Lesley: We need to see more women over 40
ANGELA Rippon has revealed the Director General of the BBC told her she would have to quit her job when she turned 50.
The presenter, 75, said she was taken aside for a conversation with John Birt at a party in 1996.
She recalled: “I had just turned 50 and he said to me, ‘Angela, you’ll have to accept you need to make way for the younger generation coming through’.
“I thought, ‘I’ll decide when I stop, thank you very much’.
“Well, I’m still working. And where exactly is John Birt? I remember thinking, have you had this conversation with Terry Wogan, with Michael Parkinson? Clearly he hadn’t.
Angela made the revelation while promoting new TV Channel 5 series Celebrity Murder Mystery. She continues
PLEA Lesley Manville to be in demand more than four decades after wowing viewers in the 1976 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special.
She added: “That was the way women were regarded in television in those days. What’s really good is nobody would dare say that to a woman today.”
Angela said doing Celebrity Murder Mystery unleashed her “inner Miss Marple”. She said: “I had so much fun doing it.”
Angela is renowned for being a pioneering female newsreader, first presenting on the BBC in the 1970s. She was given the chance at 24 having earned her stripes on regional news.
“It was a huge risk,” she said in 2006. “I could have been rubbish.” She is also
LESLEY Manville has insisted there still need to be more TV roles for women over 40.
The actress, 64, has won awards for recent performances, including the BBC sitcom Mum. She said: well known for becoming the first presenter of Top Gear from 1977 to 1979.
In 1982, she joined ITV to front the channel’s first breakfast show TV-am.
She was part of the “famous five” group of presenters, which included Michael Parkinson and Anna Ford.
Angela currently also presents the BBC consumer show Rip Off Britain with Julia Somerville and Gloria Hunniford.
She divorced her childhood sweetheart Christopher Dare in 1989 after 22 years of marriage. Since then there have been other relationships but she has not remarried, saying: “I’m happy as I am.”
One reason for her longevity on screen
ANGELA RIPPON ON THE REMARK BY BBC BIG BOSS
“Things are slowly getting better for women of my age, but there are still not enough parts.
“There are still a lot of my peers who don’t work enough. It needs to get better and it is – slowly.
Angela wows Morecambe and Wise TV special fans could be down to her good health and love of keeping fit.
She said: “I do Pilates. I dance. I cycle. I keep myself fit and active.”
A riding accident when she was younger left her with broken wrists, damaged legs and internal injuries.
She said: “I hated it. I couldn’t bear being incapacitated and I vowed I would never let myself get physically ill again.”
In 2016 she made a poignant documentary about dementia after her mum Edna, suffered from the disease until her death aged 89 in 2009.
Discussing how she got through that period of her life, Angela said: “I worked through it. I do 70 programmes a year for the BBC. I work 12-hour days.
“I keep myself busy and then I don’t dwell on the painful things.”
I thought to myself ‘I’ll decide when I stop thank you very much’
Distributors are realising, ‘Oh women over 40 want to go to the cinema and see films that aren’t just about gorgeous 25-year-olds’. They want to see films where they are represented.” Lesley’s latest role is in Sky drama Save Me Too, playing Jennifer Charles, the wife of disgraced businessman Gideon Charles, played by Ade Edmondson, who is arrested for sexual exploitation.