BBC tried to get rid of me at age of 50
BY MARK JEFFERIES 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 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 70s. She was given the chance at 24 having earned her stripes on regional news.
“It was a huge risk,” she said in 2006. “I
HIGH KICK Angela wows Morecambe and Wise TV special fans could have been rubbish.” She is also 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,
COLLEAGUE With fellow newsreader Peter Sissons at awards do saying: “I’m happy as I am.” One reason for her longevity on screen 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.”
ANGELA RIPPON ON THE REMARK BY BBC BIG BOSS