Sir Michael, once the most popular talk show host in the UK. Photo: Neil Gavin
This interview was first published in 2020. and was reprinted after Michael Parkinson's death at age 88.
Sir Michael Parkinson begins his new book Like Father, Like Son with an anecdote about appearing on Piers Morgan's TV show Life Stories in 2019. When asked by Morgan about the death of his beloved father John William in 1977, he described seeing his father lifeless. the body is carried down the stairs of the family home in a body bag, «like a parcel.»
Parkinson writes that he was never known as a relationship consultant. In the Yorkshire mining village of Cudworth, where he grew up, «or even in Yorkshire,» there was little demand for them. He also writes that he is «not very skilled and does not feel comfortable with the touchy sensual side of life». Crying in public on a national TV show is an absolute no-no. And as an interviewer, he never set out to reveal what he sardonically calls the «Holy Grail of celebrity sobs.»
Over the years as a talk show host, by his own account, Parkinson has interviewed more than 2,000 of the world's most famous people, from Tina Turner to Sir David Attenborough, but he can only remember one occasion when a guest was moved to tears: comedian Bob Monkhouse. , talking about his son Gary, who had cerebral palsy.
“If I ever got to the point where someone broke down and cried,” he tells me now, sitting in the living room of a country hotel in Windsor, not far from his house, “I would be very embarrassed for them. And I would find a way to get out of it as quickly as possible, because in this situation they will not make sense.
So there was no one more stunned than Parkinson, who, remembering the death of his father on the Morgan show, should have burst into tears himself. “It surprised me,” he says. “Because I knew what he [Morgan] was up to, and being old for the game, I prepared for it. What amazed me and still fascinates me is that after so many years after the death of my father, something still lurks in me, like some kind of disease that has come out — and I don’t know where. p> < img src="/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/4da0a8c4405669479118e66df33ce1aa.jpg" /> Sir Michael in 2020. Photo: Neil Gavin
Like Father, Like Son is far from answering this question. Written with the youngest of his three sons, 53-year-old Mike, the book was originally conceived as a collection of Parkinson's fond memories of John William, a miner, cricket fanatic and the object of his son's unfailing love and affection.
Frankly speaking, this is not a reason for an increase in heart rate. In the past, Parkinson has written extensively about growing up in the Yorkshire countryside and about the hard life of his father.
But «Like Father, Like Son» is much, much more interesting than that. At the start of the writing process, it was decided to expand the scope of the book by using alternating voices, with Mike offering an illuminating backstory to the miner's life and himself as the son of Michael Parkinson. The result is a gripping and deeply revealing three-generation family story that sheds new light on Britain's most famous talk show. “It surprised us both,” says Mike. «And, of course, surprised our publisher.»
Michael Parkinson is 85 years old — a figure more slender than appeared on TV screens in his best years, in a dark jacket and gray trousers, peppy and good-natured, Beatle hairstyle 70 -x is now snow-white and neatly trimmed. His son is sitting next to him, alert, businesslike.
Presentation of Parkinson on the BBC in 1976. Photo: BBC
Parkinson spent the last 45 years locked up in the house on the banks of the Thames, where he and Mary, his wife, 61, have lived. “We grew old together,” he says. «Now we are a grumpy couple — get on each other's nerves, but then it was always like that.»
He spent his time watching Netflix and Amazon Prime and watching documentaries on old Hollywood actors, including excerpts from his interviews with them. He has eight grandchildren, aged between 15 and 25, with whom he can occasionally say «hello» from a distance from each other.
«I don't think anyone is doing a good job,» he says. “It's so annoying and unpredictable — it's like having a bad dream. I wish you had the feeling that the responsible people knew what they were doing — it doesn't help. We generally obeyed — no parties and the like. But in the end we'll all get through this by doing what we're basically told.»
Michael and his wife Mary in 1986 Photo: Mirrorpix
When asked to conjure up a single image of his father, Parkinson agrees to this: «He'll be sitting at a cricket match, a pint in his hand, sunshine in his eyes, a truly happy man.»
Parkinson was an only child, and John William was a faithful and obedient breadwinner who never discussed his work at home. The constant fear in the family was caused by a siren wailing over the village, signaling that someone was seriously injured or killed. “And I will always remember how my mother stroked, and the siren turned on, and she stopped — as I think every woman in the village did — and I thought: “This could be my dad …”
< p>If for John William the mine was hell, then cricket was heaven — a passion that he instilled in his son. “The cricket field is the place where we got to know and love each other, where I absorbed that part of it that became part of me,” writes Parkinson.
This was his father’s greatest desire for his son and later his grandchildren would play cricket for Yorkshire.
Neither Parkinson nor his three sons ever made it. Andrew, 60, is the editor-in-chief of a sports news agency, Nick, 56, is a restaurateur, and Mike was a producer on Parkinson's talk shows from 2003 to 2007 and has since run their television production company, Parky Productions. But for John William, cricket was not only a way to avoid the pit; it was also sometimes a way to escape from his wife.
Freda Rose Parkinson was an intelligent and determined woman who, as Parkinson says, «was dissatisfied with her position in life.» Her dream of going to university was thwarted by family circumstances, and she channeled her frustration into pushing her husband to take a technical course and move from coal-face work to underground overseer. Parkinson remembers how she helped John at the kitchen table. William with his studies, and her son followed his long-standing ambition to become a journalist.
Quarrels were not uncommon. “But my father was one of those who fled the battlefield. He didn't want to get involved in such things. I don't think I ever saw him lose his temper. My mother, on the other hand, was quite fickle and could hold a grudge. This was not an unfortunate house. But she was the boss, the head girl. And she was the driving force behind my father's ambitions and mine too.»
Parkinson with mother Freda and father John William in 1938 . Photo: Parkinson Productions
Leaving school at 16, Parkinson worked at a local newspaper before breaking into first Fleet Street and then television working on current affairs programs before moving on to present his own talk show, Parkinson, in 1971. His father visits the studio occasionally to watch Parkinson record the show, insisting on it if he interviews an attractive Hollywood actress, and sit in the green room charming them. “He was a great talker,” says Parkinson. “He shared my passion for Ingrid Bergman. And he always asked me to try and contact [American actress] Alice Faye. He said she had the best legs in Hollywood.» He is laughing. «By then, she would probably be in a wheelchair.»
In his new book, Parkinson refers to an interview he gave to the men's magazine Club in 1971 when he was 36 years old and had just started his show. During the interview, he mentioned that he was thinking of writing a novel about John William, which would be called Like Father, Like Son. So this title waited 49 years to find the book.
The interview provides a fascinating insight into the driven young Parkinson. «I'm not in this business to have my name engraved on a tombstone as a very good TV presenter,» he told a reporter. «I'm here for the money, and the way to make money from television is to put on your own show.» Heavy bread? Parkinson winces as I read this back to him. “Jargon of the time…” he says dryly.
You come across as rather… cheeky, I suppose. He is indignant at the word. “Extremely ambitious, perhaps a better word. I was determined to succeed and change my life and the lives of those around me. I had no idea where I was going — I had no idea.
“Looking back at those years is like living in a whirlwind. I was a different person then.”
The death of his father in 1977 was, in his words, “a terrible loss”. At the same time, he became increasingly disillusioned with his career, spent more and more time away from his family, and started drinking heavily.
In Like Father, Like Son, Mike, born in 1967, writes that for most of his childhood, Parkinson was a figure who instilled «anxiety and anxiety» and appeared only at mealtimes, uttering «dictat and less than … complimentary remarks about hair length, school performance, and athletic performance», creating a «tense and unpleasant atmosphere» in the house. “He did not terrorize me; I just found it unapproachable and distant.»
Parkinson is at home with his wife Mary and their sons. Photo: Rex
What, I ask, did Parkinson feel reading this? “I take it as Mike's observations and therefore respect them. I don't discount it. I don't deny either. And I am very sad that I caused such unhappiness and unrest in the family.”
Did you not understand this at the time? No, I was too drunk to understand. When you drink, where are you? You are not right. You are someone else.” He pauses. “I never thought that this would happen to me, because I do not come from a drinking family — my dad hardly drank at all.”
Drunkenness was short-lived “What is it that upset me? I don't know what was in that period of time that made me drink when my father was gone. But it was very easy for me to stop. There was no injury. You look back on those times and thank God that you lived through them.”
He still enjoys the occasional glass of wine. “I may have had four or five since lockdown. But that doesn't bother me. If I longed for it, if I missed it, it would be a different matter, but I don't think about it.»
On reflection, Mike says now, he was well aware of how unhappy his father was.
“I think that, like all people who drink too much, he was numb to what he was trying to avoid, the catastrophic consequences that his father’s death had on him, and the disappointment he experienced in his professional career. Because, unlike me, my father was very driven by his success. For him professional achievements are very important. And if he feels that things are not going the way they should, it affects him.”
This particular problem was solved in 1979 when Parkinson was invited to host a parallel series of talk shows on an Australian channel. TV. “I went there and got rid of my anxiety,” Parkinson now says.
Estranged from his father, Mike turned to his mother for love and support—an interesting reversal of how Parkinson once turned to his father to escape the mighty power of your mother.
John William with his first grandson, Andrew. Author: Parkinson Productions.
I'm asking Parkinson if your father ever told you that he loved you. .
He shoots me a look. “Not in those terms. Not with a string quartet playing in the background. But I knew that he loved me. He didn't really need to tell me that. I never doubted it for a second.”
And, Mike, did your father tell you that he loved you? “No.” He pauses. “At a later age, he got a lot bigger…” Parkinson interjects with a laugh. “Amorous…” “Much more comfortable in his ability to express his emotions. He came from a working class background — he graduated from school with two zero points. And drive on your own through the national newspapers full of Oxbridge alumni and get on TV… He was from the generation that kicked the barricades. And they all wore a chip on both shoulders, and it's like they're looking around, waiting for someone to pat them on the shoulder and say, «You don't belong here.» He felt he had to be better than everyone else. He's much calmer.»
Parkinson with Mike, his youngest son. Photo: Neil Gavin
In the 1960s, the preeminent television interviewer was John Freeman, who on his Face to Face program adopted the ruthless forensic approach that had once brought famed short-tempered broadcaster Gilbert Harding to tears (the Holy Grail!). But the 70s, 80s, 90s — and even the early 2000s — belonged to Parks.
He was a journalist, not an artist, but he made journalists' questions interesting, and in the process built a bridge between sincere questions and celebrity jokes that today pass for talk shows. Parkinson says he was always looking for «history, life.»
Among all the movie stars, artists, athletes, and public figures who have appeared on his show, he singles out his 1974 interview with Dr. Jacob Bronowski, writer and host of the documentary series The Rise of Man, as the best of his career. «because he had such an extraordinary mind and lived such a rich and full life.» This interview lasted an hour — today it is unimaginable, he says.
The pendulum has completely swung towards easy entertainment. “Now everyone is laughing. But that's how TV went. It's basically a joke factory.»
Which is not so bad. Graham Norton, he says, did something «very smart» by reinventing what Parkinson calls «four-on-the-couch talk shows.» “The interview kind of flies out the window and the skill is getting four people together and throwing a party and I think he does a great job of it. He has that outgoing, impolite quality that brings people together and makes them laugh.»
In retrospect, it's hard to imagine what a purchase Parkinson made on the public imagination during his heyday. His interviews made the news. To watch him squabble with, say, Muhammad Ali over Ali's belief in racial separatism is to see a master at work. But in light of how much the culture has changed, other encounters are painful.
Parkinson interviews the heavyweight champion Muhammad. Ali four times — this was in 1974. Photo: BBC
Most infamous is his 1975 interview with a young Helen Mirren, the mention of which sends a cloud of impatience across Parkinson's otherwise cheerful face. He was visibly tired of having to answer an interview that was awkwardly lengthy about Mirren appearing in the nude, and wondered if her «equipment» as «serious actress in quotes» had eroded her credibility. «Serious actresses can't have big breasts, is that what you mean?» Mirren replied visibly annoyed. I believe that today he would be hanged for this line of interrogation.
“Without a doubt. But I could flirt outrageously with the people who came to the show and it was all part of the fun and they took it that way. You could see on the show with Shirley MacLaine that we were both outrageous. You are more limited now,” he says. «I don't know what you can talk about without fear of upsetting someone or some organization.»
Things change.
In a 2018 GQ interview, Parkinson was asked if he would like to interview disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, to which he replied: «You should stop hitting him first.» once became the victim of inappropriate behavior at a meeting in his own home when a newspaper editor exposed himself. Asked if he threw it away, Parkinson replied, “No. I had to, didn't I?
Wonderful thing, looking back, isn't it?» Miner's daughter Mary was seven years old when her younger brother was run over and killed by a local doctor. Mary held her brother's wrist, waiting to cross the road, when he escaped from her arms. The doctor issued a warning. Three years later, her father died from an injury sustained in the pit. Shortly thereafter, her mother died, and Mary was raised by relatives. She and Parkinson met on the top floor of a bus in Doncaster. “As soon as I saw her, I fell in love with her. And I think she was the same.”
Both were engaged to other people at the time. «It must have been a strong feeling to get rid of where we were headed.»
An emotional creature with Parkinson's disease Piers Morgan interview for Life Stories in 2019. Photo: Eroteme
Sixty-one years, he reflects, is “a long time. There were ups and downs and all that. But I can’t imagine being married to anyone else,” he says.
In the 1970s, Mary herself worked on television, hosting the Good Day! and has appeared as a guest on numerous shows. . «She's a very good interviewer,» says Parkinson. «And she's a much better golfer than I am and ever will be.» She is a wonderful person. She has overcome great hardships in her life to become the stylish, brilliant and fun woman that she is. My life was a walk in the park compared to her.”
He thinks about it. «Perhaps this should be the next book.»
His son raises an eyebrow, «I don't think so.»
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