Anne Robinson Biography

In a nutshell

She's most famous for her 'dominatrix' persona on The Weakest Link, but the 'Queen of Mean' was a distinguished broadcaster and presenter long before she fronted the game show that made her a global celebrity.
Long before TV fame, she started her career as a journalist, working on a series of national newspapers. She met her first husband a deputy news editor while working at the Daily Mail. The two had a daughter together but the marriage disintegrated following her battle with alcoholism, something she documented in her 2001 autobiography 'Memoirs of an Unfit Mother'. She gave up drinking on 1978.
She also made history during her Fleet Street career for being the first woman to regularly edit a national newspaper (The Daily Mirror) in the early 80s before being removed after she reported on Princess Diana's alleged anorexia. She's subsequently gone to maintain a tidy living as a columnist for the likes of The Sun and The Times.
A TV career beckoned and she polished her vitriolic style on consumer affairs programme Watchdog, championing the rights of the public over nefarious scheming companies and perfecting her 'wink' at the end of each show. Her big break came with The Weakest link where contestants came on to flaunt their general knowledge and receive ritual humiliation from the Queen of Mean, dressed in her traditional black. This role invited some controversy over the years, most famously when she made Blue Peter legend John Noakes cry after baiting him about his beloved TV dog Shep.
On a celebrity version of the show she also asked wine connoisseur Olly Smith to grope her chest after he described her as a 'full-bodied, expensive red'. Still, such controversies haven't dented the show's appeal. The Weakest Link franchise has enjoyed a global success, earning her an estimated ?30 million fortune and a place on the Sunday Times Rich List 2006.
She also caused a stir when she appeared on Room 101, dumping the Welsh into the show's infamous death pit (she also discarded Ben Elton on the same show, something that interestingly didn't cause as much of an uproar) citing that she 'didn't really know what they were for'. Afterwards she apologised for the comments and agreed to do promotional work for the Welsh tourist board.
The remarkably youthful 64 year old (who famously admitted to a ?9,000 facelift in 2004) was announced last year as the new face of the revamped Watchdog, 16 years after she originally left the show. Anne Robinson - Biography from (http://www.talktalk.co.uk/celebrity/biography/person/anne-robinson/261)

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Saturday, September 24, 2011