Esther Rantzen

At 84 years old, Esther Rantzen has this physical status:

Dame Esther Louise Rantzen (born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, who presented the BBC television series That's Life! for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994.

She works with various charitable causes, and founded the charities ChildLine, promoting child protection, which she set up in 1986, and The Silver Line, designed to combat loneliness in older people's lives, which she set up in November 2012.

Early life and family

Rantzen was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, to Katherine Flora Rantzen (née Leverson, 1911–2005) and Henry Barnato Rantzen (1902–1992). Her family is Jewish. She has one younger sister, Priscilla N. Taylor. She attended Buckley Country Day School in New York, leaving in 1950. She was educated at North London Collegiate School, an all-girls independent school in Edgware, North London. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford, where one of her tutors was Mary Lascelles. At Oxford she performed with the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), became Secretary of the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) and joined the Oxford Theatre Group, performing in Oxford and Edinburgh.

Rantzen was the subject of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on 3 September 2008. Her paternal line was traced back, as far as the 1760s, to an established Jewish neighbourhood in Warsaw. Tracing Rantzen's forebears was greatly helped by the rarity of the surname "Rantzen" (even in Warsaw) and the survival of records in Warsaw. In the late 1850s, her great-great-grandfather emigrated to Britain and settled, as a cap-maker, in Spitalfields, a slum district of London's East End. Rantzen's great-grandfather moved to a more comfortable neighbourhood with the help of his brother-in-law, Barney Barnato (born Barnett Isaacs), who had become extremely wealthy as a diamond merchant in South Africa. Her father's middle name was Barnato.

On her wealthy maternal side, Rantzen's great-grandfather, Montague Leverson, was one of the founders of the West London Synagogue. Montague Leverson was the maternal grandfather of British composer Gerald Finzi. Rantzen is also related to Ada Leverson, a British writer and friend of Oscar Wilde, who was portrayed by Zoë Wanamaker in the 1997 film Wilde. She is first cousin once removed of the novelist and translator Michael Meyer.

Personal life

In 1966, at the age of 26, Rantzen had an affair with the Scottish politician Nicholas Fairbairn (1933–1995) . She wrote:

In 1968, Rantzen started an affair with Desmond Wilcox, who was the head of her department and married to Rantzen's friend Patsy who also worked at the BBC. After several years they decided to live together, and informed BBC management of their relationship. Management's solution was to move the entire production team of That's Life! out of Wilcox's department. The new arrangement meant that Rantzen and Patsy were now working in the same department, embarrassing Rantzen and causing further pain to Patsy. Patsy Wilcox had always refused to divorce her husband, but agreed when Rantzen became pregnant. After Rantzen and Wilcox married in December 1977, BBC management moved her back into the General Features department run by him.

By that time, That's Life! was achieving huge audiences ratings, and reaching the number one position, gaining more viewers than Coronation Street. This created tension among colleagues in General Features, who ascribed the success of the programme to Wilcox's relationship with Rantzen. They complained to management, quoting the BBC's regulation that husbands and wives should not work in the same department.

As a result, Desmond Wilcox resigned, and set up his own independent production company, making award-winning documentaries such as The Visit, which included a series of programmes about The Boy David. For these, as well as previous films, he received many international awards, including the Grierson Life-Time Achievement Award in 2001. Wilcox and Rantzen had three children – Miriam (formerly known as Emily, b. 1978), Rebecca (b. 1980), and Joshua (b. 1981).

In 2001, Patsy's daughter Cassandra Wilcox gave an interview in response to comments Rantzen had made about Patsy in her autobiography, alleging amongst other things that Rantzen had long harboured animosity towards Patsy.

Source

Career

Rantzen was recruited by BBC Radio as a trainee studio manager after training in secrecy. She began her television career as a clerk in the programme design department before landing her first research role on BBC1's late-night comedy programme BBC-3 (1965–66). She joined Man Alive in the mid-1960s after working as a consultant on a number of current affairs shows.

Rantzen, who was a researcher for Braden's Week at the time, became a host because the programme's producer wanted to bring the researchers onscreen. Braden returned to Canada in 1972 to host a similar TV show; the following year, the BBC replaced Braden's Week with That's Life. With Rantzen as the main host, the main host will be the main host.

That's Life!

From 1973 to 1994, BBC1 was one of Britain's most popular programs, with audiences of more than 18 million. During that time, it evolved the traditional consumer service from simply exposing defective washing machines and dodgy salesmen to investigating life-and-death topics, including Ben Hardwick, a two-year-old death of liver disease whose only hope was a transplant, and the investigation of a boarding school, the headmaster of which was a paedophile who recruited multiple paedophile teachers.

That's Life! To bring some of these extremely important topics and topics to light, there are some of these very important topics and topics. It also had some amusing misprints submitted by viewers; it also had comic books that often related to each show's theme, as well as comedians like Lynsey De Paul, Victoria Wood, Richard Stilgoe, and Jake Thackray.

Rantzen created The Big Time, which launched Sheena Easton's singing career in 1976.

That's Life!

ChildLine was instrumental in a variety of ways, not least in the introduction of the videolink for child witnesses in court hearings, and it was also responsible for the introduction of ChildLine in 1986, the first national helpline for children in danger or distress. After the death of a toddler who had starving to death while in a bedroom, Rantzen suggested the Childwatch service to BBC1 Controller Michael Grade. The programme was designed to find better ways of identifying children at risk of abuse; to that end, viewers of That's Life! Anyone who had suffered cruelty as children were invited to participate in a poll detailing their abuse.

Rantzen suggested that after the launch of That's Life!, the BBC should launch a children's helpline in case any young viewers of ongoing violence want to call in to request assistance. The helpline was open for 48 hours, during which it was overwhelmed with calls, mainly from children who had sexual assaulted others that they had never been able to tell to anyone else. Rantzen got the idea for a 24-hour helpline for children in crisis or danger, the first of its kind in the country. The Childwatch team consulted child care professionals, who agreed that children would use such a service, but that it would be impossible to produce. Despite this, the team was able to obtain funds from the Department of Health and the Variety Club of Great Britain, both of whom donated £25,000. Ian Skipper OBE, a well-known philanthropist who had already aided Rantzen in the establishment of a special fund in memory of Ben Hardwick, has agreed to fund the assistance line's running expenses for the first year. Rantzen and the staff returned to BT to request premises for the charity and for a simple freephone number, both of which were given.

The Childwatch program premiered on October 30, 1986 and, based on the survey's findings, ChildLine unveiled ChildLine with a specially written jingle (by B.). A. Robertson) was a telephone number 0800 1111. Fifty thousand attempted calls were made to the helpline on the first night of October 1986. ChildLine now has twelve bases around the United Kingdom, including two in Northern Ireland, two in Scotland, and two in Wales. In 2006, the NSPCC joined ChildLine, allowing it to grow in an attempt to satisfy demand. The helpline has now been replicated in 150 countries around the world.

Rantzen founded The Silver Line, a charity aimed at senior citizens in the United States, in 2013; they were able to provide details and assistance in battling loneliness and loneliness, as well as a free confidential helpline. In addition, The Silver Line also provides a phone befriending service, in which educated volunteers who work remotely receive regular calls from older people. Silver Letters and conference calls are also available, as well as discussion groups called Silver Circles.

Rantzen created Hearts of Gold, a television series honoring people who had performed unsung acts of kindness or courage in 1988. Its theme tune was written by Lynsey De Paul, a close friend of hers, and it was released as a single.

After That's Life!

Esther, her own talk show, completed its 21-year tenure in 1994, and she appeared on BBC Two from 1994 to 2002.

Rantzen appeared on BBC Two shows Would Like to Meet and Excuse My French, and was chosen to host a new consumer affairs show with Lynn Faulds Wood, The Old Dogs New Tricks. She produced Winton's Children, an ITV documentary about Sir Nicholas Winton, who (as first announced on That's Life) — who was unveiled on That's Life) aspired to be on ITV. He had saved a generation of Czech children from the Holocaust and was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. For BBC Two, she produced a landmark program on palliative care following Rantzen's husband's death, film-maker Desmond Wilcox's death. Emily has also campaigned on behalf of hospice care and better treatment for the elderly and terminally ill, as her eldest daughter Emily has suffered from the disease for the longest time. For the BBC's Children in Need segment, she created the 'Children of Courage' segment.

Rantzen was a producer of That's Media, a local television station. She was named an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, in 2016.

She also works for children, elderly people, and disabled people in lieu of her television work as a patron or vice president of 55 charities. ChildLine is a volunteer counsellor on the helpline, a fund-raiser and advocate for children, and later on, she's been assisting in the establishment of a new helpline for homeless and homeless older people. ChildLine has 12 centres around the United Kingdom, 1,500 volunteer consultants, and answers around a million calls and on-line calls from children each year. Rantzen chaired ChildLine's Board of Trustees for twenty years, and since ChildLine joined the NSPCC in 2006, she has served as both a Trustee and President of ChildLine. In 2013, she became the Vice President of Revitalize, a charity that supports people with disabilities and their caregivers, as well as short breaks and holidays. Rantzen is also a patron of Erosh, a national charity that promotes high-quality sheltered and retirement housing and has a national charity that helps its members who support older residents.

In the children's newspaper First News, Rantzen also contributes to the problem page "Ask Esther."

She appeared on the ITV show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2008, and she was the fifth celebrity to leave the camp. Since 2003, she has been the spokesperson for the Accident Advice Helpline.

In 2016, she appeared in the first episode of Celebrity First Dates.

Esther Rantzen's House Trap, a 4-part series based on BBC's long-running Watchdog series, starred hidden cameras to apprehend rogue traders in the homes of a number of undercover actors in 2018. These actors were all people of an advanced age, with each episode focusing on a different field, such as locksmiths, where elders were likely to be preyed upon.

Rantzen declared on May 26, 2009, on Stephen Rhodes' BBC Three Counties Breakfast Show, that if the incumbent Labour MP stood for Luton South again. This remark was made against the backdrop of the Parliamentary expenditure scandal, and Moran's expense claims for £23,000 to eliminate dry rot in her second home in Southampton. Moran said she did not run in the next general election two days later, but Rantzen said she was still considering standing herself and announced her candidacy on July 28th, 2009. Rantzen ran in Luton South against eleven other candidates, four of whom were unidentified. Rantzen came fourth with 4.4 percent of the vote in May 2010, behind the three main parties. Rantzen's deposit was returned to her by the UK parliament governing process, as only candidates receiving more than 5% of the total votes cast have their deposit returned. Gavin Shuker, a Labour Party candidate, secured the seat with 34 percent of the vote, while the Conservatives gained 29.4% and the Liberal Democrats 26.7 percent.

Rantzen was one of 200 public figures to write a letter to The Guardian in August 2014, expressing their apprehension that Scotland would vote against independence from the United Kingdom in the referendum on the subject.

The woman allegedly assaulted by then late BBC broadcaster Jimmy Savile was featured in Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, which premiered on October 3, 2012. Rantzen, Rantzen, Rantzen, has understood the women allegedly assaulted by the programme's content.

"I think and wish the cops had been called in," she said on Channel 4 News. But all they had was gossip – and gossip isn't evidence."

Shy Keenan, an abuse activist who appeared in The Sun newspaper, later claimed that she had informed Rantzen 18 years earlier of reports that she had heard about Savile. Rantzen has denied specific charges and has said she had no recall of a conversation with Keenan.

Katy Branding, a writer for The Daily Telegraph, also chastised Rantzen for failing to respond to rumors she had heard about Savile. At Keenan's request, Pete Saunders, chief executive of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood, requested that all references to Rantzen be deleted from the charity's website, but she later defended Rantzen, saying she would continue as a patron.

Source