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Sir Michael Parkinson, one of Britain’s most popular television presenters, has died at the age of 88 after a decades-long career for the BBC and ITV.
Parkinson was a star of the golden age of chat-show television in the 1970s to 1990s when millions in the UK would gather to watch his primetime interviews with celebrities and sports stars.
The presenter said he had interviewed more than 2,000 people on his chat shows, which started in 1971 on the BBC although he moved to commercial broadcaster ITV at several points in his career.
His guests included John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Billy Connolly, Orson Welles and Sir Tony Blair — who sparked controversy when he told the presenter that God would be the judge of his decision to go to war in Iraq.
Among his most famous interviews were with boxer Muhammad Ali. Parkinson said afterwards that the sportsman was both his most remarkable interviewee but also the one to which he had “lost on every occasion”.
“I’m not going to argue with you,” Parkinson told the boxer in one interview. “You’re not as dumb as you look,” Ali replied.
Parkinson was also well known for stints in other forms of TV light entertainment, presenting ITV’s TV-am breakfast show, the game show Give Us a Clue, and BBC One’s Going For a Song and radio show Desert Island Discs.
In another well-known encounter, Parkinson was playfully attacked by Rod Hull’s puppet Emu. His final show on ITV1 in 2007 had an audience of 8.3mn and guests included Peter Kay, Sir Billy Connolly and Dame Judi Dench.
A statement from Parkinson’s family said: “After a brief illness Sir Michael Parkinson passed away peacefully at home last night in the company of his family. The family requests that they are given privacy and time to grieve.”
BBC director-general Tim Davie said that Parkinson was “one of a kind, an incredible broadcaster and journalist who will be hugely missed”.
“Michael was the king of the chat show and he defined the format for all the presenters and shows that followed,” Davie added. “Michael was not only brilliant at asking questions, he was also a wonderful listener.”
Parkinson combined wit and journalistic intelligence with his warm and avuncular Yorkshire accent; he was born in 1935 in South Yorkshire and was a passionate fan of cricket in the county. He was married for more than 60 years to Lady Mary Parkinson and they had three children, Michael, Nicholas and Andrew. He was knighted in 2008.
In tributes on Thursday morning, Lord Alan Sugar said Parkinson’s death was “the end of an era”, while comedian Eddie Izzard called him the “king of the intelligent interview”.
Writer and presenter Stephen Fry said that “the genius of Parky was that unlike most people (and most of his guests, me included) he was always 100 per cent himself. On camera and off.”
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