No one was more surprised than Michael Aspel when he was honoured with a Living Legend award at the Television & Radio Industries Club luncheon earlier this month. ‘It was rather sweet,’ he says of his new trophy. ‘It looks like a bottle opener.’
Michael was particularly delighted because so often these days, the only time anyone gets in touch with him is to request a tribute to yet another showbiz colleague who has died.
At the age of 91, the former newsreader, television personality, presenter, chat-show host and radio broadcaster has outlived nearly all his contemporaries; a list of greats that includes Terry Wogan, Michael Parkinson, Des O’Connor, Bruce Forsyth, Bob Monkhouse, Morecambe and Wise – I could go on, but it might get depressing.
There are moments when it seems as if the erstwhile host of This Is Your Life has morphed into the compere of This Is Your Death, but he doesn’t mind. Even if he does sometimes feel like the last man standing.
‘Yes, I do. And I’m still quite astonished and sorry that Wogan and Parky have gone. It doesn’t seem possible, because they were both younger than me,’ he says.
He wasn’t a close friend of either man but once bumped into Parkinson in a London barbershop. ‘We did have the best of it, didn’t we?’ Parky said to him, and Aspel could only agree that yes indeed, they certainly had.
Today, he lives in a luxury three-bedroom flat, overlooking a stretch of river in Weybridge, Surrey. When his familiar, honeyed voice floats through the intercom system – ‘I’ll come right out to meet you’ – it is oddly thrilling.
For until he retired from Antiques Roadshow in 2008, Michael Aspel was a constant presence on the nation’s televisions for seven decades, starting as a BBC newsreader, moving on to become a children’s presenter on Crackerjack then a chat-show host before taking over This Is Your Life in 1988.
Michael Aspel was honoured with a Living Legend award at the Television & Radio Industries Club luncheon earlier this month, and still looks the picture of health at 91
The presenter was a constant presence on the nation’s televisions for seven decades, until he retired from Antiques Roadshow in 2008
At one point he was reputed to be the highest-paid star in British broadcasting but he wonders if this were true. ‘How could anyone know? We never told each other what we were earning,’ he says.
‘What I do know is that financially, I did well out of television. I’d go to a lunch awards ceremony, introduce it and get paid £11,000. And that was 40 years ago.’
His most lucrative period, he believes, was around 2000 to 2003, a time when presenting both This Is Your Life and the Antiques Roadshow overlapped. ‘There were so many episodes of each and I used to get £25,000 a show. It was fantastic.’
Aspel was known for his urbanity and professionalism and he is still dapper and suave in navy cashmere, twinkly and trim as he pads about his comfy home, furnished in 60 shades of tasteful beige.
In a few weeks he will celebrate his 92nd birthday and although he looks decades younger, old age has taken a toll. ‘I can’t really drive because I can’t see well. I’ve got the same thing as that actress everybody loves. Judi Dench, yes. Macular degeneration. The worst thing is, I can’t see people’s faces. Otherwise, I’m pretty good.’
He has irregular blood pressure and in 2002 was diagnosed with Waldenström syndrome, a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He once had a three-month course of chemotherapy drugs but says his condition is slow-growing and low grade. To keep fit he jogs on the spot for 100 steps several times a day and also dances to music in his richly carpeted living room. ‘I love to dance,’ he cries.
He takes regular walks around Weybridge with partner Irene Clarke, who has lived with him since 1996. Every morning he breakfasts like a match-fit squirrel on half a banana and a solo prune, topped with cranberries, mixed nuts and a dollop of kefir.
Lunch is a fish dish from Waitrose which they both love and some white wine. All in all, well-nourished Michael is in good form, with the only indication of advanced age being an occasional tendency to muddle his words.
Michael with his partner Irene Clarke, who has lived with him since 1996
‘Irene and I probably drink too much. No doubt about it,’ he suddenly ventures. ‘Every night we have a bottle of prosecco before dinner and a couple of bottles of red wine with dinner.’
Crikey, I think to myself. Impressive!
‘No, hang on. Not bottles. Glasses!’ he corrects himself. ‘A glass of prosecco. A couple of glasses of red wine.’
Well, that’s a relief. The couple met when Irene, who is now 77, worked as a production assistant on This Is Your Life. She still sports the same blonde bob and petite figure as she did when they first laid eyes on each other.
Was it love at first sight, I ask, when she brings us some tea. ‘To be honest, I had no idea who he was,’ she says, even though Aspel was one of the most famous men in Britain at the time. ‘I’d been living in the Midlands, but Michael worked out of London Weekend Television.’
‘But the programmes were broadcast across the country,’ he mildly protests.
Irene is undaunted. ‘I never watched anything, because most of what you did came out of London and you did the local news.’
‘Well, it wasn’t all local. That’s no excuse. You just didn’t watch me,’ he says, then deadpans: ‘I’m not hurt at all.’
Oh, Michael and Irene! If you saw this sweet senior couple dotting about Weybridge or shopping for seafood treats in their local Waitrose, you would never guess at the national scandal their relationship caused in 1994.
Back then, Aspel left his two children and third wife – the EastEnders actress Elizabeth Power – to be with Irene, and the affair became front page news. Tabloid newspapers staked out the Manchester hotel where the lovers were trysting, photographers snapped them holding hands at a lunch party, the Daily Mail’s Lynda Lee-Potter interviewed a distraught Mrs Aspel, who wailed: ‘I asked him: what is it about her that is so special? And he said: I can’t explain it.’
This pattern of affairs, lust and betrayal was repeated throughout each of Aspel’s three marriages, behaviour that he still doesn’t understand to this day.
‘I can’t explain it or myself. People try to invent deep psychological problems. That it was rooted in me being evacuated during the war and so on. But many who had the same experience as me went on to become the most stoical and moral people you can imagine. They didn’t lead the chaotic life that I did.’
Yet he makes no excuses for himself and it says something that he remains on good terms with all his wives and children – he had six in total although in 1989, his son Greg from his first marriage died of cancer at the age of 29. Among the thicket of framed photographs on his sideboard, is a portrait of Greg.
Michael remains particularly close to Elizabeth – she is Catholic, they never divorced – who lives down the road in the former Aspel family home, a Tudorbethan mansion with a quarter acre of grounds and a pool.
He often visits. ‘We are friendly, it’s warm and cosy, with our shared interests being the children.’
The couple are no strangers to sadness. During their 16 years together she gave birth to a stillborn daughter, then a baby boy who lived only three days. Their son Patrick (now aged 43) was born 11 weeks premature and has cerebral palsy. Elizabeth then suffered a miscarriage before giving birth to a healthy second son, Daniel, 40.
There have been times, says Aspel, when he felt his very name carried a curse. And the years of loss, struggle and heartbreak were perhaps also a factor in their split.
‘But Lizzie has always been faultless. I’m the problem. The wonderful thing is they all seem to like me still. There’s no resentment.’
The fractured family remain close, but not so close that they spend the holidays together. ‘I don’t know where I will be for Christmas,’ he says. ‘Since my life changed 30 years ago, it never quite got reorganised.’
Back then, he and Lizzie would host the family celebrations. ‘My father-in-law was a chef and did this tremendous meal, and I was elected to do the washing up. One person doing the washing up! It seems very unfair,’ he jokes, although one wonders if a part of him misses being elbow-deep in family suds.
Of course, he has his regrets, not least maybe that after he walked out, he never spent another Christmas with his children. ‘I regret things all the time. Sometimes I think I was born feeling guilty,’ he says.
Still, if Aspel was a womaniser, it is only fair to say that women loved him right back. In 1970, for example, he dated Miss England beauty contestant Jackie Molloy, who was grateful for his attentions. ‘I was 19 and a virgin. His every touch thrilled me,’ she recalled.
And in his bachelor days he was always being propositioned. ‘I’d meet someone at a function and she’d say, “I’m having a bit of a do at my house, Friday week, or whatever. Would you like to come?” And I’d get there and there would be no one else there. Just me. No party at all. Oh, my God. That happened more than once.’
And did you make your excuses and leave? ‘Sometimes I did a runner and sometimes I stayed and there was a happy ending,’ he says, unabashed.
‘Gosh, I remember one time I was asked to push over a pile of pennies for charity in an East End pub. The titled lady who was the patron of the charity asked for a lift home and invited me in for a drink.
‘Then she made this lunge. And I heard myself squealing: “Oh stop, my girlfriend is waiting for me.” I mean you have to say it gently, don’t you? You can’t say: “I simply cannot bear the sight of you, I must leave.” You do what you can.’
He doesn’t miss making television (‘Not really, it’s been a very long time’), although he wasn’t entirely thrilled about being replaced by Fiona Bruce on the Antiques Roadshow.
‘I had to fall on my sword and I wasn’t delighted, but I understood. They wanted someone younger, perhaps more attractive and with a journalistic background. I could have gone on doing it for a long time.’
He adored being a guest on The Morecambe & Wise Show (‘an absolute joy’) where he was mocked as Michael Aspirin but got to show off his undeniably impressive dancing skills.
On his own chat shows he loved interviewing big Hollywood stars, names such as Bob Hope and Charlton Heston and Bing Crosby. ‘Gregory Peck was such fun, the best person I’ve ever met, the most likeable man,’ he says.
Earlier, as a schoolboy, he had carried a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor in his blazer pocket for years, so interviewing her in 1988 was a career high point.
Michael after interviewing Elizabeth Taylor in 1988 – a career high point
Afterwards, when they were having photographs taken together, she asked him if there was any lipstick on her teeth. ‘No, but I wouldn’t mind some on mine,’ he cheekily replied.
Later in the green room, she applied a fresh layer and made a beeline for him. ‘She grabbed my face and gave me an enormous kiss, leaving this big magenta splurge across my face,’ he recalls.
Not everyone was so friendly. Tony Curtis once walked off the set, Mel Brooks could be difficult, Oliver Reed got drunk. ‘But he wasn’t awful, he was just p****d. He was basically a decent and nice man.’
The one person Michael Aspel is most critical of is himself. ‘To be honest, I was rather disappointed with my performance as a chat-show host. I think I was better on the radio. I didn’t feel so comfortable on the telly doing Aspel & Company. The pressure from the people who represented the guest stars took the edge off.’
That, and perhaps the dwindling pedigree of guests on offer. ‘So many people look exactly the same these days. And they sidle into a film and become a star,’ he sighs.
He doesn’t subscribe to any streaming services, preferring to watch his DVD collection of classic movies instead. He does watch Graham Norton’s chat show with a professional eye but has his reservations.
‘It is rather like that QI programme – within five minutes the chat gets filthy,’ he says. ‘And the host encourages these people to get dirty. But I do think Graham is very good, he makes it all work.’
Maybe so, but will Norton ever receive a Living Legend bottle opener, get smooched by Liz Taylor, be replaced by someone who is ‘perhaps more attractive’ and reach the smooth operator status of the one and only Michael Aspirin? I think we all know the answer to that. Goodnight.
