The Vicar of Dibley put me out of a job!
THE Portrait Artist Of The Year presenter reveals her guilty pleasure, her first kiss – and why a TV star left her in a rage…
Do not feel guilty about anything.
I don’t, not even my affair in the 1960s with Harold Pinter. If it’s going to burden me with guilt these days I just don’t do it. Feeling guilty is so wretched that I avoid it at all costs.
Going to bed with an electric blanket on is my guilty pleasure.
I don’t waste time on trashy novels or TV. Life’s too short.
Barack Obama is the person I’d most like to sit down for dinner with.
He’s handsome, dashing, thoughtful and intelligent.
My best kiss was at a party when I about 14.
I can remember thinking: ‘Oh, this is great experience, there’s going to be a lot more like this.’ It was nothing to do with the boy – I was just so overwhelmed by its impact.
I once came out of a studio so angry I was shaking.
I was interviewing David Susskind, an American late-night presenter, in the mid-1960s. I asked about his job and he said: ‘I don’t want to answer that, I want to ask you a question. Why are you not home looking after your children? Don’t women realise they should be at home?’
Timing is everything.
I wrote a comedy series for radio called Parish Magazine, which was very successful, but the TV version of it was turned down. The person in charge said: ‘Thanks very much but we’ve just commissioned another show instead – it’s called The Vicar Of Dibley.’
I’ve got short legs, which I despise.
When I was young I wore high heels. Then I got too old to wear high heels. This meant I shrank by about six inches, and because I’m old my body has shrunk of its own accord too.