Parky delves deep again to discover the key to greatness: Parkinson: Masterclass is
on ABC1, Sunday at 10pm.
He’s 78 and has been at this game for the better part of 60 years, and Sir Michael
Parkinson says what held true for a young, green Yorkshire newspaperman all those
decades ago still holds him in good stead today.
”Parky” may since have commanded stages more impressive, and conversed with
subjects of often staggering fame and accomplishment, but the rules of engagement
have never changed. He still sees himself as a journalist, asking questions and telling
a story.
”My entire life, that’s what’s guided me … everything you do is about that,” Parkinson
says in an interview from London.
”You learn how to interview when you first become a journalist, that’s what you have
to do. And I don’t know how people who have come from elsewhere other than
journalism manage in a sense, because interviewing is the basis of all journalism. If
you’ve learnt that at an early age, or absorbed that from an early age, it strikes me
that you have a better chance of succeeding than if you haven’t.
”I always say that the first time I think I really understood what might be needed,
apart from asking a question, is how you establish a relationship. Very early in my
career, I went to a murder scene in a village in Yorkshire where nobody wanted to
speak to you, they were hostile. And I thought then that it’s as much about
establishing a contact as anything else. You begin to learn about that, about how to
get people to trust you. It’s one of the most important lessons you can learn.”
Famously, the young Parkinson learned it young, then honed it, and eventually
turned his talents as inquisitor, conversationalist and listener into a storied career.
The description ”talk show host” scarcely does him justice – particularly considering
that six years after his 36-year run in that genre ended, he is returning to our screens
again – still asking questions, though in a somewhat different format.
Masterclass – commissioned by Sky in Britain, but airing on the ABC in Australia – is
a show Parkinson says had long been in the back of his mind. There are six episodes
with only one guest a show. The concept: ”To take somebody who’s very, very good at
what they do and explore as much how they become what they are, as [to explore]
where they came from. You go through all of them, they’re all people with fascinating
stories and, more than that, who stand at the top of their tree in terms of
achievement.”
It’s an eclectic line-up: War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, jazz musician Jamie
Cullum, British portrait artist Jonathan Yeo, war photographer Don McCullin,
Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang and Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta.
For Parkinson, such encounters with masters of their craft are nothing new. In his
decades as the clipboard-wielding, ear-tugging maestro of his talk show, conversing
with legends became his stock-in-trade: from Muhammad Ali to Shane Warne, from
Lauren Bacall to Madonna.
”The great thing about the job was being able to meet my heroes, and not being let
down by too many of them, either,” he says.
”I mean, to be able to meet someone like Orson Welles is a privilege.
”And Gloria Swanson, a great star of the silent era – not quite aware of the modern
world, she was a wonderful 80-year-old innocent. And Miss Bacall. To have lusted
after her as a spotty child … it was wonderful of course, dreams come true.
”But you try to do the same job with all of them, no matter what you feel about them.
And then there are people you don’t like. You think, ‘Christ, I don’t like you too
much,’ but you do the same job. It’s something that you chose to do and you’re very
lucky to have been allowed to do it.”
Regrets? The giants who eluded him: Frank Sinatra – ”He would have been the one” –
and Katharine Hepburn.
”They were the two, about the only two – but that’s not bad.”
Parkinson says that with a chuckle, still in good humour and, he says, good health,
only two years shy of his ninth decade. He has no plans to retire and says it’s a
popular misconception that he’s been twiddling his thumbs since his talk show ended
in 2007.
”I’ve had a very productive six years since I finished the talk show, working all the
time – radio, television and writing,” he says.
And besides, he jokes, those regular jaunts to Australia to visit family, friends and the
nation’s major cricket grounds don’t pay for themselves.
”I just need to earn as much money as I can to get to Australia to watch the cricket –
that’s my ambition, my drive, that’s what keeps me alive.”
Neil McMahon – SMH – April 11, 2013