AN AUDIENCE WITH MICHAEL PARKINSON - his most memorable interviews

[Music] ladies and gentlemen please welcome Michael Parkinson [Music] [Applause] [Music] here's a line I never thought I'd ever say it's 50 years since I first went into a TV studio I never thought I'd live that long to be frank here we are celebrating if that be the word stamina at least to exist for as long as that also another celebration to which kind of struck me or something earlier but when I was writing my book this is the 50th anniversary have been married to Lady Mary Parkinson nice thing about being knighted you get to sleep with a lady yeah fifty years ago I was working a paper called the Guardian in Manchester very happily pursuing a life of writing and television was the elephant in the room real I suppose it was that thing of the corner nobody's quite sure except we're certain of one thing in newspapers in those days it wouldn't last we all knew that it will go away and if we ignored it wouldn't bother us one day I got a phone call from producer saying when I go on for a screen test well I thought I'd make up at least a funny piece of sneer at least for the Guardian so I went along then and I got the job I mean they were citizen on Sunday it's a Sunday lunchtime program live again coming to an interview and I did and I got through it I didn't fall over the furniture getting into you okay and I strangely exhilarated I got a kind of a feel from it adrenaline that you never got for newspapers I was not ashamed of this but I'm coming out of a studio and I wanted to be seriously interfered with I wanted people to recognize me leap out oh you people here you know Intel he'd be telephone know that feeling and and nothing happened when I walked across the road to the pub as open the door the landlord was pulling a pint and I got for the very first time and again many people here will recognise the feeling that wonderful flash when somebody recognized you because she read on telly I miss is silly the sound of it my other so I went forward to meet my public and then he got there he looked at me and he said do you know he said there's been a bloke on television just now look just like you little to me again and he said back there see now it wasn't you lad and then I don't see Megan's in there lad he said don't look disappointed young bloke on television were bloody awfully sir you see even then I wasn't put off because I was addicted at that point and so all I went to to do it by the way we've got a still here let's have a look at the still of me now that's all that exists the interview doesn't exist but that was me that published he's still taken out the screen test I look like my constipated I think so that was a beginning of it all and then I went on and read about - I suppose four or five years later I was working at Granada television in the 60s 63 as a producer and that was a wonderful and magical time in television it really was it was the 60s even Britain it was that wonderful moment when the world stood on his head when all that had gone before I mean I at that point at 63 in 1963 I could get a job at the BBC before that point I would not go a job as a doorman with my accent it was that difficult to get a job because of the entire system that pervaded in Britain at that time but then the Cultural Revolution happened the Beatles came along the fact the Beatles were the resident group on our show they didn't know that at the time but they were one day John Lennon said we're going down to London to make a record when it came back the entire world had changed and everybody it seems to me that came on the show became famous it was a wonderful time optimism it's a wonderful town of not knowing what you're doing is there one of them of all of us being piled in with a big pot of money and meeting this extraordinary toy to play with and it was in that time that I have got to do my very first celebrity interview producer around me from London that said I'm sending up a new group he said I think they are going to be huge he said the best group I've seen for ages never done television before making the debut on your show seen at 6:30 I said what's their names - the Rolling Stones up the stones came the very first television ever did was on our show and he said to me also he said what do you mind doing so this interview the lead singer he said the bright lad he's been to universities ago word or two to say I interviewed mate Jagger very first celebrity interview have a look at this and tell me honestly all of you in the audience would you give a talk show to this man you've been doing this now for how many years of it two years or years dad how much longer do you give yourself doing this thing going around being I saw what I don't know I never thought we'd be I'll be doing it for two years even you know when we started off I never thought we'd make it very big anyway and then when we have we do we're making records for two years and everybody still goes around corners quite a new group you know sort of and I don't know consciously I think I think we sort of pretty well set up for at least another year in profit that's for sure so the talk show came along it was Marvis buzz for me it was a mob something to do for me and tonight we're gonna celebrate this part of my career by looking at certain kind of aspects of the shows things in it that fascinated me and it particularly stood out and first of all I'd like to show you a little compilation that of some of my favorite moments from the show I mean there's 3,000 guests we had in the survey tandra shows us so so it's been in kind of a lucky dip in in in a sense but what I'm the first thing they will see here is an extraordinary example a lot of the joy of interviewing somebody because interviewing didn't come into it it was a joy of working alongside people who were brilliant at what they did who are extraordinary Majan nation and wonderful in their in their gifts and this little episode you're going to see to start off this section involves Peter Ustinov and only more now I introduce enough many many times with a staple diet of the show and about the last from the last times I ever did him he came on the show he'd been on a back of it toward the book and was very tired I don't know sure that day as well I was naked as well so he came and he said to me summer books are retired he said let me ask you a question he said do you ever ever drink before an interview I said no nor do i said but shall we break the habit of a lifetime I should so he got the BBC carafe and we tipped the water out and put the vodka in smidgen of tonic on the top and we'll walk in kindness this gift too costly to do the show and out of another studio of the BBC we're now turning this over late 70s came Dudley Moore and Peter Cook and those days the baby seems like MGM I mean everybody was there it was wonderful time to be there the camera girl said hi and totally said to period of Parker show us and yeah it's a kind come on watching the audience I've said cause she can't know prom at all so he sat him on the front row the show be tonight very mellow after about 20 minutes to finish the vodka I were very happy the audience I mean I don't know they felt we didn't care frankly credibly happen so Peter said to me said no I said I feel like bursting into song I said what a good idea and he said hasten do we have an accompanist in the ordinate come on do we have new comers there's totally more sitting there it wasn't set up we just have the whim of a moment and he said let us sing some opera don't I came across sat at my MD SPL and played and this is the result of the improvisation you'll see now it's wonderful times to work with genius [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] there is a Marva story I know about you playing Hamlet and Churchill being in the audience did he come backstage to see you oh yes he did yes he came in the interval backstage he went back you're actually to perceive the rest of the poems and he came back and said I thought he'd gone home because I watched through the spy hole at the old day and it seemed ah well I said we've lost him he's gone and so I thought it might as well have a drink there she's gone yeah get sloshed so I sat in the dressing room and I was just about to put a whiskey and soda at my mouth when and the doors open and suddenly in the door was Sir Winston and he borrowed them graciously very courtesy said my lord Hamlet may I use your lavatory but generally you at one point you you in fact sir you talked about your husband cominius aside you trying to commit suicide didn't ya tell me what happened uh it was just a very bad moment my daughter wasn't talking me my career was gone at that moment and everything was wrong and I really I actually took out a gun and then I had this little dog it sound so and he crawled in my lap and I thought somebody needs me and that yeah and then you can kill two she is [Applause] you feel that David is perhaps better has a better public persona of image than you have I think he does have now I don't think that he did a few years ago and I think that sometimes when you can get down and think about it why don't people understand me why are they saying this why they saying that what better person to look at them my own husband to see how somebody can turn all that around I mean David is a golden balls you know now goes back to pay is it good were you in fact um were you from the beginner you an attractive child were you're a good-looking kid I don't really think I was I think I had like a hair part in the middle and braids and my dad always said you know that I should be very I don't know sort of neat in appearance and I wasn't allowed to wear ruffles or bright colors or have my hair and curls like a lot of girls I it went to school with me so I never really thought of myself as pretty pretty but when I when I got a little bit older and the equipment arrived the young [Music] well then I thought gee this is pretty terrific we gotta try it out a little nicer strut my stuff round see how it all worked and it worked pretty good we'll be a party pieces my party pieces [Music] kind of a rug you wish mr. B told me you had great legs you have such deep blue eyes yes you have bedroom eyes let me see their dining room eyes anyway I've been dying to meet you all right and I'm so taken aback by this meeting could I just ask you one deeply personal question of course is that a toupee you got an Academy Award nomination for betraying a man who I had one or two little run-ins with in my career and that was Muhammad Ali mm-hmm it was extraordinary portrayal I mean in many ways you must have imagined yourself that that it was an impossible job given us absolutely I mean he personally asked me to to to do the film and you know that was a shock and and an honor and you know I said to him you know I was like champ what you know why why me what why do you want me to do it he said cuz you're the only person that's almost as pretty as me [Applause] I've never asked a box of this before is it - Liam you don't have sex before a fight no it's during a fight don't do any or do not that's a job I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't ask you if you have sex don't ask you to have sex before a show [Applause] is a different angle - no there are no man No all the best matter take himself forget it [Applause] I never thought and I said not battling bounds today and watch the terms of note I won't make a storm the call that answers a couple of questions that package one is the most beautiful woman I ever interviewed by country mile is Raquel Welsh I should about 24 where did that interview she was absolutely flawless breathtakingly beautiful woman with wonderful skin and great eyes she was always Erika Murney welcome and wise Eric came on Raquel I said my equipment never arrived only the other bombers who was the sexist of of them all and that without doubt was Miss Piggy without a single syllable but think about Miss Piggy's you have to believe in the pig if you don't believe in the pig it doesn't work you must believe that that pig is real and that's just the only thing about it that that's some thing that happens to get drawn into it and after I went for a drink with Franco it was a manipulator and I said there's six turn around I said you know giving in to the pig like that and they said well sure that's the wrong way it works I see it it's really remarkable so what's the marker about it I say oh I mean 20 minutes out there money I'm you know I'm talking to a piece of cloth he said man it's even worse than that so turning they start very soon you're making love to my right hand now they the children just happened like that of course because we had an 8 weeks to prove it in and in 8 weeks she couldn't get anybody to come on the show I mean that was a problem I mean all the agents hung back until we got one or two faces who did agree important to us with John Lennon John I'd met Manchester in a previous tour I thought I told you about and I rang in one day and said you know what you do as a favor they're hanging off and if you came on with Yoko because by this time it was 71 and they beat us and split then you know that'll be a wonderful thing because they'd never really talked about the breakup and that sort of thing so it came back to me about two day later said look we've talked about they said I hate talking about the Beatles you know where I said I knew that he said right here are two conditions one is that Yoko comes on with me I said done and the second thing he said is that if you talk about the Beatles you have to climb inside the sack and do the interview about the Beatles in a Cell sure said I would have done it hanging upside down with a Sydney Harbour Bridge just to get John in the studio so it happened we did the interview when John was murdered the BBC round me up and said could we use the interview I said sure of course then they were called back and said you will not believe this the interviews being wiped indeed the entire first series of the show had been wiped gone and we looked around for some kind of bootleg copy but there wasn't one forget it 20 years later the phone goes undermining our in America film producer said you've done on me but I am doing a feature film called imagine about John Lennon and I want to use your interview you did with him and Yoko Ono and before you say anything he said I know the story so if you know the story you know that the tape doesn't exist he said it's sitting on my desk he said I'm not gonna tell you where I got it from except to say that I want to know how much you want for it I said I want nothing for it I mean just give it to me send it to me and he did now this is a bootleg copy I don't know how he got it he never told me King was 60 mil off a TV screen so you imagine qaulity is not pristine far from it more than that he'd stretched it to 35 mil and he colorized it to exhibit done in black and white of course but it's system is an important kind of document of a friendship with with John and also of a reminder of the the party played actually in making the show success because when he did this the floodgates opened so she'll become known again through newspapers in this country the woman who broke up the Beatles listen I tell you people on the street and kids do not dislike this you know it's the media I'm telling you it's not we go on the street and the lorry drivers wave and there hello Yoko hello John all that jazz and I judge did find that my records still sell well her records fell all right so it's not people in general don't even know they've had this propaganda for the yes but I mean did did did you of those presents John did it lead attention in the group was it and she was already there you see after Bryan died I said we talked about the Beatles I want you in the back what do you want me in the back for John because then it's name your communication if you're in the bank are you gonna do that and we talked about the beef all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] you see it imagine if people went with me to the bathroom it yeah if the my life could I told you with myself to the baggage watch this no I Vienna to America [Music] [Applause] kind of make one final observation okay when Brian dive wheel got bit laughs you know we because we needed a manager all of us are our system where nothing else you know so we can't manage ourselves or you know look after ourselves in that way but it's a it's a lot for for sort of big heads like the Beatles to stay together for such a long time and in the early days there was the thing of making it making it big or you know breaking into American we had the gold together but when we reached about 28 or 29 it began to be all what's the goal you know we've made it and the duty it was getting like we were getting more talented and George began to write lots of songs we couldn't even you couldn't even make an album you know you're lucky to get a track on an album and then we all started getting more interested in our own music and go in different ways you know I mean if you hear our separate albums that they're similar with our personalities have developed and there is it stifled in the Beatles but between us now we sell ten times more records than Ibiza listed here individually if you add them all together yeah we're doing far better than we will have them well you will we're really unhappy though in those early days yeah you can come on [Music] we've been joined tonight um I'm happy to send thank you to all of them by some friends of mine who are in the business so to speak and the idea is that they can ask me questions and we'll answer them so uh at least at least of all consume what do you have to ask me well Michael you once told me that the secret to a long-running talk show was luck I'm wondering how you got lucky I got lucky in two respects that I had two guys working the system if you like in the 70s who were truly truly great stars one was Muhammad Ali and the other one was Billy Connolly I mean I we came across Connolly quite by chance now when you get that kind of that regular on the show me Billy did at a time having it four or five times it's it's God's gift you and I mean both of them were able to I see lift the audience figures by two to three million the only two that ever did that by the way never mind you're all at Redford and Clint Eastwood although they never shifted it but Billy and Ali you could guarantee you will see the figure saw and with Billy particularly it was nice because he wasn't unknown you know and only would of course become what he is but but we got to give him a leg up and he came on the show he's very nervous and he said to me I've got a joke about a bum I still watch the problem he said can I say on British television I said well I'm not gonna ask you that joke because that would spoil the effect I said go for it man go for it and he did we're gonna see now in this clip is Billy's debut it's Billy's joke that he took which actually caused a water-cooler moment in the days when they didn't have water coolers and it also what he did to it started him on this extraordinary career which sees him now as a superstar that he is or and all of that I think the funniest man I've ever interviewed one or two of them Billy Connolly but it's a funny place people does good pattern in Glasgow better than the comics on the stage sold all over the place and there's a guy came up to me in the street I hope I can go away with us that's a beauty [Music] and he is it a bacon near let's call it call me bacon and I'm not very big to be their self a week this is he hit a better one the guy adonys very fun Anna and I said no you see this guy was gonna to meet his friend and a pub and he went down he said oh hello how's it go and it's insane fairness it has a wave they said oh she's dead look this man it's his dead bit again I'm under don't forget it's morning dude look I'm not talking to you if you keep on talking like that it's it please yourself I'll show you if you want it's not show me so we up teas tenement building through the course it's the entrance to the tenement into the vite green entered a wash house and sure enough that's a big moon day off that's a bum stick no sisters at home hey sue say this is would you leave a bum sticking up for mrs. I need somewhere to park my baked fight to sex that scene led to bed and where there was no sort of Egyptian PT g'nite you know they didn't none of that sex I've done a sex scene before and the rotten because the whole thing it seems to me is based on heightened man's genitals and exposing as much of the woman's as you can seems to be the trick because no people you often hear people with dungarees and crew cuts you know women with chin Chin's you know and they'll be saying it's because directors are man and they hate with a misogynist [ __ ] the reason is if you see the man's willy and it's flaccid you see how it's not shocking at all sweet baby boy [Applause] this is 7 bucks at bid it does but if it's erect buffoons I said parties actually governor wine and I season top choice for the rest of a line of denied inventing things oh no we've been a poach on the side and he's banging away at the poach a number and this woman this woman I'm supposed to be making lump if she's kneeling on the bed you get the picture right she's kneeling [Applause] cuz you know when you do this kind of thing this cuz you look sex as an animal act and the British just get it wrong all the time because you take the manners of the dining room into the bedroom you can't do that except for foreplay it's good to remember to start at the outside and work don't buy straight for the money hi what you're saying which when it came to do oh we came to do we came to do the bad scene where sex was supposed to be finished but that time she had kind of fallen out with me a wee bit naughty serious she was in a bad mood and she cannot deserve to be - I mean it was sure no no fault of her own nurse such things have gone a bit adrift and Andi and so she was Ken are not talking to me I heard that and the director says hey how did you feel about the scene I said I'm fine they said you don't mean been in the bed with a woman is not talking to you [Applause] wonderful wonderful camellia I think wises had quite the best that I've ever encountered Peter Peter decided sir Michael you've had a long association with Australia I'm wondering what was your first impressions of the place first impressions that I girlf the airplane was the light it was just the quality of light I've been brought up in a place where everything was suffused the edges were like a Lowry painting and then I came out and I saw this sharp edge and this brilliant and then I put the telly on never got yellow and I've got great white teeth and is extraordinary that was what really getting it was a problem I mean getting here was a real problem I mean I came to work for the ABC and on the airplane coming over I got bedbugs all of me I was VIP and a journalist and I'm on this flight staying over in Singapore go to bed just before Singapore that two hours later I'm covered in Vice get the abscess going to Singapore they've got a problem the airline now because I'm a journalist in the VIP so I'm in the back of the boys charging toward my hotel this PR man who's trying to persuade me never ever to tell this story again in public tonight and he said there's no question he said that this is all on us have you some ruffles Hotel it's on the bill please it's awfully embarrassing we've telephoned ahead they're waiting for you and that one we came around the corner and that's the entrance to raffles Hotel was a huge sign letters three foot high welcomed Norman Parkinson the Sydney Airport press comers of course our [ __ ] you'd only here because you've got a job in England uh-huh and then I turn the wireless on when I got to my my hotel room and heard a man call Ron Casey you might know call me bloody English carpetbagger oh this is nice so that was the sort of bit on the on the working side I mean I settled him very easily because the Australians shared one thing in common they they disliked the same kind of Englishman that I did that's basically the commonality but it was a good time to come to a statue to do a series of interviews because it also has interchange you know there's a big beast prowling in the forest and you've got this set this sense of a tectonic shift happening and that was the course the beginning of the new austerity like the new self-assured assertive Australia do you see today it wasn't quite like that before it was moving I mean there was Kerry Packer there's Rupert there was there was Bob Hawke not yet a politician I knew him a couple of times as a trade union man so the sense of things really beginning to happen packer I always wanted to interview because he fascinated me and I was having that sense with him that there was something unhappy there so I mean I'm fulfilled anyway the real reason I wanted to talk to him was because and he didn't want me to talk about this at all was World Series cricket just that was happening at the time carried bought the game more than that it bought the English captain which did not please me at all and being a traditionalist in the game I thought he was wrong I thought Tony Gregg was wrong and I was prepared to get quite so sure to you about this he said before do I talk about all that do a life and times to do fascinating enough fine but I did raise the subject now because T see from this clip here it didn't like the fact I've raised it when Kerry Packer didn't like the fact you raise something you knew about it you're left didn't know on certain terms that he was displeased it's a fascinating interview this I think of an extrordinary man the point is this is that not so much the guy who draws up the strategy is the people who are use the infiltrators if you like all right well let me let me put something to you Tony Gregg came to see me I asked him to come and see me and I said I have a business proposition I want to put to you you must give me your solemn oath not to discuss it any further with anybody win lose or draw now what does Tony Gregg do from there I thought it was a very sensible strategy on my part we should I think I said he was an honorable man a captain of England he should have said no I can't now what I want to talk about well I mean you've also given us some indication not at all no it comes back to a question of loyalty carry that cuz I mean if i said to you Michael I'd like you to come and have a talk about something and it's when you arrived I said to you now before we discussed this I want you solemn word that it won't go any further than you wouldn't you accept I would accept that that's exactly what I did to Tony gray all right but I would there also reserve the right if I were in his position as captain of England to turn it round at the end and say I'm sorry but I can't me any part of that well that's that's another choice the only thing I'm saying to you is there's no way with any honor at all that he could do anything but remain silent now yes but the dishonorable part was that he went along with your plans that he actively recruited people carry while he was captain of England pretty too important information on the other side they haven't been any important information on the other so I think was Reggie he was in there he was playing he was playing a dual role and that you cannot deny I'm not I didn't think I was here to defend myself you know if I was here to the pier myself I'd take a different attitude I've been very open and very frank with you I believe that the tiny Greek made a business decision a business decision to come with me rather than staying with England now you're a York Sherman and all York Sherman are unreasonable about that on top of that you're a friend of boycotts what sort of a judge would you make in any case if you're a York Sherman a friend that boycott and you're talking about Test cricket well I mean you must be a similar kind of just to me because you were offered him a job I thought it would pick up where I didn't where I didn't care along with him is when he accepted that job which he did in my office and shook hands when he denies that he may deny it I'm telling you what happened it wasn't challenged of course that in a high court action would never came up in the High Court action while I was there one would have thought that if you want to discredit boycott at them I don't want a discredit boycott at all a lot of things he was don't imagine that every York Sherman that ever came out of Yorkshire is an angel boycotts no exception we're gonna get down to rapid his rules which is why Dave you know I can tell you a few things about that I don't I'm not here to listen to or be quizzed on Tony Gregg's behavior I have found an exemplary and I won't discuss it any further I'm not going to be a part of an assassination of that man who I found to be one of the straightest one of the gutsiest and one of the finest men I've ever met and I'm going to leave it at that so that I'm alone with the method he was right of course I mean Ricky or Shane wouldn't deny the fact that he changed the game changed I mean there wasn't be a player played today I wouldn't think that what he changed was so much for the better the other thing Peter about Australia at the time was that I got acquainted with Dame Edna and I think that Barry Humphries is one of the great comedic talents of over the past 50 years in fact I did a documentary and we showed Astin in a ten greatest entertainers of my time and he was top of the list in the comedy and in dear med he created one a great comedy grotesques of all time I've known Damon of the 40 years now we've been together many many times rumors have abounded I'm not going to confirm or deny any of those except to say it isn't consummated at the present time but it is simmering here's here's Damon in all her glory I was in the cemetery buffing up my husband's obelisk [Laughter] he used to like me doing that Kenny Kenny yes he designed this isn't his so talented Kenny he's a he's a practicing homeopath as a matter [Applause] [Music] pretty sure that's what is it [Applause] Kenny's gay he's walked gay he was I'm sorry well can't you call my son and his friend Clifford my what they are flatmates [Applause] their son's roommates you would adore his very lovely Osho business stories Judy no his name is Clifford smile he's he's American he's from the Boston area quite religious he was an altar boy as a matter he toyed with the priesthood [Applause] and some people you know this is well knowing they're going to see these cosmetic surgeons and they forget before the anesthetic takes over they forget to say I want people to know who I am you know they're going like a Mercedes and I come out like the backside of a Ford Monday I don't want to be an icon have you ever been to Greece recent scene an icon horrible cracks all over their face I'm sorry [Applause] don't touch your face I shouldn't say that should i but you know since you got rid of your clipboard you've been fiddling with yourself a [Applause] good viewers Michael's being good because when I was on the show last time if you could call it a show I told him stop touching yourself he's got this habit just touching when he says something is d explores the little bits of ears [Music] but you're not doing it he's clenching his little hamster absolutely can't touch yourself inappropriate [Applause] [Music] you identify Sharon a little bit you know how we used to dip there a little bit lonely sometimes we'd we'd lean on the spitting dry yes the top of mine has a big baby simmer we kick it into that fast cycle [Applause] for white goods abuse as a matter I didn't realize either until I electricity Thomas God I still got what it takes do you think I have I'm not sure Tom Jones knew who she was Oh shame shame on ya say Michael way we've heard you talk about Muhammad Ali he must have been an amazing man to talk to get to know it was like yeah he was a most extraordinary man I ever met actually without a single shot of adduct I'd mentioned earlier that my first stint at the BBC overlapped his career well in fact define his career in many many ways because we start on the first interview you see the young Ali telling you up with the contender telling you how I learned how to sell tickets and then you have this section where he ran for Joe Frazier we got them together on the eve of the second great fight at Madison Square Garden and it's a curious piece it's the alley selling tickets and Frazee loathed Ali the third is Ali did you go back to base its ally with the Black Muslim movement and Ali upsets its moment in the show won my show I did with him where I had a book he was calling he was saying he hated old white men and this book written by butch Schulberg I just read a passage from it saying that of all the men he shoberg knew that Ali was the one who actually had the most white friends Ali went berserk at this and then I said I got a book like I wasn't asked him to read it cuz I knew he was selling illiterate I knew at best he would struggle to do that I wasn't challenging but he thought that so away he went and I was opposite 17 still in a very angry heavyweight champion and the last tip of all is in many ways the beginning of the end for Ali he had one more fight after this clip and you find that very difficult to believe when you see the clip it's done in 1982 12 years after I first interviewed him it's how Ali on the decline you'll see in his eyes that's sort of a deadness that's coming now caused by the awful illness that overwhelmed him robbed him of his personality's athleticism and the lot and left him in the state that is in Burma dummy and you've seen what can happen to fighters you've seen those shambling reps that go around you see them at every boxing occasion and what people are frightened always it don't want that to happen to you this shipments right yeah I'm a long ways I'm not suggesting you are now I'm saying that's what they're frightened it might happen well limitedly were they afraid some people can see farther than others some people prim pressed with limitations we all live a long world of limitations some people can see farther than others so therefore when people judge or don't know with their logic it can't be done their reasoning say a king or shouldn't be done the knowledge of history says it can be done so their reasoning their knowledge their logic clashes of my superior belief therefore the result is they don't believe but you know why they say that I race for the best possible reasons they have fear and they are wearing looks looks dangerous to them that's right not really their dangers to me this is another day it is the affection they have for you they've never felt about another boxer like they felt about you [Music] [Music] it's strange to think that someone who has lived as long and the TV studios I have in fact was born into a time when there wasn't any television I grew up in a pit village in Yorkshire my dad was a miner he went to the pit called grind Thorp wonderful name for a pity you ever saw the film brassed off that was set in gram thought the gram thought Corrib and it was a strange time I mean until nowadays it was Dickensian I'm told it was we were deprived didn't feel like that at all I mean I was very happy my loving parents I could smell the page of course I could see from my bedroom window and I knew are being told that that was my destiny because for 150 years my family had worked down the page male members of my family went down there without question I mean there's nothing else to do and I knew my father went down the page but I didn't have much idea of what he did down the page it was a kind of a weird sort of notion to me what I guess actually on one day I was at bouncy Grammar School which I hated for reason I'm not going to tell you and it took us down a pit to actually look at the possibility of his being surveyors and and and that sort of job and it's quite awful well-lighted place and they'd had white walls and that sort of thing so I came back home my father was in his chair and he said to me what he always said to me he said what do you do today and I said why not pay Oh I said wisp it was that I said dark mane he said that's not a pig that's the bloody holiday camp he said you want to come down a real pit come with me on Sunday and he took me down his pit down Graham thought and he showed me for the first time what he did for a living you know what happened when he left the house at 4:00 in the morning and came back at three in the afternoon and well the first time I might say understood the kind of life he led and when I came out of the pit went home and I was didn't say a word until I got to the gates of our house and my father said to me what do you reckon there and I said well not dad honestly for a thousand powers of shift and he said that's what I wanted you to say yeah but I have to tell you he said that if I ever see that the pig yes again I'll kick your ass all the way home well Indian mother's because I decided already I want to be a film star so I wasn't gonna be a - IDO would also - would have had to have fight my mother now let's look at my dad well there is the captain of my cricket team of captain of my my life actually in a sense a man of a huge influence on me my mother my mother was very very different she was a frustrated woman she was a very bright intelligent career woman she would have been in another life she'd have gone to university that's without doubt let's have a look at it here she was uh very well see that dress she's grown there that's fair isle knitting she used to do that pattern she was to do while watching movies she took them over this for time as though it's where I got my love of movies from and I sit next to a ridiculously we've come out shooting it of that I she would take me home and she would actually she brought me a towel right when I was 12 to type down the patterns and the first line I have attacked was k1 p1 k2tog knit 1 purl 1 knit 2 together that's how I learned how to type she was extraordinary that way she made a living from miss this - house in crime thought I send these patterns off all around the world and one day I mean a great moment was when Paul McCartney had been on television wearing one of her fur out pullovers my great exclaimed the famous when Paul McCartney's mum asked me for my autograph as know my parents were story people when I look back on it and look back at what what happened and how I grew up there and so that when we actually were Mary and I were successful we decided to send them on a holiday now my father my mother had never been abroad they've never been in an airplane before at all so we we said our first test pack is a lot now my mother always thought my father was a bit gauche she felt that somehow in public he let her down she was safe so they set off for the first thing that was the limousine arrived we've got this large Rolls Royce arrived at our house oh they'll be staying overnight I think you know that it was all the wonderful old-fashioned ones with a glass partition with a Sherpa sir because the first thing my dad did it gets in with a driver and mows in the back so now you so they get to the airport write offs they go two weeks later we go to pick them up I can tell this trouble as soon as I see them coming toward me my mother is storming ahead and she has a mouth person - what my granny's - grab her look like a hens bum I'm behind it was my father so I said how big how did it go she said how'd it go your father said he's so embarrassing he lets me down I said what happened so the sooner got on the airplane they out it's nice your mother up in first class said mr. Parkinson would you like a drink he said young man he said I would like a pint of beer he says sir I'm sorry said we don't serve beer no my father would never flown before so what kind of barrier pain is this he said they don't serve beer on the geyser you don't understand saying sorry say so good champagne he said lad I'm a minor I can't afford champagne the guys didn't really so you really don't understand it's three free says the old man I said you know two hours out of London he took the plane dry the one who dropped them she said more than that our Michelson he was so drunk that afterwards he offered to wash up [Music] he's a lovely lovely man anyway I went into journalism because of one man basically really this man Humphrey burger he was my great hero my great dream not bogey the the gangster but bogey thee the journal bogie were they resting in his hat so the age of 16 I got a job and a local paper you could do that in those days you could walk in a cell to be a journalist and get a job with a tea boy his work your way through and I ended up cycling around a nest of pitbull is just 25 miles a day collecting all the my new shy of Billy's life and it was it was fun but it wasn't glamorous it wasn't like bogie so I decided to glam it up a bit I'm now 1617 right and I find in Barnsley I can't do how difficult it was a bogie hat right so put the bogie at him know I'm 16 I can get with it now I could do play it again Sam but I mean those days 16 of the same as that you know I looked a real twerp Sakura know what I discovered though this wasn't the perfect plan because the Hat came off on my bike a floss so I decided this is our mud I was to invent a chin strap for a children what I did was but I stuck to my guns because I desperately wanted not to lose the look so I invented it will be with a knicker elastic chin strap now his own I look deaf before look at this going downhill and thus attired I would knock on people's doors and say I am probably good I mean I was mad I was 16 17 and absolutely besotted with the notion of being bogey and a gymnast one day I went to a house having got off my bike and I got the old Mack on and I got me this whole thing we didn't like doing we didn't like a bit sharie's you know going to people's houses when somebody died you had to get a picture of them and you had to do a report on them we didn't like that job most of all was the job when you had to actually go and tell somebody that they tell them that collect the details of somebody being killed in an accident so I knock on the door of this house is terrace house in Royston and this woman came to the door my mother and she said hello love and I said I'm from the local paper I said oh yes he said go come inside so I get inside and she said what can I do for you I said I've come about your John oh she said what's he been up to oh my god she doesn't know so I said well I think there might have been an accident which point she understood I think something terrible happened as she turned and said I'll make a cup of tea and as she turned to go I fled the house and I went next door and I knocked on the door and I said the woman that I said look this is what's happened will you go and tell her and she did she said to me she said you're far too young and allowed for a job like that she said I'll do it she was right walk past the house I could hear the woman crying inside so I went home and I went to bed and I said in bed for a day I took all the gear off and sugar on one side and never wore it again the most strange thing was that 24 hours later when I got out of bed I changed in the sense that you know I don't understand I moved from a masquerade from a world of disguise into the real world I mean it changed me change the way I looked chaim attitude to my job cry still remain ambitious ambitious to move on to become operable got really super super Journal and I might the editor what they have but year from going to national service and I said listen I said before I got international service I said can you just try to get my name in the paper never had a byline couldn't get by lies in those days he said well if you go to this job on Barnsley on Sunday he said I'll give you a byline and I said what's so special about this job in bouncing on Sunday he said it's Bowser's greatest Society wedding now that's knocks immoral I mean it works Society wedding in bars they only went there all I have to do is collect the name get the names right forward names again right 400 people by the local paper economics of a local paper so I did it sat down there wrote it all out send it off Friday morning pick it off the letterbox the local paper there on the front page very first time in my life barnsey's british society wedding by Michael Parkinson first time I ever seen my name in print a huge huge thrill I know there was exactly as I written it all the way through until I came to the last paragraph which read they are never happy ceremony the Bristol couple exchanged presents the bride presented the groom with a pair of cufflinks the groom presented the bride with an electric shock this is the fifties they weren't invented that I don't think whenever I tell that story to journalist yeah yeah sure well alright the style book of the paper to this very day is a memo their descent roundup that terrible mistake saying in future all clocks let's go otherwise the referred to as timepieces well let's just end this bit so that a tribute to talk to my parents in a sense um my dad actually was not too sure about my celery's in Korea in the end I mean he thought I was a failure because I didn't play cricket for a living being a Yorkshire man and just before he died he said to me he said you had a good life like I said yeah I've been a very good life dad used to come to every show the women he loved the women though he said nice at least some beautiful women I said I have done he said and he said there's been a very interesting life I said yes is it most important of all he said he said you've made a lot of money without breaking sweat I said that is tsutsu he said think on though he said it's not like playing cricket for Yorkshire is it and of course I was defining was that difference between the baggy green of the White Rose of York show the immortality and fame there's a difference and he understood that I didn't my mother was unreservedly she lived her life of unreserved joy going to meeting all these people who stepped down from the silver screen there's Fred Astaire's and the James Cagney she delivers she met them all and she loved them the man she particularly adored was being crosby I sang a song with Bing Crosby my mother used to go around after that saying things like my lad sang with Bing Crosby we saw make a wonderful title for a book as well as being a definition of hot spot may I have the pleasure of your company won't you join me in this catchy little song if I can have the pleasure of your company sweets please Kian try to sing hello you're doing great Oh it's such a joy this band has now become your toilet vocally I'm all at sea rescue me I'll help you there so may I have the pleasure of your company and with this song will make the rap we'll make the round [Music] [Applause] okay so more questions now from asteroids Ricky Ponting how are you mate I'm good thanks mate good sir Michael you've obviously met and interviewed some amazing people through this journey who would be your favorite you know I always dread that question Ricky because I always give the answers people don't want I mean they expect me to say something like I don't know Clint Eastwood or whatever I don't know somebody big star the answer is Professor Jacob Bronowski people I said Professor Jacob who and after tell him well he was the perfect interview for me only because it went from A to Z as I planned it I mean not any to you do don't do that just don't do it I mean you you can't get that so stage of perfection ever but he because of his colossal intellect took my question has shaped it into something quite extraordinary with him but he was also a most extraordinary man I mean here was a man who was born in Poland fled ahead of the horizon there came to Germany fled out of the Nazis came to England became a scientist was part of a team that invented the atomic bomb saw the result of his his endeavors became biologists and then created one of the great documentary Cheevers in the history of television called the ascent of man which he authored and performed and the interview that had seen our tip of it was about that time in his career he was 66 years of age and he done this extraordinary thing and I asked him about going back to the death camps where his relatives have been killed they murdered I need to give this extraordinary count of what happened there now the the the precision of his language and and this choice of words is extraordinary in the end at the end of the clip he poses a question which is about us about our attitudes toward each other and it's a very profound question and what you can't do with it you can't follow it by saying well that was good wasn't it because it's a bit different so we had a problem actually thinking about what you might put next to it and we came across a remembered a piece of again extemporized work music music and a show that I did with Larry Adler the great American harmonica player who of course fled America because of McCarthy regime Itzhak Perlman is really classical violinist playing a song by the great American Jewish composer George Gershwin was kind of I think said in music everything the minorsky said in words I went through this terrible wooden and iron gates that say Arbeit macht v the top work makes free so these unhappy people who went there to their deaths took the gas ovens I was particularly keen to see Bank of 12 and 11 where people were beaten and shot for breach of regulations because I sort of felt that you must see it all but it turned out that the things that were far more moving or ones that I couldn't have imagined at all there was a terrible area which was entirely full of wooden legs and crutches and artificial limbs and the most pathetic area of all of area which was just full of little tin chamber pots the children who'd come to the camp had brought with them at the Genesis predicted oh by this time I was in a pretty low frame of mind and the most awful thing was that there were pitchers in the corridors of prisoners which were just the ordinate picture you know front face number on the bottom but many of them were pictures of quite young people children and to see these pictures of people taking as if they were criminals with the tears streaming down their face it's just unbearable well then we drove over to the pond and we had arranged that we were I was just going to say a piece to close that program at the pond which would arise out of what I'd see in the morning so I sort of walked up and down for five minutes making up my mind what I was going to say and then we did it one take and we go home we had made up our minds that it was a piece but you couldn't possibly do it twice I mean you just had to say well what came into your mind and the thing that came into my mind absolutely out of the blue was the face from Oliver Cromwell that I could I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible baby mistake [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay carry Sir Michael you've for a long time that a lot of work with the elderly what do you find and have what have you found that's been so inspirational I got interested in the elderly because I'm getting old myself because I suddenly discover when I when I when I had to write in my book which amazed me and I'd forgotten the number of times I've gone to older people as mentors in my career only because you know they they knew something I didn't basically they're gone have experience and I think we've lost that nowadays the modern world the concentration we have now on youth coats and that sort thing people tend to get so shunted to two to one side and I became even more interested when my mother who died at the age of 96 for 94 years of her life I mean that a very vigorous life she's a very feisty lady but for the last two years a brain was first night it was stolen by dementia but the other thing that fascinated me too was in all the midst of all this problem with my mother and again people have people with the pencil relation with dementia will know this to be true there are moments of extraordinary humor I mean my mother thought for a great deal of the time that she was in care that I was her brother Tom and that my father she brought him back he'd been she been widowed for 30 years she brought him back but she put him down the pub so he was almost calling the pub and saying if you don't send the old man back she don't want to come down there and sort you out besides to get all this but Marvis moment where you must never argue with people at dementia at all but I did times they they push you to a point where you actually forget and I just said I'd had enough one day and I said to a mom I gotta tell you it love I said you know dance dead she said you dad's dead I said yes when did he die I said thirty years ago she said nobody told me again looking back on my life old people were a fascinating part of the show for me and there were two I want to introduce you to now actually who were outstanding one was David Evans who was not even possibly certainly the greatest classical actor of her generation was 86 when she did this particular show she here must show many times but her 86 toward the end of her life on this and then the other person was I think quite the most extraordinary town anywhere don't mind on television she was 96 when she came on the show and she came on the show because at the age of 96 she just won the Speaker of the Year award by a country mile and then with Catherine grandma booth and she's a granddaughter or the great-granddaughter of the founder of the Salvation Army what's these two interviews and be unafraid of growing old but you would like to live earth friendly I don't know no I don't suppose I'd care for myself very much if I knew well really yes what don't you like oh I don't like the way I feel really terribly strongly sometimes I have to really reinvest well I was like it as a girl yes if the wrong boy came near American touch me and you still have this you don't have it with media no I got the other things [Applause] commissioner you also said recently in a speech that you hope to live as long as Moses knows it's quite wrong oh I stand corrected what did you say I see there's no hope I can't no use hoping to live but you see this was for the Aged research yes I know that how to make age more comfortable Jean I think it's a jolly good thing they could but I said I should like to come in do to go through my old age to finish my old age or something like that as Moses did when he it says in the Bible that his eyes were not dim well that's not I've got to wear spectacles so my eyes are dim and his natural strength that's what attracted me was not abated think how wonderful it would be to be 90 and still as strong and vigorous that you were at 19 yes but he was 120 wasn't it yes so they say 120 years oh now I should think being a hundreds about equal to it yes [Music] Commission I must tell you my money's on you [Music] I hope you're not abating [Applause] put your money on the gray horse or something okay no no it was a betting phrase what I what I meant to say was about if I were a betting man which I am NOT and there was a book made if there's a bet going all I'm trying to say commissioner in my own sub clumsy way is that I would imagine that you would reach a hundred actually the way you are you well I should like to you would well and then I like I would like you to I you're a very remarkable gaara's born to begin a media start that interview I should live to be a hundred and three Basia well so Michael how has the business of the celebrity interview changed since you you first always changed incredibly I mean for in the fifty years I mean beyond measure it's changed from the days of the sediment you know I first started where the studios allowed the stars who come out for the first time hitherto they've been banned from going on television so you were able to say ladies and gentlemen Fred Astaire and he walked down the stairs the first time you seen him actually in real life in the sense that last time is almost 35 or higher on the screen and the mystery surrounding the Bette Davis's and the farmers and the Jimmy Stewart's and the cagnes and all those people which since say it's palpable you could feel people going oh god that's what they look like when they walked on nowadays I mean nobody's got that kind of mystique at all now but because the nature of the way with the society is everybody could it's a Google away that's what wasn't and I think that's in the unlimited bility I mean you can't argue about that there are still great stars around I mean Clint Eastwood as an example I mean a wonderful director and my wife's passionately loved but Clint Eastwood it is they it is well an ill kept secret in our in our relationship but when he came on the show she took three weeks to get ready okay but the thing about about the depth you know it is is that it's it's all based on the fact that people want to be famous just to be famous basically there's a kind of profession nowadays about about Fame isn't it you're not famous because your time do your famous because you learn how to be famous and that's okay too there's nothing wrong with that at all except again when I talk to young people who are coming into the business and they asked me about Fame I said beware be careful tread warily because it's not all you think it is I mean the fact of matter is as I know to my concern that often you're famous you remembered for that which you would rather forget that is it a male female he knew this why don't you have a look for yourself [Applause] [Music] who's nice imagine you must meet is that all right why is it so aggressive it's not [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] and you should never have booked it [Music] I will leave you with one story I must actually have the last word on that Pauling scene there it is that that's the guests on that show include a Billy Connolly in that very first show that you saw talking about the bomb park in the back that's a very first time Billy Connolly ever appeared on television we had rode along first and telling them not to come back on but at the end of the show he came back on now we kill the sound suddenly because he came on and went for me and I told him to go forth and multiply then he made the biggest mistake of his life he went for Billy Connolly now Connolly doesn't he's not even sure about real people normal people another my people with me Musa on the round so this thing comes out it's like a Stuka dive-bomber come out the sunlight is big Ladin rod was and he guess about them billy gloves he says i tell you i'll aim you said you peck me he said break your neck and his bloody arm well that's being it a romp through the 50 years of my life thank you for being a marvelous audience I've ever enjoyed talking you tonight thank you everybody at home - for viewing and thank you also Australia for making somebody a long way from home feel very much at home good night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: BabyFaceBren

Views: 148,241

Rating: 4.7588806 out of 5

Keywords: Michael Parkinson, Sir Michael Parkinson, Mick Jagger, Peter Ustinov, Dudley Moore, Richard Burton, Joan Rivers, Raquel Welch, Bette Midler, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Will Smith, Peter Cook, Lauren Bacall, Billy Connolly, Dame Edna Everage, Dame Edna, Barry Humphries, Muhammad Ali, Bing Crosby, Dr Jacob Bronowski, Larry Adler, Isaac Perlman, Dame Edith Evans, Catherine Bramwell-Booth, Cliff Richard, Julie Walters, Judi Dench, Sharon Osbourne, Tom Jones

Id: clFsMX8d-KM

Length: 75min 42sec (4542 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 17 2019