As he celebrates the 50th anniversary year of his debut, Michael Parkinson reflects on how he felt interviewing some of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars such as Jimmy Cagney, Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergmann. A BBC documentary about his career also looks at what he thought of his favourite guests and interviews including encounters with Muhammad Ali and Billy Connolly - as well as looking at some of his less successful meetings.
He admits that he practically stumbled into one of the most iconic jobs on TV – interviewing some of the biggest stars in what soon became the legendary talk show, Parkinson.
He first walked down the Parkinson stairs on 16 June 1971 and at that time never thought he would go on to become one of the best-known names in TV.
Looking back, he said, is a strange experience.
“On the one hand when you see your younger self, particularly the early footage of me at Granada TV in the 60’s presenting from the Liquorice fields of Pontefract with a hairstyle that looks like a badger has taken a nap on my forehead. On the other hand, it’s a delight to see the wealth of talent I was lucky enough to sit opposite and sometimes emotional to recall my interviews with fascinating people that are sadly no longer with us.”
Parkinson said he was just happy to get through the first show without falling down the stairs or forgetting the name of the guest sitting opposite.
“I had no idea how it had gone, I knew there was something in it that I wanted to pursue but I had no idea how it would turn out.”
Since that day he has interviewed over 2000 guests, each of whom have had their impact. However it is surprising to many that his most memorable was with scientist and humanist Dr Jacob Bronowski who created one of the landmark documentary series in television history called The Ascent of Man.
“For the documentary programme I have chosen the moment when in a simple, compassionate and articulate way he recounts his visit to Auschwitz where many of his relatives had been murdered. It’s an excerpt I can barely watch and as you will see in the programme it brings me to tears but it is the interview I am most proud of, not because of any role I played in it but because Bronowski was such an extraordinary man possessed of a mind like a Swiss watch.”
It was difficult for Parkinson not to get occasionally tongue tied when faced with the biggest stars such as Ingrid Bergmann and Lauren Bacall.
“These are people who I used to imagine getting married to when I was child watching them from the back row of the Rock Cinema in Barnsley.”
He said that he believes he did a talk show at the best time, without the constraints of social media that turn many celebrities into people as mysterious as our next-door neighbour.
“I had the best of it and I wouldn’t change a thing except perhaps Emu.”