Nicholas Parsons

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Nicholas Parsons
150
Born Christopher Nicholas Parsons
10 October 1923 (1923-10-10) (age 84)
Grantham, Lincolnshire
Nationality British
Occupation Actor, radio and TV presenter
Known for Just a Minute
Sale of the Century
Spouse Denise Bryer (1954-1989)(divorced)
Ann Reynolds (1995- )
Children 2 children with Bryer

Nicholas Parsons OBE (born 10 October 1923 in Grantham, Lincolnshire), is an English actor and radio and television presenter.

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[edit] Early life

Christopher Nicholas Parsons was born at 1 Castlegate, Grantham, Lincolnshire,where his father was a General Practitioner in Vine Street and whose patients included the parents of Margaret Thatcher (nee Roberts). His mother, born in Bristol to a founder of local company WB Maggs & Co., trained as a nurse where she met Parsons' father in a hospital. The middle child with an older brother and a younger sister, his father may have delivered the future Prime Minister in 1925.[1]

Born left handed but made to write right handed, as a child Parsons suffered from a stutter which he overcame by the age of 15, suffered migraines, and he was slow to learn owing to dyslexia.[2] Educated as a boarder at St Paul's School, he wanted to be an actor and told his school friends he enjoyed the films of Shirley Temple - and was hence called Shirley for a time.

But his parents thought that a career in engineering would be better, as he had repaired clocks and he was good with his hands.[2] After leaving school, his family arranged a job for him in Glasgow, where he was briefly employed in the shipyards of Clydeside by Drysdales who made pumps, before studying engineering at the University of Glasgow.[2] Although he never graduated, he gained enough qualifications to become a qualified marine engineer and given a position in the Merchant Navy during World War Two, which he never took up owing to illness.

[edit] Broadcasting career

He started his career while training as an engineering apprentice, found by Canadian impresario Carroll Levis, doing impressions and working in small repertory theatres in Glasgow.[3]

After World War Two, Parsons made his film début in 1947, but continued his stage career in small parts in West End theatre shows, then did two years in repertory at Bromley, Kent and later Windsor, Maidstone and Hayes. After becoming a resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre in 1952, Parsons became well known to TV audiences during the 1950s as the straight man to comedian Arthur Haynes. After the pair appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1961, the partnership broke up at Haynes request allowing Parsons to return to the stage, before he became a regular on The Benny Hill Show from 1969–1974. After Haynes' sudden death, Parsons went on to appear as a personality in his own right, his fame culminating in the long-running Anglia Television game show, Sale of the Century, broadcast weekly from 1971 to 1983.

Parsons has been the host of the BBC Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute since its first broadcast on 22 December 1967. He was also the non-singing voice of Tex Tucker in the TV series Four Feather Falls at the suggestion of his then wife, actress and voiceover artiste Denise Bryer. During the late sixties he presented a satirical program on Radio Four called "Listen to This Space" which might be his best radio work; by the standards of the times it was very risqué.

In 1988 he appeared as himself in The Comic Strip Presents ' episode "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door", in which he had the misfortune to encounter two incompetent escort agency directors (Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in their usual cheerfully-violent, dipsomaniac personas) followed by the psychopathic and misnamed Mr Jolly himself (played by Peter Cook). In 1989 he made a guest appearance in the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who as the doomed Northumberland vicar Reverend Wainwright in the Seventh Doctor serial The Curse of Fenric. He has also taken the role of the narrator in the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show.

In April 2005 he was the weekly guest presenter on the BBC news quiz Have I Got News for You, having been turned down some time previously. According to Guy Adams, writing in The Independent's "Pandora" column, Have I Got News for You team captain Paul Merton, also a regular panellist on Parsons' show Just a Minute, had commented shortly before the decision, "I have two contenders for the job, who represent the best possible choices. One would be Nicholas Parsons. The other would be Bagpuss."

Aired on BBC1 in December 2007, Nicholas came last on 'Celebrity Mastermind'.

He published an autobiography in 1994[4].

[edit] Roles outside broadcasting

Between 1988 and 1991 Parsons served as Rector of the University of St. Andrews. In 2004, he was appointed OBE. In 2005 he became honorary Chairman of the International Quizzing Association (IQA), a body which organises the World and European Quizzing Championships. He is a leading member of the Grand Order of Water Rats charity. He was the president of the charity the Lord's Taverners in 1998-1999. Parsons is also a high-profile supporter of the Liberal Democrats. Each year he holds his own live chat show in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival promoting up-and-coming comedians.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The One Show 29th of January, 2008
  2. ^ a b c "Desert Island Discs with Nicholas Parsons". Desert Island Discs. BBC. Radio 4. 2007-11-09.
  3. ^ BBC - Press Office - Nicholas Parsons
  4. ^ 'The Straight Man - My Life in Comedy' (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) ISBN 978-0297812395

[edit] External links

Academic offices
Preceded by
Stanley Adams		 Rector of the University of St Andrews
1988 - 1991		 Succeeded by
Nicky Campbell


Persondata
NAME Parsons, Nicholas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Parsons, Christopher Nicholas
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actor, radio and TV presenter
DATE OF BIRTH 10 October 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Grantham, Lincolnshire
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages