Cliff Michelmore: BBC radio and TV broadcaster dies aged 96
BBC radio and TV broadcaster Cliff Michelmore has died in hospital aged 96, it has been reported.
Cliff Michelmore dies aged 96
Cliff anchored coverage of events including the Apollo moon landings and two general elections during his career spanning 60 years.
He was best known for fronting the BBC's groundbreaking current affairs programme Tonight, which included the first television appearance of David Bowie, aged 17, in 1954.
Born on the Isle of Wight in 1919, he served in the RAF during the second world war before beginning his career in broadcasting.
His son Guy told the BBC his father died at Petersfield Hospital on Hampshire after being admitted last week.
Cliff anchored coverage of events including the Apollo moon landings
BBC director general Tony Hall said Cliff was an outstanding broadcaster
Antony Jay, who was a trainee when Tonight was first broadcast in 1957, wrote in the Guardian in 2009 that Cliff was the first Tv celebrity who came across as "one of us".
He added: "He rapidly became a national figure, but he was much more than a television celebrity.
"There was no pretence, no feeling of “performance” about him, in spite of the consummate professional and technical skill he brought to the programme.
"He was just Cliff, take him or leave him. And of course the audience took him, in their millions.
He was best known for fronting the BBC's Tonight
His son Guy told the BBC his father died at Petersfield Hospital after being admitted last week
Paying tribute, BBC director general Tony Hall said he was an "outstanding broadcaster".
He said: "It's impossible to overestimate just how important a national figure he was at a time when there were just two channels.
"I still remember as a boy watching Cliff Michelmore presenting Tonight live five times a week in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
"He was natural, warm, engaging - he was utterly himself and showed he was one of us. His personal approach recast the role of the TV presenter at the BBC and he was loved by audiences for it."