Everything about Richard Whiteley totally explained
John Richard Whiteley,
OBE DL (
28 December 1943 —
26 June 2005) was an
English television presenter, and
journalist.
He was most famous for his 23-year stint as presenter of
Countdown, a letters and numbers arrangement
game show broadcast daily on
Channel 4. An edition of
Countdown was the launch programme for Channel 4 at 4:45 pm on
2 November 1982, and Whiteley was the first person to be seen on the channel, discounting a programme montage. Despite being a highly intelligent man, he enjoyed projecting an image of an absent-minded eccentric. His trademarks were his jolly, avuncular manner; his fondness for excruciatingly bad
puns; and bold wardrobe, particularly
jackets and
ties.
He was born in
Bradford and spent his childhood in
Baildon. His family owned a long-established textile mill, Thomas Whiteley and Co of Eccleshill, which went out of business in the 1960s. At 13, he won a scholarship to
Giggleswick School, a fee-paying establishment on the edge of the
Yorkshire Dales, where his English teacher was
Russell Harty, the late chat-show host. He later became a governor of the school. Leaving school with seven O-levels and three A-levels, in
1962 he went to study English at
Christ's College,
Cambridge, where he gained a third class degree, coincidentally the same class of degree as his
Countdown co-star
Carol Vorderman attained at the same university.
Upon leaving Cambridge University in July
1965, Whiteley served three years as a trainee at ITN but left to join the newly-created
Yorkshire Television in July 1968.
Thanks to over twenty years worth of nightly instalments of
Countdown as well as his work on the Yorkshire magazine programme
Calendar and various other television projects, at the time of his death Whiteley was believed to have clocked-up more hours on British television screens - and more than 10,000 appearances - than anyone else alive, apart from
Carole Hersee, the young girl who appeared on the
BBC's iconic
Test Card F.
Whiteley was famously bitten by a
ferret on an edition of
Calendar in
1977. The animal remained clamped to his finger for half a minute before its indifferent owner finally prised it free. The clip is often repeated on programmes showing television out-takes. In an example of his famous self-deprecating humour, Whiteley once joked that when he died, the headlines would read, "Ferret man dies". He said, "It's made a lot of people laugh and it's been shown all over the world. It's 30-odd years since it happened and I think I've been a great PR man for the ferret industry. Ferrets have a lot to be grateful for, to me, you see they've become acceptable because one of them bit me."
Countdown
In
1982,
Yorkshire Television started making
Calendar Countdown, copying a popular
French quiz show format,
Des chiffres et des lettres. Whiteley was chosen as host, and continued with the show when Sir
Jeremy Isaacs brought it to
Channel 4 as the first programme broadcast by the new station. After a successful first broadcast, with an audience of over 3.5 million viewers, the programme lost 3 million viewers for its second show.
However, it gradually rebuilt its audience over the following weeks, and it was as the host of
Countdown that Whiteley became known to a wider audience in the United Kingdom outside Yorkshire. He was
nicknamed "Twice Nightly Whiteley", in reference to the time when he'd present the
Calendar news programme and
Countdown in the same evening, from
1982 to
1995. In a self-deprecating joke, he often altered this to "Once Yearly, Nearly".
As the presenter of
Countdown, Whiteley developed a reputation for wearing garish suits and ties, and it was common for Carol Vorderman to comment on this. Whiteley also told many anecdotes and puns, which were often met by groans from other presenters and members of the audience. He was granted the honorary title of "
Mayor of
Wetwang" in 1998, and was known for his amusement at the village's name.
Countdown wasn't intended to be a long-lasting format, but it quickly became a flagship programme for
Channel 4. At the time of Whiteley's death, it still regularly attracted up to four million viewers.
The Queen and
The Queen Mother are both said to have been fans. He had a
cameo appearance role as himself, presenting
Countdown, in the film
About a Boy. From series 54, broadcast in 2006, the series champion has received the "Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy".
Whiteley also had his own chat show on ITV between 1995 and 1997.
Whiteley made more than 10,000 television appearances over the course of his career. He became a
Deputy Lieutenant of
West Yorkshire in 2003, and was appointed
OBE in the
June 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to
broadcasting. On
15th June 2003, Whiteley appeared on the
BBC show,
Top Gear. He set the slowest time in the
Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car segment.
Death
In May 2005, Whiteley was taken into hospital with septicaemia. He made a slow recovery from the illness, however doctors discovered problems with his heart and carried out an emergency operation for
endocarditis, an infection of the heart valves on
24 June. This operation wasn't successful, and on
26 June 2005 Richard Whiteley died at Leeds General Infirmary.
He had suffered with
asthma since he was very young, and was
diabetic. The edition of
Countdown due to be broadcast on
27 June was postponed as a mark of respect. Carol Vorderman gave an emotional tribute to him on
28 June when
Countdown returned the following day. Having recorded a number of shows in advance of going into hospital, his final show was broadcast on
1 July 2005 which was the grand final of the 53rd season. Two standalone episodes featuring former contestants, and recorded in
2003 to be broadcast whenever Channel 4's
cricket coverage finishes early, also remain in the vaults to be screened at a later date.
Memorial
On
10 November 2005 (five months after his death), thousands of friends and admirers gathered at
York Minster for a
memorial service to celebrate Whiteley's life. Guests included Carol Vorderman who paid tribute to him, saying,
"If he were here he'd have welcomed you one-by-one, greeting every one of you by the hand and would have wanted a photograph taken."
He was described by
Countdown regular
Gyles Brandreth as
"...a love god ...but he was the most innocent love god you could imagine. He was like a ray of sunshine, and like sunshine we all warmed to him."
In 2007 Channel 4 announced its creation of the Richard Whiteley Memorial Bursary, a nine-month work experience placement at Yorkshire Television, working with True North Productions.
Vision Aid Overseas
Three pairs of Richard's spectacles were donated by
Kathryn Apanowicz, his long-term partner, to optical charity Vision Aid Overseas (VAO), who sent them with a team of optical professionals to Ethiopia. VAO is a charity dedicated to helping people in the developing world whose lives are blighted by poor eyesight, particularly where spectacles can help. After setting up an eyecare clinic, the VAO team found three Ethiopians whose eyes fitted Richard's prescription. The BBC followed this story on their
Inside Out programme which was broadcast on 19 September 2007.
Further Information
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