Noel Botham
Noel Botham (January 23, 1940 - November 23, 2012) was a British tabloid journalist and prolific author.
He is best known for writing provocative books on the love-life of Princess Margaret and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, as well a series of books of obscure facts with the theme of 'Useless Information'.[1][2] Also noted as a raconteur and publican, for many years he ran one of Soho's great landmark pubs, The French House.
Career
Botham was educated at Dulwich College and apprenticed on the Croydon Advertiser, then became at 21 the foreign editor for the Daily Sketch. He then proceeded to work for a large number of tabloids, including the News of the World.
In 1997, at the funeral of television presenter Hughie Green, Botham revealed that Green was the biological father of entertainer Paula Yates. Selling that information to the press may have earned him £100,000.[1] In 2008, Botham was portrayed by Danny Webb in the BBC Four drama Hughie Green, Most Sincerely.
After his death, The Telegraph (UK) referred to Botham as 'one of the hard-drinking reporters who made British newspapers the liveliest in the world'.[1] The Guardian called him "the epitome of a Fleet Street scandal-monger and happy to be regarded as such".[2]
Books
In addition to his many published biographies and books of trivia, Botham wrote Catch That Tiger (2012), about Major Douglas Lidderdale’s capture of an Afrika Korps Tiger Tank in 1943.[3] The book became 'something of a bestseller'.[1]
Botham's book on Princess Diana was filmed as a 2007 Lifetime Television movie, The Murder of Princess Diana.