Background
Her mother had left Austria in 1938 and her Hungarian father arrived with the Free French in 1940.
Her mother had left Austria in 1938 and her Hungarian father arrived with the Free French in 1940.
She attended an all-girls Catholic school in South London where she developed a love of journalism.
Her career began at Honey magazine where she was the tea girl, eventually becoming fashion editor in 1967, moving to the Daily Mirror the following year. She was the second female editor, in modern times, of a national newspaper in the United Kingdom, editing the Sunday Mirror from 1987 to 1991 and the Sunday Express from 1991 to 1994 (Wendy Henry, former editor of the News of the World and the Sunday People, was the first). In 1985 she was launch editor-in-chief of ELLE magazine in the United States and edited the Sunday magazine for the News of the World and You magazine for the Mail on Sunday.
She has also worked in television as features editor of television-am (1982–1983) and devised the series Frocks-on-the-Box for the Independent Television contractor TVS during the 1980s, a series which ran for two thirteen-part series.
She has often appeared on radio and television and was a regular participant in Through the Keyhole. In 2003 Pollard was a guest panellist on the award winning talk show Loose Women.
Her publications include Jackie, a biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1971), and she has jointly written four novels: Splash (1995), Best of Enemies (1996), Double Trouble (1997) and Unfinished Business (1998). She was set up in the Brass Eye episode "Science" in 1997.
In 2007 she was writing a novel for publishers Harper Collins in the United States.
Pollard was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2008 Birthday Honours List for services to journalism.
They have a daughter, television presenter Claudia Winkleman. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1975. Pollard has, since 1979, been married to Nicholas Lloyd, a former editor of the Daily Express (1986-1995).
They have a son, Oliver.
She is a trustee of the women"s health charity Wellbeing of Women.
She has been a member of the Competition Commission’s Newspaper Takeover Panel, appointed in 1999.