Russell Harty

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Frederic Russell Harty (5 September 1934 – 8 June 1988) was an English television presenter with a distinctly camp turn of phrase; his name has been used as Cockney rhyming slang for party.

Born in Blackburn, he attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School on West Park Road and Exeter College, Oxford. He worked as an English teacher at Giggleswick School, where he taught the TV presenter Richard Whiteley.

He got his first break in 1970 presenting the arts programme Aquarius that was intended to be London Weekend Television's response to the BBC's Omnibus. In 1973 he was given his own series Russell Harty Plus on ITV which placed him against the BBC's Parkinson, conducting lengthy celebrity interviews. The show lasted until 1981.

In 1983, Harty moved to the BBC with an early evening celebrity chatshow, which gained some notoriety when he was smacked in the face by Grace Jones on live TV. He had offended Jones by turning away from her to address another guest. This show was cancelled in 1985.

Harty began working on a new series Russell Harty's Grand Tour for the BBC in 1987; one of the few interviews completed before his death was with Salvador Dalí. His partner from 1982 to 1988 was the novelist Jamie O'Neill. He died of AIDS related Hepatitis B in 1988 in London.

Russell Harty was a good friend of the playwright Alan Bennett, who talks about him and his family, in relation with Bennett's own family, in the episode "Written on the Body", taken from his semi-biography "Untold Stories".