Angela Rippon

Angela M. Rippon
Angela Rippon (1983)
Born	12 October 1944 (1944-10-12) Plymouth, Devon, England, UK
Occupation	Journalist, newsreader, presenter
Spouse(s)	Christopher Dare (divorced)
Ethnicity	White British
Nationality	British
Notable credit(s)	BBC News Rip Off Britain Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show 1976, Eurovision Song Contest 1977 Top Gear Antiques Roadshow Masterteam Sun, Sea and Bargain Spotting

Angela M. Rippon, OBE, born 12 October 1944, Plymouth, Devon, England, is an English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter. Rippon presented radio and television news programmes in South West England before moving to BBC One's Nine O'Clock News, becoming a regular presenter in 1975. She was the first female journalist to present national television news.

Rippon appeared on a Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1976, presented the first two seasons of Top Gear and Come Dancing. She was a presenter on, and co-founder of, breakfast television franchisee TV-am. In the 1990s, she moved to radio, presenting news bulletins for LBC Newstalk between 1990 and 1994, and appeared on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast as a stand-in newsreader.

Rippon has written fourteen books, toured with a production of Anything Goes and presented a segment of BBC One's The One Show. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2004 and currently co-presents Rip-off Britain with Gloria Hunniford.

Early life

Rippon was born into a working class family. Her father, John, was a Royal Marine; she first saw him in 1947 when he returned from World War II. Rippon's Scottish mother, Edna, worked at a fine china company called Lawley's and was also a Seamstress. She attended a girls' grammar school in Plymouth and was a Girl Guide.^{[citation needed]} She married Christopher Dare in 1967.

Career

After leaving school at 17, Rippon joined the photographic office of the Western Morning News and worked for the Sunday Independent, and later, BBC local radio and Westward Television as an editor.

Television

When she was 21, Rippon began her television career at BBC South West in Plymouth in 1966, before becoming a reporter for BBC TV news. Rippon first presented a national news programme on BBC2 in 1974. For a fortnight, she replaced newsreader Richard Baker - who was on holiday - on BBC One's Nine O'Clock News, and was offered a permanent newsreading role on that programme in 1975. Rippon was called by newspapers the first female television newsreader. However, ITN's Barbara Mandell predated her, having first appeared on the second night of ITV in 1955, and Nan Winton was the first female BBC newsreader, in 1960. Rippon was the first female journalist to regularly read the news on television.

In an interview with The Guardian, she said: "You just become an automated autocue reader and if you've half a brain you want an opportunity to use it. When I read the Nine O'Clock News, I kept my brain active by working on programmnes like Antiques Roadshow, Top Gear and In the Country." Rippon was a guest in the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, first appearing behind a BBC newsdesk then emerging to perform a high-kicking dance routine. Her appearance was so popular she made a cameo appearance in the following year's show, in which she was revealed to be one of a chorus line of female newsreaders.^{[citation needed]} Rippon later presented the long-running show Come Dancing.

In 1977, Rippon hosted the Eurovision Song Contest at The Wembley Conference Centre in the UK. She was the first presenter of BBC television's Top Gear, presenting the motoring programme from 1977 to 1979. Rippon appeared briefly on TV-am following its launch in 1983. After a much publicised exit from TV-am (with most of its other founder presenters), Rippon briefly worked as an Arts and Entertainments correspondent for Channel 7 television in Boston, Massachusetts for a brief period. Rippon co-presented the BBC's coverage of the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer on 29 July 1981^{[citation needed]} and BBC One's coverage of the 1979 UK general election results. In the mid-1980s, she hosted the quiz show, Masterteam on BBC One, and hosted ITV's revival of the panel game What's My Line? from 1989 to 1990.

In 1991, Rippon presented for television the United Kingdom Ballroom Championships at the Bournemouth International Centre.^{[citation needed]} From 1990 to 1994, she presented Angela Rippon's Morning Report, a daily radio news programme on LBC Newstalk, and, later, Angela Rippon's Drivetime. She was a stand-in newsreader on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast until 2002. In 2005, Rippon co-hosted a series of Sun, Sea and Bargain Spotting for BBC 2 and in April 2006, she toured the UK as a cast member of the musical Anything Goes. In 2007, she became a presenter on Cash in the Attic, a BBC One daytime television programme broadcast where presenters meets members of the general public, who seek out valuables and antiques to be sold at auction, in their homes.

In 2010, Rippon appeared for one night on the ITV show Dancing on Ice as a judge, covering for Robin Cousins.^{[citation needed]} and returned to the show as one of 16 participants in the sixth season on 9 January 2011, with her professional partner, Canadian ice skater Sean Rice.^{[citation needed]} In March 2011, she appeared with Lenny Henry, Samantha Womack and Reggie Yates in a BBC documentary to raise funds for Comic Relief. It was called Famous, Rich and in the Slums, and showed four celebrities travel to Kibera in Kenya, Africa's largest slum. In 2011 she joined the One Show, presenting a 5 minute slot called Rippon's Britain.^{[citation needed]} On 19 November 2011, Rippon appeared on Children in Need, performing alongside BBC newsreaders Sian Williams, Susanna Reid, Sophie Raworth, and Emily Maitlis in a special one-off edition of Stricly Come Dancing. In the same month she worked briefly on BBC Radio 5 Live as a stand-in presenter on the Double Take programme.

Books

In the early 1980s, Rippon wrote a series of children's books about a character called "Victoria Plum" that was published by Purnell and Sons. Victoria Plum was a tree fairy in "the Great Wood". Merchandise and a Christmas annual were released following the second series. 1n 1982, she wrote a book Mark Phillips: The Man and His Horses, about The Princess Royal's first husband. Rippon has since written keep-fit guides for older people, including Stay Active, Stay Supple, Stay Healthy.

Other activities

Rippon is patron of the Old Time Dance Society. In 2010, she attended the society's 25th Anniversary Ball of the Year. In 2000, Rippon was appointed Chairman of the English National Ballet. After several years of involvement, she resigned in late 2003 following complaints and briefings about her leadership style, which was described as "schoolmistressy" and "imperious".

Awards

Rippon was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2004.

References in popular culture

The song "Mucky Pup" by Puncture, an English punk band, refers to Rippon in the last verse of the song. "Mucky Pup" was covered by the Exploited on their first album Punk's Not Dead. The English anarcho-punk band, Crass, sang about Rippon on their 1984 album, Best Before 1984. The one-minute track addresses Rippon and contemporaneous English BBC newsreaders Robert Dougall, Kenneth Kendall and Richard Baker. The song comments upon public figures' ways of conveying information, asserting that such tactics may be false or biased.^{[citation needed]} Rippon is mentioned in Billy Bragg's song, "A Busy Girl Buys Beauty" from the album Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy. The lyrics include the couplet: "What was Anna Ford wearing?/What did Angela Rippon say?"^{[citation needed]} A skinhead band from Tilbury, Essex, was called Angela Rippon's Bum.

See also

• List of Eurovision Song Contest presenters

External links

• Angela Rippon at the Internet Movie Database
• Bio at www.screenonline.org

Preceded by Bruce Parker	Host of Antiques Roadshow 1979	Succeeded by Arthur Negus
Preceded by Corry Brokken	Eurovision Song Contest presenter 1977	Succeeded by Léon Zitrone and Denise Fabre