Miner's son who left school with only two O-lévels & became a national treasure

THERE have been many talk show kings and queens since Sir Michael Parkinson welcomed his first guest 52 years ago last month but none ever came close to dethroning the greatest

- MATT ROPER

Before Parky, TV audiences had never seen his style of intimate, comfy chats with stars of stage and screen.

Sir Michael himself described the job of an interviewer as "to bring out the best in his guests, and not to treat them like a receptive audience for the display of his own wit and opinions".

By that standard he excelled, making Saturday night TV almost unthinkable without him in a career spanning five decades, in which he regularly attracted audiences of 12million, and once 17 million.

At the helm of more than 600 shows, the Yorkshireman interviewed more than 2000 stars including John Wayne, Muhammad Ali, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Fred Astaire.

He was part of many memorable TV moments, including in 1976 when Rod Hull's Emu attacked him.

His 2003 interview with a frosty Meg Ryan went down in history as one of the most awkward chat show moments ever. She sat stony-faced, giving one-word answers after taking offence to his questioning.

Meanwhile, Sir Michael always regretted the fact he never got to interview Frank Sinatra, describing him as "the one that got away".

An only child, Michael Parkinson was born on March 28, 1935 on a council estate at Cudworth, near Barnsley in Yorkshire.

His cricket-mad dad at first wanted to call him Melbourne "because we had just won a Test match there".

When he was 12, his dad took him down the local pit to put him off ever becoming a miner like him and his grandfather. Parky recalled: "He took me down to where the men worked.

"Down the real mine, into the shafts and tunnels, not the sanitised version of what they wanted us to see. I was very frightened.

And at first he looked set on making his father proud, ignoring his studies at Barnsley Grammar School to follow his dream of batting for Yorkshire. He even had trials with Dickie Bird and Geoffrey Boycott.