News > Culture > RIP Richard Whiteley

news
MONDAY JUNE 27 2005 1:24 AM

RIP Richard Whiteley

Submitted by SomeOneUK

Edited by SomeOneUK

Countdown presenter Richard Whiteley died yesterday after a short period of illness. Whiteley had presented the Channel 4 show on UK TV for the last 23 years, the gameshow was the first program to be aired on Channel 4 when it launched in 1982.

Whiteley, from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, fell ill with pneumonia last month, but had been said to be recovering slowly.

The agent for Whiteley's Countdown co-host, Carol Vorderman, said she was "absolutely devastated" by his death.

Before the gameshow Whiteley was a well respected news reporter, covering several key events:

As anchorman on the channel's Calendar programme, he was subjected to an on-screen attack by a ferret, and was broadcast in negative - with white hair and a black face.

But he was also an incisive political reporter who had interviewed every prime minister since Harold Macmillan.

He was the first journalist to interview then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, after the Brighton bombing in 1984.

Summing up what people liked about Richard Whiteley, and how he will be remembered, Austin Mitchell MP said:

"If he fluffed and fumbled that was natural. If he told awful jokes people liked that. He did the programme so well on a friendly, human basis"