An all-time great: how Michael Parkinson changed British television
Michael Parkinson’s biggest impact on British television was to stretch the schedules at each end of the day. The broadcaster, who has died at the age of 88, was instrumental in introducing late-night talkshows and breakfast TV to the UK. Although he had starkly different levels of personal success with these previously American formats.
His chatshow – which he hosted in various iterations on BBC and ITV from 1971 to 2007 – saw him create the alltime standout hours of television interviewing: four encounters with boxer Muhammad Ali. It was television so great, its only possible rival was David Frost’s 1977 programmes with the disgraced former US president Richard Nixon. And, coincidentally, the two presenters were also associated during the low point of both their careers: as shareholders in a consortium called TVam that won the right to launch, from 1983, Britain’s first breakfast television programme: ITV’s Good Morning Britain. It would prove a disaster.
Born in Cudworth, South Yorkshire, in 1935, Parkinson’s childhood ambition was to play county cricket for Yorkshire, which led him to leave school at 16. He was a good enough batsman in local teams to briefly block the selection of the slightly younger Geoffrey Boycott, who went on to become one of Yorkshire and England’s most prolific run-scorers. When Boycott overtook him in ability, and Parkinson’s secondary dream of being a movie star also seemed unattainable, he settled for the profession of journalism.
First working on local papers, he soon moved to the Manchester Guardian and Daily Express, a rise interrupted by being among the last British men to do national military service. He was one of the army’s youngest ever captains, perhaps early evidence of the desire to be in control that’s so crucial for being a television presenter.
Parkinson began seeking screen work at the beginning of the 60s, driven by a love of American culture he’d had since being enthralled in his youth by Hollywood stars of the era. His inspirations included James Stewart, Bob Hope, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Bing Crosby, Jack Lemmon, Charlton Heston and David Niven.
After a first tentative transition to TV as an occasional reporter for the Granada series, Scene At 6.30, Parkinson’s fascination with film led to his biggest early TV gig. He became apresenter on the Granada show Cinema, the other hosts of which include another future journalist turned frontman, Clive James.
Parkinson offered celebrity interviews to Granada, but was rejected. This encouraged him towards the BBC, which also initially resisted his enthusiasm for the American template. The BBC employed him as a reporter on 24 Hours (BBC One, 1965-72), which, as a precursor of the later Newsnight (BBC Two, from 1980), was the BBC’s idea of end-of-day entertainment.
Parky’s dream, though, was to be the “British Carson”. From the early 1950s, presenter Johnny Carson was the master of NBC’s late-night studiobased interview shows with cultural and political celebrities. But studio bosses were worried that the format was not adaptable for a British audience, after failed previous attempts, including David Frost’s own self-casting as an alternative to Carson which foundered due to a sense of over-Americanisation.
Parkinson eventually persuaded sympathetic Atlanticists at the BBC that he would succeed due to his gravitas a journalist. Plus, his Yorkshire accent, striking at the time on a BBC dominated by received pronunciation, also underwrote the promise of substance rather than stardust.
Unlike Carson’s weekly shows, Parkinson was initially restricted to a tryout of some summer Saturdays at 10.30pm, the first edition of Parkinson transmitting on 19 June 1971. The show eschewed Carson’s topical political monologue, impossible under BBC impartiality rules, but copied the use of a live studio band by hiring jazz group (Parkinson’s favourite style of music) the Harry Stoneham Five.
The first show featured tennis player Arthur Ashe, in town to play at Wimbledon, comedy actor TerryThomas, and Ray Bellisario, a paparazzo notorious for photographing members of the royal family in situations to which the press had not been invited. Around the interviews, the jazz singer Marion Montgomery began a musical residency that would run over the first two series.
The opening guests reflected tensions in the perception of what the series should be. The BBC, seeing the series as light entertainment, wanted showbiz names, which proved elusive to an unknown franchise. So producer Richard Drewett asked a favour of Terry-Thomas, who had a holiday home near Drewett’s parents. As a newspaper man, Parkinson’s instinct was that the show’s debut needed a talking point the press would follow up on, hence the booking of Bellisario, who appeared in front of a studio audience deliberately packed with monarchists outraged by the snapper’s trade.
While Terry-Thomas specialised in playing very English toffs, the inclusion in the opening lineup of Ashe, who was African American, also seems impressively progressive for its time. By mixing guests from across sport, arts and cinema, the lineup was groundbreaking, as before then, BBC programmes were usually separated by subject.
The just-appointed archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, appeared in 1980; a recently retired US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, accepted the invitation twice, and former English lord chancellor Lord Hailsham also sat on a soft leather chair. The Parkinson archive also includes influential writers, including the poet WH Auden, playwrights Ben Travers and Harold Pinter. He sat down authors such as Laurie Lee, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and Anthony Burgess, who, cigarillo in mouth, suggested to his visibly blanching interviewer that the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican resembled “a great obscene testicle”.
These legislators and intellectuals were dispersed among the Hollywood superstars who were Parkinson’s main focus: the first few seasons alone