had often laughed about the eccentricities of the BBC, and he and Desmond liked each other a lot. So I did my interview, I remember having to show Parky how as a sound effects assistant in radio drama I had made the noise of galloping horses using two coconut shells.

Esther and Parky with spouses Mary and Desmond in 1994 (Alan Davidson/REX/Shutterstock)

My chat finished, I got up to go, but Parky motioned me to stay, so I sat down again and Bernard entered. He began by telling a couple of jokes. As usual they were racist but he told them with all the skills he’d honed from years in clubs, and the audience laughed. Sitting next to Bernard I couldn’t and didn’t. Parky noticed.

“You don’t seem to have enjoyed that,” he said. “No,” I admitted, and explained my view racist jokes are hurtful and dangerous as they make people comfortable with racism. I came away that night worrying I had seemed like a humourless prude when the audience were roaring with laughter. My agent told me I should have tried to laugh. I said I couldn’t.

Looking back, the researcher had told Parky how I felt about Bernard, and they had decided that would be worth debating, to keep me there on stage when he arrived. I think it was a very skilled piece of production. To me it demonstrates that Parky was equally at home with tough topics as he was with the fun. I had sackfuls of letters, equally divided between praise and blame.

Billy Connolly tells gag in 1975

You can still find it on the internet described as “the moment Bernard Manning destroyed Esther Rantzen,” but not one of the jokes Bernard told that night nearly 50 years ago would be broadcast today. I am proud to have been a tiny part of that progress, thanks to my friend Parky. He always loved comedians. And he discovered talent.

Seeing him with his greatest gift to television, Billy Connolly, you can watch Parky dissolving with joy at Connolly’s wickedness. As we all do. But if Billy had not first appeared on Parky’s show to tell his infamous joke about parking his bike, would we have had the blissful decades with Connolly we have enjoyed so much ever since?

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Not all Parky’s interviews were solid gold. That would not be possible for any interviewer, even one created by AI. Parky ruffled a few feathers, notably Meg Ryan and Helen Mirren’s, and Emu certainly ruffled his. But the exquisite interviews he did with, well, pick your favourites... Muhammad Ali, Orson Welles, Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall, and every encounter with Connolly, would be high on my list. And so many more.

Parky working in the 1960s (ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Including my favourites, with Dame Edith Evans, and Salvation Army Commissioner Catherine Bramwell Booth. In some ways Parky was at his very best with older women. Especially when they ticked him off. We will miss Parky. Indeed we viewers have already missed him since he stopped making his chat shows.

The one good thing since the sad news of his passing has been the replaying of his interviews, so we can marvel again at his capacity to ask the right question at the right time. Since his heyday there have been many personality interviewers, renowned for their style, or their impertinence, or for pretending to be someone they’re not. Parky didn’t need any of that flummery.

All he needed was a couple of chairs, set very close together, and a guest with a story. And we could rely on hearing their story told as well as it could possibly be told. Thank you, Parky, for all the hours of insightful and entertaining tele-vision you have given us. A grateful farewell from all of us, your fans.

Dame Esther Rantzen