Sir Michael Parkinson’s son says he wouldn’t have been a TV star without his wife Mary’s ‘moral compass’
Sir Michael Parkinson’s son says the chat show king – who interviewed stars including John Lennon, Muhammad Ali and Madonna – would never have achieved such onscreen success without the love and support of his wife, Mary.
Mike Parkinson told Sky News: “She inspired him. She gave him confidence. She was his mentor.
“But also, she was his morality. She was his moral core.
“She told him when he was making the wrong decisions. She told him and he made the right decisions.”
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A look back at some of Parkinson’s most memorable interviews
Known for his interviews with the world’s biggest celebrities, Parkinson died last week aged 88, following a brief illness.
A journalist and presenter in her own right, Mary Parkinson presented the 1970s magazine programme Good Afternoon and went on to appear regularly as a panellist on Through The Keyhole.
Now 87, she married Parkinson in 1959 and they went on to have three sons together.
Speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Today, Mike Parkinson joked: “She nearly had to divorce him when he refused to go and have dinner with Clint Eastwood.
“He turned down the opportunity and my mother didn’t speak to him for about two weeks.”
Following Parkinson’s death, tributes poured in from around the world from fans and high-profile figures, many of whom had been interviewed by the chat show host.
Mike explained the “strange experience” of losing your father when he’s a well-known public figure, saying: “We knew him as a father and a husband of 64 years.
“And as much as we adored what people said about him and felt immensely proud about it, it does have a strange effect upon you as a private person because it pushes your grief to the side.
“You don’t almost feel as if you can properly grieve because you want to allow the public, that knew him in a different way, to grieve [first].”
Parkinson and Joan Collins in 2001
He said his father would have been “shocked” by all the tributes, adding, “he had absolutely no sense of the legacy that people talk about or the iconic status”.
Detailing the challenges of growing up with a famous dad, he said: “It’s a weird experience… You have this man at home, but he’s also public property and you have to share him with the world.”
He said while the family would enjoy Sunday lunches together, his father’s work would often encroach.
“We were also acutely aware that when he was doing a show, it was very much the house was quite tense,” he said.
“He was very nervous beforehand. And we had to sort of take a backseat and let him get on with what he wanted to do. He was quite traditional that way.”
Parkinson and Muhammad Ali in 1974. Pic: BBC
With perks like getting to meet Kermit The Frog, Mike said growing up in a time before mobile phones and social media helped keep his childhood “normal”.
He explained: “Because the cult of celebrity hadn’t existed then, I wasn’t really aware, my friends weren’t interested in what my dad did for a living, their parents kind of were a bit more interested, but no one really noticed it because there wasn’t a mobile phone, there wasn’t the Internet.
“So, therefore I had a very normal childhood, but I had this weird existence where I could go and meet these extraordinary people.”
Parkinson and Tom Cruise. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
Looking back at his father’s humble beginnings growing up in a council house in Cudworth, near Barnsley, he says despite his success, Parkinson “had no confidence in himself”.
With a working-class background, he said Parkinson “constantly felt that he was going to get a tap on the shoulder to say, ‘You don’t belong here,’ because he was amongst people who he thought were his superiors…
“He always felt, to a certain extent, that he had to prove himself, and that made him very insecure. That made him drive himself forward all the time and question himself.”
Parkinson receiving his CBE at Buckingham Palace in 2000
Frequently critical of the decline of TV and the celebrity in his latter years, Mike says Parkinson was foremost a journalist and not a TV star: “He was never interested in fame for fame’s sake… He approached every single person, no matter how famous, with a journalistic eye.
“He wasn’t a comedian. He didn’t have a patter. He didn’t have any kind of sketch to throw to.
“In the end, he was a facilitator, he interviewed, but you had to be able to deliver. And that’s what he was about.”
Unable to write in his final years, Mike says it was that loss that caused his father the most sadness, concluding: “In the end, if you ask him now up there when he went to the pearly gates and they asked him what he did for a living, he would have said journalist because that’s what gave him the most pleasure.”
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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