Latest news with #ChrisTarrant
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Chris Tarrant shares tragic realisation that saw him quit TV after 50 years
TV presenter Chris Tarrant, who has been on television for 52 years, opened up about why he no longer wants to be on TV Chris Tarrant revealed the real reason he left his 52-year-long television career. In a new interview, the 78-year-old presenter, who is best known for being part of Tiswas between 1974 and 1981, said he "loved what I did" as he reflected on all the iconic shows he was part of. He presented Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? from its inception in 1998 all the way until 2014 before Jeremy Clarkson took over. In the 2010s, he started moving away from regular TV work and was a contestant in The Magicians and team captain for Show Me the Telly. He was also narrator for World's Busiest Train Station and Intercity 125: The Train That Changed Britain. Since the coronavirus pandemic, Chris has rarely been seen on television and he's finally explained why. In a chat with MailOnline, he reflected on his lengthy career and said: "52 years is a long time on air. I loved what I did. I had a really good time. "But I went to the funerals of five really good mates, who were about the same age as me, and I thought, 'I don't know how long I've got left in life, but I don't want to spend it locked away in a studio'." One of the funerals was the Sir Terry Wogan's, the Irish TV and radio broadcaster who passed away in 2016 at the aged of 77. Chris briefly considered leaving the industry in 2014 after he had a mini-stroke. The stroke resulted in him needing speech therapy. "I had a lucky escape. I can chat to you now, [my body] is working. But I did have to have speech therapy. It took a while to get everything back. It was scary." Back in 2020, Chris spoke to The Mirror about stepping down and revealed he didn't need the money and wanted to focus on spending time with his family. He told us: "I've stopped working. Lockdown started to get everything in a bit perspective and I thought, 'I've done this thing for 50 years. I don't need the money'. "Without sounding silly, why am I still doing this? I've done lots of things that I've been putting off instead that have been great. "I went on safari with my two eldest grandkids. [Wife] Jane and I have just come back from Borneo. I've just come back from photographing bears in Alaska. Why the hell would I go for work for?" He also said he "actually doesn't miss it" before revealing: "I had a great time. I've had a brilliant life.'
Metro
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Chris Tarrant reveals heartbreaking reason he left TV career after 52 years
Chris Tarrant has revealed the heartbreaking reason he left the TV world after starring on some of the country's biggest shows for 52 years. The legendary host, 78, is best known for presenting iconic kids show Tiswas between 1974 and 1981 and quiz series Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? for 16 years. Tarrant began moving away from regular TV work in the 2010s, quitting Millionaire in 2014 – but he did still present the docuseries Extreme Railway Journeys between 2012 and 2020. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, however, his face has been seen less and less, with his last appearance coming in 2021 documentary Britain Biggest 1970s Hits. In 2025, Tarrant has now given a detailed but heartbreaking explanation for why he's now retired from the glitz and glamour of primetime programmes. Speaking to MailOnline, he reflected on decision to leave it all behind: '52 years is a long time on air. I loved what I did. I had a really good time. 'But I went to the funerals of five really good mates, who were about the same age as me, and I thought, 'I don't know how long I've got left in life, but I don't want to spend it locked away in a studio.'' One of those friends was the late Sir Terry Wogan, the legendary Irish TV and radio broadcaster who died in 2016 – he was 77, a year younger than Tarrant is now. Continuing his story, Tarrant said he briefly considered retiring in 2014 after suffering a mini-stroke, which left him needing long-term speech therapy to get back to his best. 'I had a lucky escape. I can chat to you now, [my body] is working. But I did have to have speech therapy. It took a while to get everything back. It was scary.' In 2020, he told The Mirror he was stepping down because he no longer needed the money and wanted to spend more time with his family in retirement. 'I've stopped working. Lockdown started to get everything in a bit perspective and I thought, 'I've done this thing for 50 years. I don't need the money.' More Trending 'Without sounding silly, why am I still doing this? I've done lots of things that I've been putting off instead that have been great.' He continued: 'I went on safari with my two eldest grandkids. [Wife] Jane and I have just come back from Borneo. I've just come back from photographing bears in Alaska. Why the hell would I go for work for?' Despite publicly announcing his retirement just before Christmas last year, Tarrant revealed that the offers were still coming in from TV producers. View More » Chris confessed that he 'turned down' hosting The Masked Singer and had no further desire to front another travel show as he didn't want to be told 'where to go, what to do and, you know, schedules'. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Eni Aluko returns to ITV for Euro 2025 as reason for Ian Wright absence revealed MORE: Rock star, 69, unsurprised by secret love child after sleeping with 'millions' of people MORE: The truth behind Eamonn Holmes being 'booed and heckled' at awards show
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRIS TARRANT: The day I fell asleep in the woods after a vodka bender and was nearly ripped apart and eaten by a huge, very aggressive brown bear
The first time Chris Tarrant was nearly killed by a bear he had a terrible hangover. 'We were fishing for salmon in the wilds of Russia. We drank vodka the night before, then ate vodka jelly,' says the broadcasting legend. 'It's like normal jelly but set in pure Russian vodka. We had a lot of that.'
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We had therapists on standby': Chris Tarrant on making Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire?
I was responsible for the schedule. I'd listened to Chris Tarrant doing this game on the radio – Double or Quits – which was brilliant. I was intrigued by its TV version, called Cash Mountain, because it was well known in the industry that various people had turned it down. I invited the producer, Paul Smith, to pitch the full idea to me and Claudia Rosencrantz, ITV's controller of entertainment. My main worry was: how likely was it to bankrupt the network? Four multiple-choice answers seemed too easy. I played the game with Paul in the office, with Claudia as my phone-a-friend, and quickly realised that as the amount of money at stake got higher, more and more doubt crept in. 'We're not going to call it Cash Mountain. I think that's a terrible name,' I said. 'Let's call it Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' It's the title of a song written by Cole Porter for the 1956 film High Society. I agreed to commission it, so long as we could do a non-broadcast pilot. It was clear that the quiz never really drew to an end: one contestant would win or lose, then another comes on and does the same thing. There was no natural climax. So I thought we should launch it as a strip – on every night – to maximise the drama. Initially I was going to schedule it at 7pm, but I already had Emmerdale working well at five times a week at 7pm, so I decided to go for broke and play it at 8pm, in the hope that the tension of someone potentially winning a million quid would create gripping prime-time drama. Rather brilliantly, it did very well and became a hit within its first week. Because everyone was talking about it, the ratings got bigger, and we had a phenomenon on our hands. Then the whole world recognised that what was happening in Britain was quite extraordinary – and everybody wanted their own version. I was at Capital Radio presenting the breakfast show, and also doing the clip show Tarrant on TV. David Briggs, my former producer at Capital, had left to seek his fortune on TV. We'd done a game on the radio called Double or Quits, where your pound doubled with every correct answer. Briggsy said over a lunch one day: 'I'm trying to turn it into a TV format.' I was so bloody busy, up at 5am, I only did the pilot as a favour. We shot it in July. The producer Paul Smith said: 'It needs more menace.' Composers Keith Strachan and his son Matthew were given 24 hours to rewrite the music, all those stings and 'Da da das …' so we could shoot a second pilot straight away. We knew the prizes had to go up fast. Nobody would say: 'Better not put the kettle on in case somebody wins a quid.' It was my job to add tension. The prize was a cheque, so I'd say: 'We don't want to give you that …' The pauses were added to really milk the tension. The show was filmed the day before, with rough spots where we needed to break to the adverts. I'd deliberately choose the most dramatic places to cut to commercials, usually between the contestant giving their final answer and me saying whether it was correct. I always wondered if, when the first person played for a million, I'd still have the guts to say: 'We'll take a break.' But I did when Judith Keppel was on her way to winning the first million, and she looked at me like: 'You bastard!' Briggsy said it was about the shoutabilty: people shouting at the television. My screen didn't show the answer. Even if I did know the answer, I'd taught myself to do this really gormless face, not even raising an eyebrow. I remember one contestant, this really nice guy, a fireman. His £500,000 question was: which of Henry VIII's wives did Holbein paint a portrait of? It's weird what you remember from school. I was thinking: 'For fuck's sake, just say Anne of Cleves.' He didn't answer and settled on £250,000. I'd have bet a million quid I was right. The press thought winning such high amounts of money would ruin people's lives. We had therapists on standby, but no one who won £500,000 said: 'Take me to my therapist.' Before the first show, I was in my dressing room with my wife and manager. I said to them both: 'Do you mind giving me 10 minutes?' I must have thought: 'You better take this one seriously, mate. It might go big.' The Grand Tour had just gone from weekly to two specials a year, freeing up a lot of time. Wayne Garvie, president of Sony Pictures Television and an old mate from the BBC, had worked out he owned the rights to Millionaire, and asked if would I like to host it. Kevin Lygo, the managing director of ITV Studios, said: 'That sounds like good idea.' I signed on the dotted line right there. We went through a couple of runs on a laptop in my office. Before I knew it, I was learning how to use the Autocue in the TV studios in Manchester. The main problem is that the Autocue is so far away, I've had to start wearing spectacles. I didn't think I needed to stamp my personality on the show. I thought: 'Chris Tarrant did a pretty good job. I just have to do what he was doing.' One of the new things was the 'Ask the host' lifeline. I don't think there's any shame in not knowing about Greek mythology or tiramisu. Sometimes you luck out. I was asked: 'What was the first American spaceship to orbit the Earth?' I knew it was Friendship Seven, and thought: 'I'm going to look like an absolute genius.' Other times you're asked, 'What's a four-legged animal that barks?', don't know the answer, and feel like an idiot. Donald Fear is the only person who has won a million on my watch. He was unbelievably cool. The million-pound question was something about pirates that I didn't know, even though I'd just done a programme about pirates, but he knew it was Blackbeard. I'm supposed to wear hearing aids these days – I'm deaf as well as blind – but people would assume it was an earpiece and I'm feeding people the answers, so I thought I'd better not. These days you can even get spectacles that translate any language in real time. Presumably you could use similar technology to help you answer various questions, but they have an independent adjudicator to spot any anomalies like that. How the coughing thing ever happened was incredible. When you watch it, you think: they must have known something odd was going on. It's a show I really look forward to. I get up with a spring in my step when I think: 'I'm off to ask people what the capital of Ecuador is.' It's great. I get to sit in a nice, warm chair and make people happy. You can't ask much more than that.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sweetgreen adding 40 locations in 2025. Where it will add Michigan location next
Sweetgreen, a national chain known for its fast-casual "plant-forward menu," has added a Michigan restaurant among its locations that have opened in 2025, and another is on the way. The Los Angeles-headquartered chain offers salad and bowl food options, including caramelized garlic steak, wild rice and other combinations. Sweetgreen has opened eight new restaurants this year, including one in Rochester Hills, Michigan, in May, Chris Tarrant, the chain's chief development officer, said. A Shelby Township location is listed as coming soon on the company's website. By the end of the year, Sweetgreen will have opened at least 40 new locations, Tarrant said. Tarrant said the company plans to keep growing in 2026. 'We look forward to serving more communities as we expand our footprint with 15%-20% annual unit growth and offer different formats to meet our guests where they are,' he added. It is not clear if Michigan will get any additional Sweetgreen locations. The company lists 34 "coming soon" locations on its website. More: Plant-based restaurant Sweetgreen adding new healthy barbecue sauce There are currently five Sweetgreen locations in Michigan, according to the company's website, and one coming soon. The sites include: Ann Arbor Arbor Hills Birmingham Hall Road Shelby Township (coming soon) Rochester Hills Troy This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Rochester Hills Sweetgreen open. Shelby Township site on way
