Background
Michael Aspel was born on January 12, 1933, in London, United Kingdom, the son of Edward and Violet Aspel.
Michael Aspel
Michael Aspel studied at Emanuel School from 1951 to 1953.
Michael Aspel as a young boy.
Michael Aspel studied at Emanuel School from 1951 to 1953.
Michael Aspel as a young boy.
Michael Aspel and his wife Elizabeth at Harley Street Clinic, 5th June 1982
Aspel with Irene Clarke attending the Desert Island Discs 'Castaway' Dinner, in aid of the Royal Sociaty for the Blind.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860072363/?tag=2022091-20
1975
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192731513/?tag=2022091-20
1982
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860515974/?tag=2022091-20
1989
Michael Aspel was born on January 12, 1933, in London, United Kingdom, the son of Edward and Violet Aspel.
After passing his eleven-plus in 1944, Michael attended Emanuel School in London from 1944 to 1949.
Michael Aspel started his working life as an office boy with a company of publishers. National Service followed, from 1951 to 1953. His career began as a radio actor with the BBC in Wales in 1954 but he came to notice when he was hired as a guest announcer and newsreader for the BBC (Cardiff) in 1957.
In 1962, he was invited to host the annual Miss World beauty contest, which he would do for a further 14 events. It was Aspel, whose deflating wit and boyish charm kept the pomposity within limits, who had the unenviable task of extracting two minutes of articulate charm out of the nervous contestants.
As the presenter of radio's Family Favourites from 1967, he became a household name which led to more work in television. In Ask Aspel, a sort of pre-Jim'll Fix It television wishing well, he showed clips from young viewers' requests featuring interesting people and exciting moments. For the first four years of its run, Aspel chaired the daytime game show Give Us A Clue, 1979 - 1985, for Thames Television. Presented as a grown-up version of the children's game of charades, the series allowed an array of guest celebrities to indulge in a mixture of playful mime and acute embarrassment.
He entered into an exclusive contract with London Weekend Television in 1982 to present several programmes, including The 6 O'Clock Show, Child's Play, and his talk show Aspel & Company. The first of these programmes, co-presented with Janet Street-Porter and a young Danny Baker, was part straight news and part lightweight regional reporting. The show's popular blend of humour and news item oddities became a Friday night fixture for many years. London Weekend Television then handed him the hosting job on their new Saturday show, Child's Play, 1984 - 1988, an amusing quiz format in which young children defined everyday words in their own terms and contestants then had to guess them.
For his huge success and popularity as a charming and affable presenter, he was awarded with his own primetime chat show, Aspel & Company, 1984 - 1993. Almost but not quite challenging the near-legendary status of the BBC's Parkinson show and its roll-call of international celebrity guests, Aspel & Company soon became the ITV Saturday-night highlight.
Aspel hosted two of BBC1's longest running and most successful series, This Is Your Life and Antiques Roadshow. Following the untimely death of long-time This Is Your Life host Eamonn Andrews in November 1987, there was an ungainly race for what was then one of television's top presenting jobs. In April 1988, it was announced that Michael Aspel would be taking over the coveted role, the decisive factor apparently being that Aspel had "the show business enterprise to jump out from behind trees to catch the subject for This Is Your Life."
He presented BBC's Antiques Roadshow from 2000 until 2008, his last programme was shown on 30 March 2008 being a tribute to himself.
In 2006, he played the role of the narrator in the UK tour of Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show. During July and August 2008, Aspel filmed Evacuees Reunited, a five-part documentary series made by Leopard Films for ITV1, which aired from 15 to 19 December 2008. Along with 15 other wartime evacuees, he returned to the locations of his own youth, including his wartime home in Chard, Somerset. He was reunited with his childhood gang of evacuees at Forde Abbey, just outside the town.
In 1993, Aspel was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his services to broadcasting, and has been voted TV Times and Variety Club Television Personality of the Year. He was also voted into the Royal Television Society Hall of Fame for outstanding services to television. Extending his position as Britain's highest paid television star in 2000, Aspel took over from Hugh Scully as presenter of the venerable Antiques Roadshow.
Aspel is a Vice-President of The Children's Trust, a UK charity for children with brain injury. He is also one of nine presidents of The Young People's Trust for the Environment.
Aspel is a member of British Actors’ Equity Association and of Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.
Aspel has been married three times and has seven children. He married Dian Sessions in 1957 and they had two children and divorced in 1961. Aspel married Anne Reed, a TV scriptwriter, in 1962 and they had twin children and divorced in 1967. He then married actress Elizabeth Power, they had two sons, but he left her for Irene Clarke, a production assistant on This Is Your Life.
