By Amy Ripley
SIR MICHAEL PARKINSON: 1935–2023
Sir Michael Parkinson was Britain’s most successful chat show host who, over 800 episodes of his eponymous TV program, interviewed the world’s most famous faces including actors, musicians, sportspeople, royalty and politicians.
Chat show host Michael Parkinson.
An interview with the bluff, affable Yorkshireman, known affectionately to millions as Parky, was never boring. He always said his best interviews were those with Muhammad Ali, in which the boxer and civil rights campaigner discussed racism and religion, revealing a complex, tragic figure.
A seat on one of his famous black leather chairs could make or break a star – his 2003 interview with a truculent Meg Ryan, who was promoting her film In the Cut, contributed towards the end of her career. In 1976, his own notorious savaging at the hands of Rod Hull and Emu caused him to say later, exasperated, that he would always be remembered for “that bloody bird”.
Although very much a British institution, Parkinson was a household name in his “second home” of Australia. He worked at various times from 1979 to 2014 for the ABC, Channel Ten and Channel Nine, interviewing some of Australia’s biggest names including Mel Gibson, Bob Hawke, Shane Warne, Kylie Minogue and Kerry Packer.
In 2011, Parkinson became the first non-Australian to deliver the Australia Day address at the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, using the press conference afterwards to indicate his support for Australia becoming a republic, stating: “Why should Australia not be a republic? It’s its own country, its own man. I find it, in a sense, incomprehensible that it’s not that now.”
Earlier in the address, Parkinson said he “truly fell in love with Australia” when he watched the then prime minister Paul Keating put his arm around the Queen in 1992. “Those who believed it was a terrible lapse of protocol, that Mr Keating should be sent to the Tower and tried for treason, completely missed the point. Mr Keating wasn’t being disloyal; he was merely reaching out in friendly gesture, as one human being to another.”
Michael Parkinson was born on March 28, 1935, in the pit village of Cudworth in Barnsley, Yorkshire, to Freda and Jack. An only child who adored his parents, he later corrected lazy assumptions that he had a tough upbringing. “I had a happy, safe and secure childhood. It was a better childhood than many kids today could care to hope for … playing freely in the street. That sense of community was very important and it wrapped itself around you like a pair of arms.”
Freda, an articulate, intelligent woman, never had the opportunity to go to university so did everything she could to encourage her son by teaching him to read and filling the family home with books.
It was Jack – a miner who endured backbreaking conditions in the Grimethorpe Colliery and later died of lung disease caused by inhaling coal dust – who gave Michael his lifelong love of sport, particularly cricket.
“My father did believe that cricket was the most important thing in the world. It was his religion … For all the times that he came down to the studio to watch the Parkinson show and meet all the film stars that he adored, I knew that in the back of his mind it wasn’t like meeting Len Hutton.”
After passing his eleven-plus school exam, Michael headed to Barnsley Grammar School, where his headmaster barked that he would “never amount to much”. His youth was spent playing club cricket, and he and his opening partner at Barnsley Cricket Club, Dickie Bird, had trials for Yorkshire, along with friend Geoffrey Boycott.
From the age of 14, he dreamed of becoming a journalist. After passing just two O levels in art and English language, he started his career in newspapers in Yorkshire before graduating to the Manchester Guardian (where playwright Michael Frayn was a contemporary) and the Daily Express in London, working as a feature writer at both. In 1955, he began National Service, receiving a commission as an officer in the Royal Army Pay Corps and serving as a press attache in Egypt during the Suez Crisis.
In 1959, Parkinson married fellow journalist Mary Heneghan, who would later present the popular UK daytime shows Good Afternoon and Through the Keyhole. The couple had three children, Andrew (born in 1960), Nicholas (1964) and Michael (1967).
Michael Parkinson and Dame Edna Everage.Credit: Publicity
The moment he met Mary was a revelation and he realised he could “gaze on her face forever”, Their strong marriage withstood his punishing work schedule, frequent absences from home and, in the 1970s, his fondness for a drink. When Mary told him that his drinking was making him “ugly”, he stopped immediately.
The bright lights and shiny floors of the television studio beckoned next and Parkinson started at Granada Television in Manchester in the late 1950s, first as a producer, then in front of the camera. It was at Granada that he worked with the legendary Australian head of current affairs, Tim Hewat, creator of the long-running World in Action series. Hewat was a strong influence on Parkinson’s journalistic career and gave him his first insight into the egalitarian nature of Australian society. This was something that appealed to the man who was always conscious of being the working-class Yorkshire lad who never lost his regional accent despite success and wealth.
Michael Parkinson with Muhammad Ali.
From 1971 to 1982, and again from 1998 to 2004, his show Parkinson was broadcast on the BBC. Guests in the 1970s tended to be the Hollywood greats – James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, David Niven, Gene Kelly – who used it as an opportunity not just to promote their latest project but to chat to a friendly, warm interviewer.
Later guests were no less prestigious and included Woody Allen – visibly uncomfortable when questioned about his custody battle for his children; Princess Anne, who spoke about the 1972 attempt to kidnap her; and Tony Blair, who discussed his religious faith. One of his most popular and beloved interviewees was Barry Humphries, in the guise of Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage. Despite encounters with a galaxy of stars, Parkinson always said his one regret was that he never interviewed Frank Sinatra.
In 2004, he took the show to the UK commercial broadcaster ITV, where it continued to run successfully until his retirement in 2007.
Chat show host Michael Parkinson poses for pictures after he was awarded an MBE in 2000. Credit: Reuters
His career in Australia often ran in parallel to his work in the UK, and his series Parkinson in Australia was shown on the ABC from 1979 to 1982. He later recorded – with fellow veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost – Frost over Parkinson and Parkinson: The Frost Interviews for Network Nine. This was followed by solo programs Parkinson’s Australians, Billy Connolly – The Parkinson Interviews and Muhammad Ali – The Parkinson Interviews for Network Ten, as well as squeezing in a radio show on 2CH.
In 2014, Ian Thorpe chose an exclusive interview with Parkinson on Network Ten to reveal he was gay and describe his battle with depression, drugs and alcohol — revelations which sparked worldwide interest.
An interviewer of formidable skill, Parkinson used humour to deflect tension and knew how to frame the questions his audiences wanted him to ask. Unafraid of silence, he was confident that if he waited long enough, the guest would drop that gold-coin quote which would make headlines the next day. He told ABC Radio Adelaide: “You’ve got to do the research … you can’t just go and wing it, that doesn’t work at all. The important thing is to get them settled as quickly as possible – get them to lean forward and trust you enough to sort of open up to you.”
Parkinson formally retired in 2007 although he remained busy with TV and radio work, writing books about cricket and football, indulging his great love of jazz and serving as the president of the Sports Journalists’ Association. Cementing his status as a national treasure in both the UK and Australia, he made a cameo in Love Actually in 2003, followed by another in Neighbours in 2007.
Parkinson with TV presenter Lisa Wilkinson in Sydney in 2019.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Retirement was an opportunity to spend more time with his family, making up for some of the time he lost while working away from home earlier in his career. In 2020, he published Like Father, Like Son: A family story, a memoir of his father which he co-wrote with his youngest son, Michael.
The honour of a CBE in 2000, followed by a knighthood in 2008 was shrugged off with characteristic modesty, with Parkinson remarking that he was “not the type to get a knighthood” as he came “from Barnsley. They give it to anyone nowadays.”
In 2019, Parkinson told Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 7.30 program that his show would not work in today’s world because technology made the lives of the rich and famous readily available. “The mystery is gone … When I had the great stars on, like Orson Welles and Fred Astaire and all my heroes, I knew not a thing about them that wasn’t written by a publicity department in Hollywood…it was virgin territory because whatever I asked them, people had never heard it before. It was a lot more revealing, you felt much more part of that excitement then you get today.”
Amy Ripley
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