Barnsley's king of chatshows Parky speaks out - VIDEO
CHATSHOW King Sir Michael Parkinson has met everyone from Muhammad Ali to Nelson Mandela. He is rarely lost for words.
But when Felix, is his toddler grandson, asked if he was going to wear a suit of armour when the queen knighted him….
Well, what do you say?
"There's no answer to it. I think he expects me to turn up riding a white charger and take him somewhere.''
"But that's the romance of it, why you're happy to receive a knighthood. It's a very nice thing to have. And I can't think of many in Barnsley.
Click on the green icon to watch the video and visit thestar.co.uk/video to see the second part of the interview with Parky tomorrow.
Promoting his best selling autobiography Parky, which has already sold 14,000 copies, he told The Star at a book signing in Waterstone's, Sheffield: "I don't care how people address me, it's a personal thing. I don't insist on Sir, only on formal occasions. Certainly not at book signings.
"I like Sir Parky or yes, Sir Jack's lad ''
Jack's lad is how he was know growing up in Cudworth, Barnsley – the son of Freda and Grimethorpe miner John William, or Jack.
It's the attention to his roots, including former school pals, neighbours and journalist friends, which makes the book such an endearing read, including days playing for Barnsley Cricket Club with his old pals Dickie Bird and Geoff Boycott.
"I still like to visit Cudworth and the area. I was last up about a month ago.
"But it's usually unannounced, not a state visit - just when I'm passing through. Both houses where I lived are still there. But the landscape has changed.
"You can't even recognise Grimtehorpe, since the pit's gone. It was a nasty job but such a special place. Think of the great music. There was so much cultural participation,'' the 73-year-old remembers fondly.
"It's traumatic in a sense for the landscape to disappear in front of you. But coal mining was a nasty job.''
The miner's son fell in love with Hollywood, and all its leading ladies, at the former Rock cinema in Cudworth.
As a young reporter he imagined himself as Bogart, complete with trench coat, snap brim fedora and a chinstrap made of knicker elastic to keep it on as he cycled to jobs around Grimethorpe.
Parky, the book, tells how he worked on local papers before the call of Manchester, Fleet Street, where he risked his life as a war correspondent, before more heady days on TV.
There's lots of showbiz anecdotal stories in there of course, from talkshow's greatest raconteur, who has sung with Bing Crosby, joked with Billy Connolly, played a love scene with Bette Davis and had his knee famously touched by sex bombs including Shirley MacLaine, Madonna and even Dame Edna Everage.
George Best, John Wayne, James Cagney, Robert Mitchum, his run in with Rod Hull, Emu and Meg Ryan – they all get a special mention, so does the one he always wanted but failed to interview, Ol Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra.
If he had one last show with any three guest, living or dead, who would he like to chat to?
"Orson Wells, Muhammad Ali and Billy Connolly,'' he snaps back, without hesitation. "I interviewed all three.
But I'd also have Shirley MacLaine in the wings so I could bring her on when I got tired of them. She was intelligent and beautiful.
"I'll have been married to Mary 50-years next year. She was never jealous of the attention I got. I was more jealous of the men who flirted with her.''
He takes talk of retirement lightly, with DVD, more TV and other plans for the hundreds of Parkinson shows he owns copyright of – many now featuring on his new web site, www.michaelparkinson.tv
The man who has met everyone, as the book publicity says, does not what that on his epitaph.
He said: "I'd go for 'Here lies a hack – a lucky hack. I thank that would suit me down to the ground because everything I've done in life, and this comes out in the book, has been formed by the fact that I'm a journalist. All my work has been based on that fantasy I had as a child, the Bogart character. That's how I would like to be remembered – as not a bad journalist.''
- Parky, published by Hodder and Stoughton, is available now from all good book stores
Have you got any Parky stories to tell? Add your comment below.
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