Background
Deborah Jane Orr was born on September 23, 1962, in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, United Kingdom to the family of John Orr, a factory worker, and Winifred "Win" Avis.
1998
Bankside, London SE1 9TG, United Kingdom
Deborah Orr and Will Self at the Turner Prize dinner at the Tate Gallery in 1998.
2016
London, United Kingdom
Deborah Orr, right, hosted An Evening With Vivienne Westwood in 2016.
Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, United Kingdom
Deborah Orr in her childhood.
90 York Way, London N1 9AG, United Kingdom
Deborah Orr in the Guardian office.
Portrait photo of Deborah Orr.
Portrait photo of Deborah Orr.
Portrait photo of Deborah Orr.
Portrait photo of Deborah Orr.
columnist editor journalist writer
Deborah Jane Orr was born on September 23, 1962, in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, United Kingdom to the family of John Orr, a factory worker, and Winifred "Win" Avis.
Deborah Orr studied at Garrion Academy, Wishaw (now the Clyde Valley High School). She graduated from the University of Saint Andrews with a degree in English in 1983.
Orr's route into journalism came through City Limits, a co-operatively run listings magazine in London, where she became deputy editor (1988-1990), and as film critic for the New Statesman. From there she was invited to join the Guardian as an arts subeditor by Alan Rusbridger, who was then its features editor. She moved to Weekend magazine and in 1993 succeeded Roger Alton as editor. There she made her name wooing writers including Gordon Burn and Andrew O’Hagan.
From 1993 to 1998 she proved to be a gifted editor of the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, setting a serious tone and a high bar by eschewing trivia in favor of carefully chosen big reads, often on challenging subjects. Orr’s Weekend was ambitious, providing essential grit in the Guardian oyster. In 1995 she oversaw a redesign that brought a National Colour Supplement of the Year award, and in 1996 scored a newspaper first by giving away an individually numbered print of an original work by Damien Hirst to every reader.
However, Orr made her most public mark as a columnist, one of the small tribes of trenchant writers with the panache to walk the high wire of tackling social, political and personal issues in an engaging manner, week after week, in her case for the next two decades.
Orr had a loyal following as a columnist at the Independent (1999-2009), then back at the Guardian until its reshaping as a tabloid in 2018, and finally at the i newspaper.
Orr’s memoir, Motherwell, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in January 2020, is a tribute to her hometown and exploration of her tangled relationship with her mother, who railed against her daughter leaving behind the family’s domestic orbit to move to university and then London. A recent Bookseller review, published the week before her death, was laden with superlatives, described it as “outstanding” and “utterly riveting, blackly comic, and astonishingly honest”. Though she was gravely ill, Orr had been delighted to see the piece.
Orr praised the benefits of inner-city life over the suburbs, despite her neighbour being stabbed to death. She was early on to the fact that minor crime was not being checked by policing, resulting in a permissive atmosphere and the increase in knife crime. Brexit was “like deciding you are going to cure cancer by giving up membership of your golf club”, she opined.
On 19 October 2011, an article by Orr stated that the trade for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners "tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe - that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbours." This statement, viewed by many as anti-Semitic, was the subject of criticism. Orr apologised for words which she described as "badly chosen and poorly used". Her apology, too, was the subject of criticism.
Quotations: "Homeless people are stuck in the streets once again. The services of food banks have never been more in demand. People with mental and physical illnesses or disabilities are dying for want of care, or even heat. The National Health Service has been plunged into a financial and staffing crisis, yet still has to soothe the dented ego of Richard Branson by making a payout to Virgin Care. The teaching profession is struggling once more with a rejigged exam system, and is bracing itself for a further squeeze on budgets. Our prison service is a series of riots waiting to happen."
Orr had an intensity that less assured people and even editors found intimidating: some were fearful of taking her calls. With long hair, a taste for thigh-high brown boots, leather miniskirts, Goth-style apparel or long swishy skirts, she had a Dorothy Parker manner, sardonically witty and somewhat haughty. But she certainly had a soft side, and never sought the media profile bestowed on her husband by television and radio. She created a beautiful garden and developed a sympathetic ear to the troubles of others.
In 2017, in a Guardian column, she revealed her diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, rooted in a working-class childhood in her birthplace of Motherwell, near Glasgow. The condition left her uncertain of dates, barely able to remember events of the past decade. Her bravado was a camouflage for insecurity.
Physical Characteristics: Orr had first been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. She learned of its return in August - an experience that she relayed to friends with defiant detail and pitch-black humour. Following a diagnosis of late-stage four cancer this summer, a decade after she was treated for breast cancer, she tweeted about her condition, from severe pain to insomnia in the small hours to her advice about what not to say to cancer patients, especially: “Is there anything I can do?”
Quotes from others about the person
"I’d heard about Deborah long before I met her – there are some wild stories about her fierce invective and withering put-downs. But she was enormously encouraging to this younger, less experienced Scottish editor. She’s surely one of the funniest, clever journalists I’ve met; a total force and a great dancer, as I remember." - Penny Martin, editor of The Gentlewoman magazine
"She was completely inspiring and never knowingly not difficult, but beyond the ferocity, she had a huge heart." - Andrew O’Hagan, novelist, Orr's friend
"She said what she thought, and it could be quite bracing, but it was always something she actually did think. She was outspoken, but the things she was speaking about were very original." - Andrew O’Hagan, novelist, Orr's friend
"[Orr was] a brilliant, clever, funny writer and editor whose uncompromising and insightful approach to her work brought powerful journalism to the Guardian over many years." - Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian
"[Orr was] exceptional and generous, incapable of being boring or predictable. Her combination of perceptiveness and rationality was an ornament to public life, something we couldn’t afford to lose, and yet she’s gone. At least there is her book." - Catherine Bennett, the Observer columnist, Orr's friend
Orr married Will Self in 1997: Orr became stepmother to Self’s children, Alexis and Madeleine, and they went on to have two sons. For a time the couple were glamorous fringe bohemians of the Groucho Club set and put on lavish parties. Orr held an annual Christmas “no men allowed” party for female friends at their house in Stockwell, south London. This building became a news story in itself after a large chunk of masonry fell from its facade to the ground. When her divorce was finalized in 2018 Orr bought a house in Brighton.