Latest news with #BruceForsyth
The Independent
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Paul Merton ‘honoured' if he was the reason Bruce Forsyth got Strictly job
Paul Merton has addressed the long-standing rumour that he was responsible for Sir Bruce Forsyth being hired to host Strictly Come Dancing, stating it "wasn't quite like that." The rumour suggests that Merton inviting Forsyth to guest present on Have I Got News for You in 2003 put him on the BBC 's radar for the dance competition. Merton confirmed Forsyth was a "consummate professional" on Have I Got News for You, which appeared to reignite his career and led to his Strictly role the following year. While Merton has "no idea" if he directly influenced Forsyth's hiring, he stated he would be "extremely honoured" if he did, as Forsyth was a "lovely man." Forsyth's career, which began in the 1950s, was waning before his Have I Got News for You appearance, and Strictly Come Dancing subsequently brought him back to primetime television.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paul Merton addresses rumour he got Bruce Forsyth job hosting Strictly
Paul Merton has addressed the rumour that he was the reason Sir Bruce Forsyth was hired to host Strictly Come Dancing, stating: 'It wasn't quite like that.' It's long been claimed that the comedian was one of the reasons the BBC decided Forsyth should lead the Saturday night dance competition when it launched in 2004. His hiring came shortly after Merton recruited Forsyth to be a guest presenter on satirical panel show Have I Got News for You, which is believed to have put him on the BBC's radar to co-host Strictly alongside Tess Daly. Merton was asked in a new interview if he was responsible for getting Forsyth the job, to which he told Saga Magazine: 'I asked if we could have Bruce as a guest presenter on Have I Got News for You in 2003 and he was brilliant, a consummate professional, as you'd expect.' Merton continued: 'That seemed to reignite his career and the following year he landed Strictly.' He added that, while he has 'no idea if I had anything to do with' Forsyth's hiring, he 'would be extremely honoured' if he did 'because he was a lovely man'. At the time of Forsyth's appearance on Have I Got News for You, the entertainer's career, which was launched in the 1950s, was starting to wane. Paul Merton brushed off claims he got Bruce Forsyth the 'Strictly' job (BBC) He spent the previous decades hosting game shows including The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and The Price Is Right. It was Strictly that put him back on primetime television. Forsyth returned to Have I Got News for You as guest host in 2010 and, in 2013, he became the oldest person to perform at Glastonbury Festival, aged 85. The presenter, who stepped down as host of Strictly's live shows in 2014, made his final TV appearance on a Children in Need-themed Strictly special n November 2015. His health soon deteriorated and he died of bronchial pneumonia aged 89 on 18 August 2017. Forsyth became the oldest person to perform at Glastonbury Festival in 2013 (Getty Images) Two weeks later, Strictly host Daly paid tribute to Forsyth during that year's launch show, stating: 'There is one person in our hearts, and we want to do him proud.' Claudia Winkleman, who replaced Forsyth as Daly's co-host, added: 'We all miss him dreadfully.' Ahead of his death, Forsyth admitted that Strictly had limited his talents. He told Hello: 'On the Generation Game, for example, I could have fun – I was allowed to be 'Loose Bruce'. I could do whatever I liked and interact with whomever. 'That's the real me. A presenter on Strictly isn't the real Bruce.'
Daily Mail
02-07-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
How family tragedy drove unlikely Formula 1 star Damon Hill to victory... CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Hill
Murray Walker, the greatest of all commentators, was not often lost for words. But emotion got the better of him as Damon Hill claimed the F1 World Championship in 1996. 'And, I've got to stop,' Murray growled hoarsely, 'because I've got a lump in my throat.' His unmistakable voice, like the scream of a 500hp turbo- engine, seemed to have grit in the gearbox. Hill's victory was especially significant for the sport because he was the son of another Formula 1 world champion, the swashbuckling Graham Hill, who died in a plane crash along with five members of his team in 1975. Throughout the documentary Hill, charting Damon's career in motor-racing, his father's ebullient personality was ever-present as a sort of background roar, like the sound of a high-performance car. Snatches of home video were intercut with archive news footage. In one snippet, Bruce Forsyth chatted to Graham at Brands Hatch. The two men could have been -brothers - the same long nose and jutting chin, not to mention the pencil moustaches. An adolescent Damon lurked shyly beside his dad. 'Say something,' urged Brucie. 'Something,' whispered the boy. Snatches of home video are intercut with archive news footage and F1 racing scenes 'He's not like you, he can't chat as much!' chortled Bruce, elbowing Graham. That moment epitomised Damon's relationship with his father's memory. 'I didn't want to be pushed into the limelight,' he mused. 'If your dad is the star of the show, then who are you?' An introspective man - his wife, Georgie, calls him, 'one of the saddest people I'd ever come across in my life' - Hill Jnr insisted at the start of this affecting and melancholy film that he 'never wanted to become a racing driver'. But he also felt compelled to compete and win, in tribute to his father. Gradually, it became clear why Hill always seemed so unlike other drivers. A devoted father and husband, he couldn't have been more different from the roguish, womanising James Hunt - a man who once staggered into the paddock still half-drunk from a wild one-night stand, and proceeded to break lap records on his way to the podium. Damon had none of Michael Schumacher's arrogance, Alain Prost's confidence or Ayrton Senna's supernatural aura. Even his team bosses seemed to take his self-deprecating jokes at face value: they sacked him when he was leading the championship. But what emerged from this sensitive film, written and directed by Alex Holmes, was the portrait of a spiritual man who was deeply traumatised by loss. He was 15 when a TV bulletin broke the news of his father's death. He had to tell his mother, who collapsed. Financial ruin for the family followed. For F1 fans, the race footage was gripping, while the candid shots of drivers and mechanics behind the scenes were revealing.
Daily Mail
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Sir Bruce Forsyth's widow Wilnelia shares insight into her dating life and says she's open to meeting 'someone special' - eight years on from her beloved husband's death
Sir Bruce Forsyth 's widow Wilnelia has shared insight into her dating life and said she was open to finding love again, eight years after the tragic death of her beloved husband. Lady Forsyth, 67, was married to the iconic entertainer for 34-years before his passing aged 89 in 2017 following a battle with bronchial pneumonia. She spoke exclusively to MailOnline at the Caudwell Children's 25th Butterfly Ball at The Dorchester Hotel in London on Wednesday, where she was joined by the couple's son Jonathan, 38. Looking sensational on the red carpet, Wilnelia said that while there was nobody 'special' in her life in the moment, she wasn't adverse to the idea. Asked if she'd be open to dating, she told MailOnline: 'Yes, well I have friends, and I go out, I have nobody special in my life right now, but you never know'. Later sharing night into her grief, the former Miss World star paid tribute to her son as well as Bruce's five daughters from his first two marriages for their support. 'Life goes on, but I'm surrounded by so much love, and the whole family. I'm so lucky to have the most beautiful stepdaughters, and our son, Jonathan, who is my rock'. 'I'm very busy, and I also have an organisation for the Alzheimer's charity in Puerto Rico, and it's for the caregivers, so I'm quite busy with that'. Wilnelia also spoke about the upcoming eighth anniversary of Bruce's death and said she would be marking the occasion with a charity gold tournament in the village of Wentworth where the couple lived. 'I just had a lovely birthday with one of Bruce's daughters – his oldest daughter, and I had a party at home for her last Sunday. Her birthday was on Monday, but the whole family managed to get together, so it was beautiful, and we were talking about [Bruce's upcoming anniversary]'. Wilnelia and Bruce lived together in Surrey after she was first introduced to him at the 1980 Miss World competition gala in London. She retired from modelling following her marriage to the Strictly host in 1983 but remained the only Puerto Rican to win Miss World until 2016. Her husband sadly passed away in August 2017, aged 89 at his home, while surrounded by his family, after a battle with bronchial pneumonia. A year after his death, she revealed that nothing had been moved at their home since he left; the books, ornaments and family photographs were left exactly where they were. 'Life goes on, but I'm surrounded by so much love, and the whole family. I'm so lucky to have the most beautiful stepdaughters, and our son, Jonathan, who is my rock' (pictured 2015) Wilnelia spoke candidly about her husband's death in a candid interview with The Mail On Sunday in 2018, where she revealed she still talks to him everyday. She said: 'Sometimes it feels like yesterday. I can't believe it's been a year. 'I was in London the other day and rushing, thinking I had to get home. But then I realised, what's the point? 'I try to be strong for the family, but if I told you it's been easy I'd be lying. I miss Bruce every single day. He was my mentor in a way. 'He had so much knowledge about everything and was such an easy person to talk to. I could speak to him about absolutely everything. 'I talk to him all the time anyway, but I miss sharing all the good news in the world, and the bad.' Also in 2018, lady Wilnelia spoke of her joy at marrying the iconic entertainer. During an appearance on ITV's This Morning she passionately admitted: 'I was so lucky to be married to him for 34 years. It was a very happy marriage.' She said she is thankful that she was able to make some special memories with Bruce before he passed away. 'He retired from Strictly, and he didn't manage to do the last show; the Christmas show,' she said. 'He was planning to do some travelling and continuing and being in showbiz somehow. He wanted to be with his family.' Bruce had kids Debbie, Julie and Laura from his 20-year marriage to first wife Penny Calvert; Charlotte and Louisa from his second marriage to Anthea Redfern, and Jonathan Joseph 'JJ' Forsyth-Johnson from his third marriage to Wilnelia.
Spectator
25-06-2025
- Business
- Spectator
Millennials don't want brown furniture
For me, it was the sideboard that did it. Originally the centrepiece of my grandmother's dining room, upon her death it was passed on to my mother, who kept it grudgingly in her cottage even though you couldn't get to the kitchen without banging your hip against its bow front. At some stage it was passed on to my sister, who paid a considerable sum to store it because she had no room for it in her terraced house. Some years later, I was informed that I must house this precious mahogany albatross myself. After some handwringing and sadness, lack of space forced me to pass it on to someone in my village. She took one look and promptly vowed to 'do an upcycle'. Such is the sorry fate of brown furniture. It is unwanted by millennials, who will likely inherit it anyway when their boomer parents inevitably downsize, to allow their offspring to scramble on to a much lower rung on the property ladder. Brown furniture strikes me as a peculiarly apt metaphor for the cumbersome, unwieldy process of the Great Wealth Transfer more broadly. It may sound like a heist, but the Great Wealth Transfer is the anticipated handing down of approximately £5.5 trillion from the boomers to millennials, what journalists and financial analysts like to call (with no apparent irony) the 'largest flow of generational capital ever seen in the history of humanity'. Maybe we should simply call it The Generation Game and get Bruce Forsyth back from the grave to officiate. Because like all game shows, there will be winners and losers. Just don't expect a conveyer belt and a teddy bear. But first, a word for the boomers. Britain's baby boomers – the 13.5 million people, aged between about 60 and 80, who were born between 1946 and 1964 – grew up in a world of staggering growth. As they worked, they were able to pay into pensions and buy shares. Overwhelmingly, they bought houses, and these houses have become a lot more valuable: a flat bought in Notting 'Grotting' Hill in the 1970s for £6,000 is now worth well over £1 million. Half have more than £500,000 in assets and roughly a quarter have more than £1 million. This has helped make the boomers comfortably the richest generation there has ever been – and quite possibly the most reviled. As a geriatric millennial born in 1983, waiting for the wealth to trickle down into my hands, I can't wait. Except I don't seem to be in line for any wealth as such, but a whole auctioneer's catalogue of brown furniture given to me as property has changed hands from my grandmother's so-called silent generation to my boomer mother, who now doesn't want it (and has even been known to Farrow & Ball it). If I do inherit any property, it probably won't be until I am well into my sixties, when my children have completed their (hopefully) private education. As I really don't want my mother to croak it any time soon, I am at peace with this situation. Through no meritocratic slaving of my own, I have managed to get on to the property ladder via my husband. The Bank of Mum and Dad regrettably never opened its ATM for me, as it did for so many of my peers, but hey-ho. What has trickled down to me thus far in the greatest asset swap of all time can be listed as follows: a Davenport desk, a couple of Pembroke tables, a side cabinet, a linen press, two gilt mirrors, a wig stand and a great deal of bone china, designed for the kind of entertaining that hasn't taken place since the 1940s. Brown furniture, then, is my lot. But brown furniture, as auctioneers are at pains to tell me, is worth nothing – it is the abject symbol of generational misalignment that will come to characterise the slow death march of the boomers and expose the Great Wealth Transfer once and for all. Blame Tony Blair – 'forward not back'. But why? Shouldn't it be worth something? I spoke to Thomas Jenner-Fust, director of Chorley's in the Cotswolds, to confirm just how shafted I am. Jenner-Fust blames 'generational dissonance' for having driven the value of brown furniture down: 'Boomers came from a world where people still sat around a table to eat food, took afternoon tea (no ghastly mugs), sat at a desk to write letters with an actual pen and displayed their trinkets and treasures in display cabinets.' In contrast, he says, millennials lead different lives in knocked-through kitchens where mahogany furniture looks out of place, and built-in cabinets throughout the house have done away with the need for hulking great bow-fronted chests of drawers. And of course many millennials don't have a home at all to fill with brown furniture, even if they wanted to. Some boomers, I quickly learn, are resigned to the fact that the sale of brown furniture isn't going to 'fund any skiing holidays'; 'luckily for them, over the same period [35 years] their Old Rectories have gone up by millions so they can take a hit on the Pembroke tables'. Others, upon discovering that their corner cupboard is worth only £30, are not so sanguine. 'I have often felt that I am about to be chased out of the house with a rolling pin. I'm seen as a sort of swindler,' confesses Jenner-Fust, letting slip that when an auctioneer acquaintance sells a piece of brown furniture for a pittance, he often remarks 'at that price I hope the legs fall off'. Which of course, unlike their Ikea counterparts, they won't. Brown furniture, like a boomer's incredible life expectancy, is sturdy and built to last. Eliza Filby, historian of generations and author of Inheritocracy,published last year, sees the glut of brown furniture as evidence of the fact that 'boomers are the consumer generation that have bought a lot of shit'. By contrast, millennials and Gen Z are the experience generations, all holidays and Instagrammable 'memory-making'. Brown furniture, Filby says, is a motif not just for different ways of living but, crucially, for different economic standards of living, standards that were far more elevated than we victimised millennials could dare to imagine. 'There's a reason why millennials embraced the pared-down mid-century aesthetic,' she notes. It is born out of economic and social dire straits rather than simply solipsism. Minimalism arose then because there was simply less space: no dining rooms, less wall space for gilt mirrors and linen presses – just less. What, then, is the answer to this generation game of discontent? James Mabey, partner at law firm Winckworth Sherwood, tells me that, as with most things, tech may be the answer. Technology that can predict life expectancy may be 'a very powerful tool in estate planning in choosing how much to give away and when, and how much we are each likely to need to keep back'. The short-term risk, though, is that millennial inheritance gets drunk through a straw by boomers on their so-called 'revenge holidays'. I conclude, in the words of the late, great Bruce Forsyth, that I must 'play my cards right'. Just no more sideboards, please: I flogged the dinner service ages ago.
