Northern charm
Michael Parkinson was born in 1935 in Cudworth, near Barnsley, and was educated at Barnsley Grammar School. His early journalistic experience was gained on several local newspapers in Yorkshire and then the Manchester Guardian until he became a feature writer with The Daily Express in London. As for his first work in television, again he began forging his career close to home as a current affairs producer at Granada Television. Programmes included Scene at 6.30, Afternoon Edition, World in Action. He then acted as a reporter for BBC's 24 Hours. In 1969, he took over the presentation of Granada's Cinema series and published A Pictorial History of Westerns, his favourite film genre.

Chat: the early years
In 1971, Michael compered a regular afternoon show, Teabreak, for Thames Television. At one stage he was joined by his wife Mary, who later presented the programme in her own right. For Michael, this was only the beginning and he presented his own BBC talk show entitled Parkinson for 11 years until 1982. Essential viewing for millions each week, it ran to 361 editions and featured nearly a thousand of the world's most famous people, including Mohammad Ali, Peter Sellers, Ingrid Bergman, Orson Welles and Bob Hope to name a few of his personal favourites. They couldn't resist his laidback charm Down Under either, as he also presented Parkinson for ABC and Channel 10 in Australia from 1979 until 1982.

Sports nut
For those of you who only know Parky from his chat show, you may be surprised to learn that he is an expert when it comes to sport, particularly football and cricket. In 1965, he began writing a weekly sports column for The Sunday Times, selections of which have been published in four books: Football Daft, Cricket Mad, Sporting Fever and Bats in the Pavilion. In 1975, he published Best - An Intimate Biography about George Best and A-Z of Soccer. Indeed, he remains a prolific writer, with other publications including The Best of Parkinson, Sporting Lives, Sporting Profiles, Parkinson on Golf and Parkinson on Football.

The return
Following a long absence from our screens, Michael returned to his leather chair on the BBC during the summer of 1995 to present a highly acclaimed series of late night tributes to some of the all-time greats of the entertainment world in Parkinson: The Interviews. Looking back on some of his favourite guests, Michael introduced highlights from his original interviews, together with clips of unforgettable performances by the entertainers themselves. Following the enormous popularity of the series the Parkinson chat show returned with full force in January 1998. Once again the series was a huge success and featured guests such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Elton John, Billy Connolly and Ewan McGregor. Scheduling issues made Parky jump over to ITV this year, and although the channel has changed, fortunately for us he hasn't.

Award Winner
In 1995 Michael was named as Sports Feature Writer of the year at the British Sport Journalism Awards. During 1998 Michael won awards for his work in three different branches of the media - a feat thought to be unique. He won a Sony Radio Award for Parkinson's Sunday Supplement, was named Sports Writer of the Year at the Press Gazette British Press Awards and Media Personality of the Year by the Variety Club. He also received special Gold Awards from Comic Heritage and the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and was voted Yorkshire Man of the Year! In March 2000 Parky was included in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and was awarded a CBE. We has won countless other awards but we won't go on; point is, he is very, very good at what he does!

Odds and sods
If that isn't enough Parky trivia for you how about these little nuggets of information: In October 1992 he played the lead in Ghostwatch, a controversial BBC play, alongside Mike Smith and Sarah Green. It received the largest audience of any BBC drama production for ten years and Michael and the play were nominated for Bafta awards. Slightly more randomly, he appears on the cover of Paul McCartney's Band on the Run LP. Why? We're really not sure! And if you want to catch the man in the flesh, every year Parky hosts a Celebrity XI Charity Cricket Match at Bray and Maidenhead cricket ground.

Find out even more

Parky's interview techniques