Anne Robinson

Profession: TV Presenter and Journalist
Place/Date of Birth: Crosby, Liverpool, 26 September 2020

Anne Robinson in marriage break-up - Oct 1 2007
Television presenter Anne Robinson is to divorce from her husband John Penrose after 27 years of marriage, her spokesman has said.

The couple are splitting on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and a decree nisi is expected next month.

A spokesman for the pair said: "There is no-one else involved.

"There is no acrimony and Anne and John have reached on amicable settlement on all financial issues."

Robinson has achieved fame around the world for her icy put downs on BBC quiz The Weakest Link.

She said: "We have been an enormously important part of each other’s lives for a very long time and our friendship will carry on forever."

Anne Robinson’s dominatrix Teddy Bear - 19/12/02
Anne Robinson was persuaded by a teddy bear collector to design a dominatrix bear after she appeared on The Weakest Link.

Jo Rothery, editor of The Teddy Bear Times, made it to the final three on the quiz show’s collector edition, which was in aid of charity and is due to be shown on BBC1 at Christmas.

Ms Rothery took along a teddy bear mascot called Felicity, one of the 1,000 she has collected since 1987.

After the show, Ms Robinson dressed Annie the Dominatrix Bear, a classic Steiff teddy with her trademark glasses and PVC dress.

It is one of 11 bears accessorised by celebrities to be auctioned off in aid of CHASE, a children’s hospice service in Guildford, Surrey

Anne Robinson upsets the Welsh again - 28/11/02
Anne Robinson has upset Welsh people again by saying only insane people would take a holiday in a north Wales resort. Eight months after asking "What are the Welsh for?" on Room 101 she has ridiculed the town of Pwllheli, on the Lleyn peninsula.

Robinson asked Weakest Link contestant Andrew Evans what he did for a living. When Mr Evans told her he sold holiday homes in the Welsh resort, Robinson replied: "No-one in their right mind would go holidaying in Pwllheli".

On her way to the USA, and bragging that she would take American television by storm, Anne Robinson, the cruel, po-faced, Kensington-based presenter of the ground-breaking TV game show, the Weakest Link, was still waving a red rag at the Welsh this week as she flew out of Heathrow.

Robinson, 57, voted the rudest woman on TV and rated, alongside Hannibal Lecter, as the person other people would least like to have dinner with, sent a storm through the valleys when she tried to consign Wales to oblivion on the BBC2 show Room 101. Robinson was being humorous, she insisted later. But many in Wales failed to get the joke. Viewers complained to the BBC.

Letters accusing her of "racism" poured into London-based newspapers. One recommended that the "witch" be forced to stand in the national stadium, in front of 73,000 Welsh rugby fans, while another, vaguely threatening, said "everyone would love five minutes alone with Anne Robinson".

Biography

The rather staid presenter of ‘Points of View’, has gone through a bit of rejuvenation in the past years with both her looks and career revived on the back of The Weakest Link.

Robinson began her career in 1967 as the first female trainee on the Daily Mail where she secured her employment by scooping the story of Brian Epstein’s death. Following her marriage to the deputy news editor, Charlie Wilson, Robinson was dismissed and she joined The Sunday Times.

In 1970 she and Wilson had a daughter, but just three years later both parties filed for divorce. The dissolution of the marriage was due, in part, to Robinson’s increasing alcoholism and in 1978 she retreated home to Crosby Beach to recover from her illness. She remarried in 1980 to journalist John Penrose.

After two years of respite, and a stint on the Liverpool Echo, she returned to Fleet Street and began working for media tycoon Robert Maxwell, on the Daily Mirror. It was here that she nurtured the acidic manner that she is famous for today, writing a column under the pseudonym of ‘Wednesday Witch’. Her scoop on the then unconfirmed eating disorder of the Princess of Wales was revolutionary for it’s time, but also signalled her removal from the red top.

Her foray into the world of small screen began in 1982 with appearances on Question time, whilst her primetime, family show, telly slot came with Points of View, which she presented for a staggering 11 years. This experience paved the way to bigger and better complaints of the consumer kind in 1993 with Watchdog.

However, it is the Weakest Link that has proved to be her biggest seller. Her appearance as presenter went down a storm with the general public, sparking a strange mixture of outrage and admiration, whilst her catch line of ‘You are the weakest link… Goodbye!’ became a household catchphrase. Her derisive comments weren’t confined to her own show either; in 2001 she caused a national up-roar after sending Welsh people into Room 101.

Robinson has published her autobiography, ‘Memories of an Unfit Mother’ and in 2006 she was named as one of the UK’s richest media personalities, worth an estimated £60 million.

October 2007

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