Nicholas Parsons
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Christopher Nicholas Parsons OBE, normally known as Nicholas Parsons, (born October 10, 1923) is a British actor, radio and television presenter.
[edit] Early life and broadcasting career
Parsons was born on 10 October 1923, in Grantham, Lincolnshire, where his father was a GP whose patients included the family of Margaret Hilda Roberts (later Thatcher). Although Parsons' father is sometimes credited with having delivered the future Prime Minister in 1925, Nicholas Parsons himself says that he simply doesn't know if this is true.
After attending St Paul's School, Parsons moved north to Glasgow in his late teens where he was briefly employed in the shipyards of Clydeside before studying engineering at the University of Glasgow.
He made his film début in 1947, but first became well known to TV audiences during the 1950s as the straight man to comedian Arthur Haynes and a regular on The Benny Hill Show from 1969-1974. After Haynes' sudden death, Parsons went on to appear as a personality in his own right, his fame culminating in the long-running game show, Sale of the Century.
Parsons has been the host of the BBC Radio 4 panel game, Just a Minute, since its first broadcast on December 22, 1967. He was also the non-singing voice of Tex Tucker in the TV series Four Feather Falls.
In 1988 he appeared as himself in The Comic Strip Presents ' episode "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door", in which he had the extreme misfortune to encounter two incompetent escort agency directors (Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in their usual cheerfully-violent, dypsomaniac personas) followed by the psychotic and misnamed Mr. Jolly himself (played by Peter Cook). In 1989 he made a guest appearance in the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who as the doomed Northumberland vicar Reverend Wainwright in the Seventh Doctor serial The Curse of Fenric.
In April 2005 he was the weekly guest presenter on the BBC news quiz Have I Got News For You, having been turned down some time previously. According to Guy Adams, writing in The Independent's "Pandora" column, Have I Got News For You team captain Paul Merton, also a regular panellist on Parsons's show Just a Minute, had commented shortly before the decision, "I have two contenders for the job, who represent the best possible choices. One would be Nicholas Parsons. The other would be Bagpuss."
[edit] Roles outside broadcasting
Between 1989 and 1992 Parsons served as Rector of the University of St. Andrews. In the New Year's Honours List of 2004, he was appointed as an OBE by the Queen. In 2005 he became honorary Chairman of the International Quizzing Association (IQA), a body which organises the World and European Quizzing Championships. He is a leading member of the Grand Order of Water Rats charity. Parsons is also a high-profile supporter of the Liberal Democrats. Each year he holds his own live chat show in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival promoting up and coming comedians.
