Being Mavis Nicholson: TV's Greatest Interviewer

Eamonn, I can't go on waiting like this for you.

I can't go on waiting for you like this.

SHE CHUCKLES

It's lovely that you're coming. Thank you very much for coming.

Now, where are you?

OK, well, then you'll have to go out, yeah...

When you go back on to the main road...

In 1971, when there were only three television channels,

a new face appeared on our screens.

She was a woman in a man's world. Her craft was the interview.

Is this smoke bothering you? No, it's not at all. Good.

We've got to make you through that mysterious aura

that you've talked about.

It would be quite an interesting thing to watch

Parky, Wogan, Frost and Mave at work.

I know who'd come out best.

Because there was a Nixon/Frost moment in every one of

Mave's interviews.

The next 45 minutes could be pretty outrageous,

not to say unpredictable.

Do you remember the little bridge you went over a minute ago? Yeah.

To be perfectly honest, I think I had a bit of a crush on her.

She had this kind of terrific allure.

A working class Welsh girl in fashionable London, she would

go on to delve into the lives of the biggest celebrities of the time.

THE most famous film star in the world, Elizabeth Taylor. Correct.

Elvis Costello. Miss Mirren. Rose Kennedy was born...

She had a brilliant brain.

A very thorough, clever, clever person

and fun too.

Lovely laugh.

Was it difficult to kiss somebody on the screen if you didn't like them?

Oh, it's hell. Absolute hell.

In an age when daytime television was in its infancy,

her long-form interviews brought gravitas and insight.

Mavis was consistently interesting, consistently probing,

consistently cheering, joyous almost in her approach to her task,

but formidably fierce if she felt she ought to be.

So would you dislike the word "scrounger" as much as I do,

cos I find it offensive?

But, at the height of her career, television changed.

Today, her in-depth approach has been cast aside and replaced by

comic chat shows, lightweight lifestyle programmes

and ratings-chasing reality television.

It's all, "What you got in your attic? A bit of junk."

"Let's go rooting round somebody's house we're going to flog."

"Let's bake a cake."

No, you're going the wrong way now. That's going into the village.

As online broadcasting opens up an endless array of channels,

a whole new audience is discovering the merits of her unique approach

to the interview.

Thank you very, very much indeed for talking to me. It's a pleasure.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Good.

She's just so colourful, you know.

You're never going to have a drab day with Mave around.

Yeah, I love her. I love just the Mave-ness of her.

The fact that she's called Mavis!

Eamonn blinkin' Holmes!

Shamai, fy ffrind!

What do you think of me here then? What do you think of here?

I'm just amazed you're still alive(!)

Eamonn Holmes is making good on a promise

he made almost 30 years ago to visit Mavis at home.

It's brilliant to see you. And you. It's brilliant to see you. And you.

This is nice. Right, good. Come in.

This is like fairytale cottage.

I always associate you with being sick,

because when you were on in the afternoon,

that meant I wasn't at school,

so therefore I had to either be sick or pretend I was sick.

Can I say thank you all for being here today? And I want to say

thank you, Ireland, for making me feel very at home here.

They worked together on Open Air in 1986.

Eamonn, a fledgling presenter, and Mavis, a seasoned professional.

Come to Wales as well.

You, to me, are this goddess of television.

You're absolutely so brilliant, so amazing, but television had changed.

You had got that in-depth interview where it mattered,

where questions were important,

where people cared about the quality of what you were talking about.

That's all different now.

They would give you things like, "Mavis, you've got six minutes for

this interview," which is an eternity, and you'd say,

"Six minutes?! Six minutes to do this?!"

Anyway, 26 minutes later, you were still talking.

That's not true. Eamonn! All right, 16 minutes later.

But nowadays if you disobey that,

nowadays the PR companies rule the interview shows.

They decide who you interview, what you're going to ask them.

It's totally different.

Who is there on television, genuinely,

that you would switch on and you would say,

"I am going to learn something or get a masterclass?"

It's just frivolous.

Everything's about a joke and a gag and we don't talk to anybody

seriously for any length of time.

When you look back, and people should look back,

to see what an interview is about and watching you and what you do,

and you would pick difficult interviews.

You wouldn't get those interviews nowadays.

I mean, David Bowie. Interview David Bowie?

Sophia Loren? Elizabeth Taylor?

In 1986, an interview with one of the most formidable stars of

the age made for a remarkable moment in broadcasting.

Good afternoon.

Our programme today comes from The Dorchester Hotel in London.

My guest was born 56 years ago this month

and lived just about seven miles away up the road from here

and, since then, has become THE most famous film star in the world,

Elizabeth Taylor. Correct. It is about that, isn't it?

The most famous film star in the world. I don't know.

I haven't really worked very much in films

for the last seven or eight years.

But I guess I'm famous for something.

It's 30 years since those memorable interviews.

Mavis is now a sprightly 85-year-old

who enjoys a full and varied life.

She lives in a cottage in rural mid-Wales.

It's a far cry from her humble beginnings.

My early life in Briton Ferry in South Wales was very working class.

Ours was an overcrowded house. Small house. Street house.

5 Mansell Street, Briton Ferry, Near Neath, Glamorgan, South Wales,

you know, when you put in your exercise book.

And I had my mother, my father and me first in one bedroom, when

I was born, and my grandmother and grandfather in two separate

bedrooms because he was a drinker and she'd left his bed.

And then, when my brother and sister were born out of the blue -

my poor mother, twins - it got really crowded.

As a little girl, I had my mother telling me that one day I'd

be famous, which, I thought, "How does she know?"

But I thought, "Well, my mother knows everything

"so she's going to be right," so I thought, "Fine, good."

She said, "What do you think you'll be?"

"I don't know," I said. "Could be a teacher."

She said, "Well, you could be anything."

I said, "What kind of thing?" She said, "Film star?"

So it went on and on.

We both had our fantasies about what was going to happen to me

when I grew up.

So there's no doubt about it that my mother really gave

me my confidence, I think.

It was just, you know, to be treasured, no doubt about it.

Despite war-time poverty, Mavis excelled at school

and went on to study English at Swansea University,

where she was taught by the celebrated author Kingsley Amis.

It was here that she found the love of her life, Geoff Nicholson.

It was love at first sight.

We met on New Year's Eve when the clock was striking 12

and kissed.

It was one of my best friend's boyfriends.

So I said, "Not again, we're not doing this again,"

and he said, "No, no, no," but when he got back he rang me and said,

"I am telling Norma it's over,"

and Norma said she was glad it was over

cos she was getting a bit bored with Geoff,

so I said, "Bored with Geoff?"

And I was getting interested in Geoff.

But there we are.

That one kiss led to marriage and a lifetime together.

Geoff Nicholson was the nicest, the funniest, the driest,

the cleverest of men

and he was Mavis' anchor and safety

and mentor, for certain.

And she was safe as long as Geoff was there.

Geoff would go on to be an award-winning sports

journalist and author.

Despite having won the prestigious Holton Advertising scholarship,

Mavis turned her back on her copywriting career

to start a family.

One day I went to the doctor with a bad stomach and he said,

"No, you haven't got a bad stomach, you've got a baby.

"You're having a baby."

And, so there we are, one, two, three boys,

and lovely, I loved the years of being a mother cos I gave up

advertising, which I was very pleased to do, quite frankly.

It didn't quite suit me.

I could play at it and it was fine, but I didn't want to make it

a career and good job I didn't really, cos another career came

unexpectedly after the boys were all at school and well on their feet.

Harry, the youngest, was about seven when I got into television.

Mavis was sort of discovered as a local activist on a school's issue

and the then Today programme run by Eamonn Andrews had her on

and she was very vocal indeed.

She wasn't slow in coming forward, Mave,

and isn't slow in coming forward and she was spotted by the then

programme controller, Jeremy Isaacs, who said, "She's really got

"something," and I think he then plucked her from obscurity.

Not that Mavis was ever obscure.

I was presented with the task of finding at least one programme

that would occupy a chunk of this afternoon airtime,

and I'm proud of having said, "I want a programme that is

"produced entirely by women and presented entirely by women."

They ran a poll and came back to me and said,

"Do you want to know how many people said we want to have an

"all-women programme?"

I said, "Yes, tell."

"Nobody!"

So, of course, I said, "We'll do it."

Launched in 1971, Good Afternoon had a different presenter each day.

Tuesday belonged to Mavis, and her long-form interviews soon

became the main attraction.

Good afternoon. Rose Kennedy was born in 1890 of Irish descent.

You could say her public life began at the age of five when her

father was made first Catholic mayor of Boston.

I think people had accepted that the people who were on television

were mostly, 90%, men and it hadn't occurred to people really perhaps

that there weren't the women, so it must have been quite an eye-opener

for many of the viewers to sit and watch four women

giving their points of view.

I suppose we looked at things in a different sort of way to the way...

As in life now,

men have their views about things and women most certainly do

and we were able to release those feelings and ask the questions

we wanted to about every subject under the sun virtually.

We would cover all sorts of subjects, not just, you know,

what used to be considered "daytime".

Not just cookery, although we had Mary Berry on our programme

and I'm very delighted to see how she's got on well since then.

But we could cover everything we wanted.

Since we had a wide-ranging lot of interests amongst us, so we had a

good time, and so it was a good time for women as far as I'm concerned.

In those days, in the sort of late '70s,

daytime television was reasonably new and the sorts of things

we covered on Afternoon Plus were very new.

We could do long interviews with politicians.

Well, first, let me say welcome to you, Mrs Thatcher,

from all four of us, and good afternoon.

As the audience grew, so did the calibre of the interviewee.

Each presenter brought something different to the table and

Mavis certainly had her own style.

She wasn't afraid to let her views sometimes be quite clear,

as when we all lined up to interview Mrs Thatcher,

which was very funny.

I remember talking to Jo Grimond on this programme and he said

he wished that he could see emerging,

but couldn't see it so far, emerging from women,

when they took over, yes, he wanted equal rights, yes,

he wanted equal opportunities for women, but what he HOPED was

that they were going to come to the job in a different way from men.

He said not much evidence yet, that women got tough like men,

they got party political like men and they were bureaucratic

like men and what a shame, when they could bring something different.

Do you know Kipling's poem -

"The female of the species is more deadly than the male?" Right.

And the time when she's tough and the time when she's most deadly is

the most female of characteristics in defence of her children.

Mavis was being very polite to Mrs Thatcher as, inevitably,

we would all want to be.

But you knew, underlying, there were the questions that she was really

wanting to ask because she wasn't on that same side of the fence.

So, she moved into things gently

but she always got the answers.

"Scrounger".

Even the comedians are taking it up at the minute

and they always attack the weak and this is happening at the minute.

No, I think you've got to keep two things quite clear.

There are some people who prefer not to work

when perhaps they could work.

So would you dislike the word "scrounger" as much as I do,

because I find it offensive?

I did interview Mrs Thatcher and I must say I sulked on air.

I pouted on air, you know.

I just really...

I'm afraid I was definitely influenced by my emotions

and I couldn't do anything about it.

I think by the end of the programme I was

so low in the chair you couldn't see my face.

I kind of just sunk down as far as I could.

SHE CHUCKLES

But, I did feel violently about it, yeah.

She's a very bright girl, and you had to be

in a man's world in television.

You had to be able to use everything that was in your armament

and Mave wasn't afraid to,

whether it was her background growing up not a rich girl but

a clever grammar school girl,

or the fact that she's supped with kings and devils.

She's on the front foot with her brain is Mave, yeah.

Daytime TV was attracting a following beyond its target

audience of housewives.

The intelligent, thoughtful approach was popular with millions,

from shift-workers to students.

# Nice girls not one with a defect

# Cellophane shrink-wrapped So correct

# Red dogs under illegal legs. #

I think the first time I encountered Mavis was within the first

couple of months because the suit I'm wearing I remember buying

in Clayton Square in Liverpool for ?7 and I wore it till it was rotted.

He was a treat to interview,

cos he was shy and yet he was lucid, very.

And he did this extraordinary thing of playing Watching The Detectives,

which was due to be the record coming out the next day.

It was supposed to be launched the next day,

but he'd brought his guitar along with him, so he said

he would like to give it as a little present to me and the programme.

# She is watching the detectives

# Ooh, he's so cute. #

Now, Elvis Costello, it's a terrific publicity to have got your

name known and it's not even your real name, is it?

It is now. It is now.

You think of yourself as Elvis Costello? Yeah.

But part of it is right? Costello, presumably is, isn't it? Mm-hm.

So did you think of Elvis yourself or did somebody say to you,

"I think you should be called Elvis?"

It's kind of a joint effort.

I tell you what I think, I'd think that I'd be worried that if

somebody gave me a new name I might change.

I don't think I've changed. No more than I would anyway.

It won't make any difference to you?

I don't think it's going to be a special influence.

What I encountered was a very...um..

a person who really knew how to talk to you whatever your background.

There were quite a few times when we were on TV and radio in those

early days when people could be quite patronising and Mavis

wasn't in any way like that and I think I liked her right away.

To be perfectly honest, I think I had a bit of a crush on her.

She had this kind of terrific allure

and I felt at ease and I was a young man.

I don't know what age she was but everybody that was older

than 25 was sort of like Mrs Robinson to me.

This is the first television interview we've ever done?

That's right, yeah.

First you've ever been asked, you told me, which is why you came on.

Now then, can I tell you one thing?

I try to resist publicity,

partly cos in my job I really need to in a funny sort of way.

So I only kind of half took you in from your posters and what I

thought your poster was was Woody Allen in a new film about

a rock star, begging your pardon, if I should be.

Her directness, I didn't really have any guile about being interviewed.

I just responded to it because I think it's

a talent that somebody like that has to actually

go direct at somebody, even somebody who's quite guarded.

And, equally, I'd seen her interview people who were very

practiced in their way of speaking and she, without tricking them,

gets in there and they end up being more revealing.

There's something deceptively motherly about Mave cos,

actually, she's a bit of a geezer, as we all know.

But she's deceptively motherly and I think non-threatening.

I don't know a woman I've ever talked to, or indeed

a man, who hasn't thought she was the best at her job.

She was never bored with her subjects and that's important

because a lot of them are, even the good ones, because if

you've interviewed Betty Bacall about Bogey then it does

become a bit of a trial to interview one of the Krankies afterwards.

It's just not the same.

Mavis quickly built a reputation as the alternative interviewer

to such established male stars as

Michael Parkinson, Russell Harty and Terry Wogan.

Once I was in that studio there was only one person alive in the world

and that was the guest.

And I wanted to be concentrating on what they were saying,

cos something they say would lead you to another question,

which you hadn't thought of perhaps beforehand.

But I would always carefully read researchers' notes,

always have meetings with people and listen to all points of view

and I'd read the people's books or go and see the play or go to

see the film and all that sort of thing.

The homework was always done jointly, shared,

and then I said I had to be left alone because if I was going

to find out anything new, it would come from the spontaneity of

the studio and the conversation we would be having together.

When a conversation is good, you're so engrossed.

It's like a blanket going round you both and you're both sitting

there comfortably engrossed in each other really.

They don't need to be quite so engrossed in me

cos they're not asking me questions.

I know that they often said at the end,

"I really enjoyed that, thank you,"

so I went on that as the basis of how I worked.

The behind-the-scenes preparation

helped Mavis hone her interview skills

but it was her relaxed style and sense of humour

both on and off camera that earned the trust of her guests.

Mavis would like the odd drink after a show, as we all would,

and this was the days when television was done properly.

You had lunches with your future interviewees beforehand,

the day before or the week before, to find out more about them.

You did your groundwork properly, you can prepare things properly,

and then afterwards you would celebrate often with them,

they'd stay behind, and it was very good fun indeed.

The green room atmosphere was intensely relaxed, I'd say,

after the work.

Well, it was good.

Very nice time we had.

And sometimes, you know, I'd see somebody trying to get Mavis'

telephone number or her trying to get theirs.

There were quite a lot of notes being passed.

That was all very friendly and nice.

The fun of the green room often spilled over on to the studio floor.

My friend Gwyneth Ward said,

"I'll murder you if you interview Stewart Granger,"

cos she was so nuts on him.

Well, one day, a long time later, I interviewed Stewart Granger, right.

I thought, "I've got to ring Gwyneth Ward,"

so I got her number and I rang Gwyneth and I said, "This is..."

"I know who it is," she said,

"I listen to you every damn week, don't I? I'm a slave to you."

And she said, "What have you got to tell me?"

"Well, I've got to tell you something that

"you're going to hate me for,

"but I'm going to get his book and he'll sign it to Gwyneth."

"Who?" she said.

"Now don't tell me, DON'T tell me it is..."

"What?" I said.

"..Stewart Granger."

I said, "Yes."

"Bloody hell!" she said.

We saw you as a very handsome man, right,

but the studio were forever criticising your looks,

from your book. What we're going to do...

Is Gwyneth as pretty as you?

Gwyneth Ward? Well, I haven't seen Gwyneth for about 35 years.

You have real nice eyes, you know that, don't you?

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Well, we will not talk about me, Stewart Granger.

We're here to talk about you. No, well, go on.

When it was with Stewart Granger,

really there was nothing to be done but to sit back and enjoy,

and see Mavis getting off with Stewart Granger,

which was a total pleasure.

When I interviewed women,

I think women did think they could say what they really felt,

because they would have the freedom to, for one thing,

and there would be no flirting and I think that there was

a certain kind of flirting that went on with men interviewers with women,

treating them as those sweet, little things.

The actress Helen Mirren is opening at the Riverside Theatre on May 15th

as Isabella in Measure For Measure,

and it's not at all surprising that she's in another Shakespeare play,

as she's been quoted as saying,

"Modern plays are destructive to the human spirit."

When I interviewed, say, for instance, Helen Mirren,

I found it very easy to talk to her,

not particularly all the time about

acting or what's happened to her then, but I just wanted to

know what she was like as a little girl and that sort of thing.

She did have an explanation as to why she didn't want to have a baby

cos she'd seen this terrible film and she couldn't bear it,

just couldn't bear.

It was about birth and it was obviously too advanced

for this young thing.

She really got upset by it

to the point where she said she would never have a baby.

All the boys and girls of 14 and 15 were all herded into this hall

and we were shown this midwives' educational film

on a baby being born and we had this very sweet, I think probably

spinster lady, gynaecologist, who stood up and said,

"This is about to be the most wonderful experience of your life.

"I've seen this 2,000 times and I've never failed to realise

"what a wonderful miracle it is."

Then the lights went down and this film started.

SHE IMITATES FILM REEL WHIRRING

I'll never forget that noise

and there was just this picture of this baby being born.

I mean, just like that, and it was the most...

I mean, within five seconds they had to stop the film

because two boys had fainted and had to be carried out.

I just put my hand on my head like this after about ten seconds

and just couldn't look any more.

Just stayed like this and just heard this sound going on.

And, about five minutes later, the lights came up, and there was

these absolutely shocked, white, terrified children,

adolescents, not children, adolescents, like this,

who all went out and the boys, you know...

It would be interesting to meet someone who was there

and if they actually had as bad an experience as I did.

I'm sure they did.

I think with Helen Mirren and myself, we just got on so well,

and so it was just like talking to my best friend or something.

And, with your best friend you would talk about babies and why you

had them or why you weren't going to have them and I think there is

a different tone of voice altogether.

And, at the end of the interview with her,

I remember the studio clapped and they thought it was just wonderful.

I think she mentioned to me that she thought it was because,

as two women, we got on so well.

Now maybe there might have been a man who could have got on as well,

I don't know, but they never went in that direction

with their interviews, I don't think.

If we were handcuffed like this for a day, like, say, tomorrow,

tell me what we'd do. Oh, we'd have a terrific, sexy time.

Yes, and then what would we do after that?

Oh, we'd probably go to a movie.

I'd sit in a box, you could sit in the stalls.

Dangle you over the edge.

Mavis was always very good with gay men.

I mean, she never saw them as gay, as such,

and she and Kenny got on very well.

There was a zaniness about them both, you know.

There is a sort of innocence about Mave, and Mave

I'm sure won't mind me saying so. There's an innocence about her,

so Kenny could tease her and get away with it.

Mavis loved that.

She could also get Kenny to be serious.

A very hard thing to do with Kenny Everett in those days,

but she got him to be serious and thoughtful

and took him on to different territory.

Again, that's her skill really, so you see people in a different light.

If I were handcuffed to you when you were, say, 13...

What, at school? Hmm. Oh, you'd have got hit a lot.

By? By bullies. I was a stick insect.

They used to follow me around - "Let's hit Ken. He'll snap easy."

LAUGHTER

You seem to have a thing about being a weedy person. Why?

You've got a nice, trim figure.

Good face, kiddo. No, in those days it was all Charles Atlas, wasn't it?

It was all, "You too can kick sand in people's faces."

If you were thin, you got hit a lot at school. But did you really?

Did you really get bullied at school... Yes.

..because you must have got the gift of the gab then?

I was the slim, artistic type.

She asked very direct questions.

She asked direct questions about sexuality, about parents,

about divorce.

Oh, yes, she was unafraid. She was unafraid.

And I think where do you hear that sort of interview now?

Where do you get that?

And since sex and money and rock and roll are what governs us all,

it's surprising how little good conversation there is in the media

these days about those things, proper stuff, not scurrilous stuff.

Not, sort of, Sun headlines,

but proper, careful investigations into relationships.

She was very good about that.

Mavis became known for talking on a deeper level with her guests.

The result of a connection that was often created

way before the cameras rolled.

I had to meet Kirk Douglas before the actual studio,

so I went along to pick him up in the taxi and bring him back.

So he said, "I know what kind of interview you want me to do.

"Just the films I've been in."

"No, no," I said, "I don't do interviews just like that.

"I'd quite like to come across a conversation that you'd like to have

"rather than you expect to have."

So he said to me, "Have you read any..."

"Yes, I've read two of your books.

"I've read the autobiography and I've read the novel."

And he said, "What did you think?"

and I said, "I think you told a fair number of lies in your

"autobiography and quite a lot of truths in your novel."

He said, "Good lord, who are you?"

and I said, "I'm only the interviewer. What do you mean?"

I said, "I'm a novelist, I've written a book,"

and he said, "It's amazing. How do you know that?

"Has somebody told you?"

I said, "No, I've picked up clues.

"The enthusiasm you had about the father in the novel who was cruel

"to his son in particular, and his mother, struck home to me."

I thought he must have had an awful father who did this to him.

And in the autobiography, he's a background figure

left out of all proceedings.

And he said, "It's a relief I can actually talk about it now.

"My mother has died and she didn't want anybody to know that my

"father beat her up, like you know it's happened like that

"because it's in my novel, and beat me up.

"I was really, really scared of the violence of my father."

But he couldn't get over it that a mere interviewer...

A lot of people thought that interviewers were just people

who asked silly, ordinary questions in order just to get

the half-hour filled, do you know what I mean?

There's quite a kind of disrespect for interviewers from guests.

They think, "Oh, it's an easy ride.

"I've just got to tell them the same old thing."

And then I think it's a bit of a relief when they can suddenly

talk about something they've not talked about before

and some of them used to thank me for having confessed something,

as they put it, on air.

She always managed in almost all her interviews to get somebody to

say something they'd never said before in public.

And, notably, she did that with Jimmy Savile,

and, um, she asked him about his...

..fondness for little girls.

She was then in a total panic that she was going to be sacked

or sued or something.

Nothing happened at all,

but I think that was the first time anyone had asked Savile about

that, and only Mavis could kind of get away with it, which she did.

She was really intuitive about people like Jimmy Savile.

Mave knew and Mave put him on the back foot and made him

furious by questioning him about...

him and little girls.

Ooh, and that face turned!

After I'd been made up I went into the waiting room

where guests arrived and he was there already

and he got up from his chair and he came up,

"Madam, madam, you look divine."

I had a long-sleeved blouse on, rather slack-sleeved blouse,

and he pushed it up and tried to kiss me under my arm without

any kind of introduction and I thought, "My goodness."

I couldn't believe it.

I said, "Don't you dare do that!"

and pushed his arm away and then caught his other hand

and pretended I was going to try and kiss his hand.

And he went, "Don't touch me!"

and REALLY recoiled.

And I said, "Well, don't touch me."

And he said, "Well, we're in for a very nice interview(!)"

I said, "Yes, I'm sure we are," and off we went into the studio

and, live, it went out and I decided I'm not going to hold back

about the notes I'd had from one of the researchers saying

he was taking young girls into his caravan regularly and all

sorts of other things.

Hospital misbehaviour after lights were out and all that sort of thing,

and, um...

..I let rip.

He was talking about God and how God loved him and how his mother

loved God and how he loved his mother.

The Duchess, I think he called her.

And I said, "What does God think of you taking young girls

"into your caravan?"

And he said, "God has told us to all love our brothers and our sisters.

"What more can you ask of anyone but that we love each other?"

So I kind of eased off after that

because there was no way I was going to get anywhere

without a downright row, I suppose.

And I expected some reaction but I got none. Nobody said anything.

Nobody...

My producer said, "Well, you've got away with it."

I said, "At least we've not been hypocrites and ignored it."

Mavis' confrontation with Savile was not kept but she became known

for her uncompromising style and her willingness to tackle

the difficult issues of the day.

OK, let's roll in 15 seconds, please. Good luck, everybody.

Good afternoon. My guest today has said...

Mavis insists that her programmes are for people of both sexes,

but doesn't she think there's also a place in television for

programmes especially for women?

No, I mean, I think that it's corny nowadays to do that.

I think there was a time when possibly we had to say to people,

"You've got to listen to me cos I'm real. I'm not just this dolly.

"I'm something real," and you had to flesh it out perhaps.

Perhaps that's why liberated papers like The Guardian had women's pages,

but, in a way, I think they should drop it.

I think it should now be,

we are people and we can be talked to as people.

No special voice for us.

By the 1980s, the prime-time slots were still being dominated by men,

even thought Mavis was considered by many to be the best in the business.

In 1984, Mavis was given her own show on the new fourth channel.

She was a household name, regularly attracting millions of viewers

as the great and the good vied for a slot on her show.

She knew what she was doing.

She knew how she wanted to do it.

She loved doing it and, therefore, over and over again she succeeded

and only grew as the years went on

in the affections of television viewers.

It's hard to say how big a name Mavis was at her peak.

When I was in my sharper moods, I'd say, "You're just a Welsh witch,"

but actually she is a beguiling and brilliant woman

and she's a one-off.

Sigmund Freud said that he wasn't so much interested in the man

doing a handstand in front of him as what fell out of his pockets,

and Mavis was interested in what fell out of people's pockets.

She wasn't interested in men or women showing off for her,

telling us about what a great actor they were,

or a great painter or a great singer, but, incidentally,

what cropped up while they were talking about those sorts of

things, she picked up on those things and, boom, went for them.

After more than a decade honing her craft in the interviewer's chair

came one of the highlights of her career.

Elizabeth Taylor was on the interview circuit promoting

her new book, but in a special programme from the Dorchester Hotel,

she revealed far more to Mavis than to any other interviewer.

She was wheeled in in a wheelchair cos her back was really, really bad

and then she sort of got out of it and got into the chair

and I said, "Oh, you poor, old thing. That's horrible, isn't it?"

She said, "It is painful."

But she didn't QUITE catch my eye.

And I thought, "Oh, Lord, don't say..."

I had about 20 minutes before it would begin and I've got to

have contact with the person before it starts, you know,

cos you're just being very polite and boring, I think,

at the beginning if you haven't had the chance to warm them up

into some kind of friendship with you of a small sort.

So she had a mirror and the make-up girl had given her the mirror

and she was just fussing.

Then she looked up at me and said, "Have I got lipstick on my teeth?"

So I looked and I said, "No. Oh, go like that."

And she went...

"Fine," I said and then she went straight down again,

so I said, "Oh, have I got lipstick on my teeth?"

And she said, "Sorry," and looked and said, "No."

"You're trying to tell me, I'm not..."

I said, "We've got so little time, it's just that I wanted to have a

"bit of a contact with you, but the main contact I want to make with you

"is that if I said Pontrhydyfen to you, how do you say that word?"

And she said, "Pontrhydyfen" just like a Welsh woman.

Well, I know Pontrhydyfen the best.

Of course mainly because of Richard's family.

Yes, it's where my sister lived too.

And I love the way it's, sort of, nestled in the mountains.

And I said, "Brilliant pronunciation of it. That's wonderful."

And she said, "I adored it there. Why did you say that?

"Was it just cos you knew I knew it?"

"No, my sister lives there and she knows Richard's sisters.

"They often drink in the same pub."

And she said, "Well, did she ever see me in that pub?"

"No," I said, "funnily enough she didn't,

"but you were there, we know"

And so she said,

"There's only one thing I'm very wary about being interviewed

"and that is that I've been to the Elizabeth Ford Clinic,

"you know that?" "Yeah."

"I don't really want to go into that.

I said, "That's your business, if you say so.

"I would have probably asked you about it."

"Well, you can ask me about it up to a point.

"Why do you think I went?"

I said, "I assumed you were in trouble in some sort of a way."

And she said, "Ah...what would you think?"

I said, "I think it's your business.

"If you wanted me to talk about it and you said so,

"I think I know how to question you."

I have always been able to consume enormous amounts of booze

and never get drunk.

It would be when I go home and take my sleeping pills on top

of the booze that I'd walk into walls,

and that's when my children would have to pick me up off the floor

and put me into bed.

And when I'd hear things like that, I was appalled

and riddled with such awful guilt that I'd done that to my children.

I was devastated.

When you then went into Betty Ford, that was voluntary, obviously. Mm.

Then, were you able to...? Was it a group therapy that you did? Yes.

It must have been very odd for people to do group therapy with you

because you're so famous. It can't be everybody famous there, can they?

I was the first celebrity ever to have done it, except Betty Ford,

of course, who did it at the Naval Center in Long Beach.

But I was the first celebrity to ever go to the Betty Ford Center

and they told me they didn't quite know how to deal with me.

My peers had to pretend that it was just sort of Jane Schmo and

they were very awkward at first and I didn't quite know what to do,

cos I just wanted to disappear

and be unobtrusive and kind of get mixed up in the woodwork.

But, within a day or two days,

I realised we were all in the same boat.

We were there for one reason - to save our lives.

I'd like to wish you a very happy new life

as the new Elizabeth Taylor.

Thank you. I'm having a great time. Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you very much for talking to me cos I've really enjoyed it.

Thank you very much indeed for talking to me. It's a pleasure.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

By the late 1980s, Mavis was at the top of her game,

but television was evolving rapidly.

There was a change of management at Channel 4,

with a taste for the distasteful.

Programmes like The Word, The Big Breakfast and Eurotrash

would soon shock the viewers.

The boss at 4 decided Mavis didn't fit this brash new brand.

Despite a public outcry, and after 16 successful years,

Mavis' interviews disappeared from our screens.

Why did they want to shift a woman out,

who seemed to have got on with the viewers so well?

And it was a man, Michael Grade, who actually axed it.

Perhaps I'd quite like to meet him eye-to-eye even now and say,

"Why did you axe it?"

He'd tell me once again that I'd already said that I was

willing to go.

But I was only willing to go because I didn't want to be sacked,

if you see what I mean.

I think I carry a lot of emotion about that.

"More fool they," I thought.

Following the cut, Mavis went on to present various programmes for

ITV and the BBC, but would never truly regain her interviewer crown.

Apart from politics, our other national obsession has been

well and truly represented this week with three live soccer matches.

The habit is very hard to break

and whatever happened when she was suddenly no longer on our screens

is pretty much what happens to every regular programme and will happen

to Loose Women and is about to happen to Top Gear.

Suddenly it's not there.

It's one of the things we've come to rely on.

It's gone and it's too late for us to do anything about it really,

and that is the harsh reality,

but I also think it was the end of the in-depth interview.

In time, Parky went and Wogan went and certainly the times of

Face To Face, John Freeman, that had long gone.

Now, I think, with the coming of a kind of crazy, camp chat show

being the only way to do it, where you go on and you play games

and you have to make someone fall out of

a chair and you engage the audience and it's more about the interviewer

than it is about the interviewee.

It's valid but it's never going to be what Mave gave us, which was,

by the time the interviewee left the studio you knew more about them

than their mother did.

After the children had flown the nest and with her TV career waning,

Mavis and Geoff moved home to Wales to concentrate on their writing.

They had a desk each in the barn where they would spend hours

working side by side.

In 1999 came the devastating news that Geoff was dying of cancer.

Mavis cared for him at home during the last months of his life.

He was a very, very supportive person about my career.

I mean, really, I don't know what I'd have done without him really.

I don't know how either of us would have survived without each other

and when he died it was really, really difficult, of course it was,

and I've lived longer than I expected to live.

But he didn't.

He lived shorter than we expected him to live, so it's been

quite difficult getting over that, in one way,

but I have, sort of.

The thing I suppose that I had to get used to was just not to

have this one supporting person in my life that would have

supported me whatever and...

..and, of course, you miss all the love, don't you?

You miss all the loving, for goodness' sake,

and I know some people think that goes when you get older.

It doesn't go completely, that's for sure.

But, er, I think sometimes I've just held on to the memory quite well.

I think you've got to really do that yourself in some way,

you know, like, deliberately...

..remember them.

There's something about love that works,

which survives when the person dies.

If you think about your mother dying or your father dying,

my brother and my sister dying, all of them are very vivid to me.

I still love them like mad and it doesn't sort of weaken

as time goes on.

I think it's just brilliant, myself.

In the years before Geoff's illness,

Mavis wrote a memoire of her early life in Briton Ferry.

It was a story which led to renewed media attention.

In 1992, I read a book, I read this book, Martha Jane Me,

and these were the days when I was a nice person and I used to

write to the authors and say, "Thank you for a lovely read."

This was such a lovely read and it opened up a can of worms for me

from my own childhood.

What was funny about that letter of yours, I didn't know it was you.

It was P O'Grady... That's right, yeah.

..and I used to go round the country saying the first letter I've got

since I've written this book was from a chap called P O'Grady

and it's such a lovely, lovely letter,

cos you said you laughed,

you cried and that it had wiped away the cobwebs of your own childhood...

It had. ..and brought the sunshine in. Oh, I meant it.

But, ten years later, I'm doing an interview in a hotel room,

in comes Mavis and here we are, ten years down the line again...

And then I said to you, "This chap, P O'Gra..."

And then it dawned on me, do you remember?

I said, "Paul O'Grady, it was you!"

Am I in the right place?

You ARE in the right place... Mavis, how are you?

..with the right person. Oh, it's good to see you. Come here.

Give us a hug. Oh, it's good to see you. Long time, no see.

These greats of the interview chair have remained friends ever since.

Paul continues to attract massive audiences,

but has constantly had to reinvent himself on screen.

I'll admit I'm pretty jaded with it at the moment, with telly.

What, watching it?

Watching it. Or being in it or what?

I'm out of it from age. You see, you shouldn't be. Why?

I'll tell you why.

Because you were a brilliant interviewer because you

wouldn't attack them but you loved debate.

You're a typical... And don't take this the wrong way.

..fiery Welsh woman.

Cos telly now, I remember when I was in hospital and putting

daytime telly on and thinking, "I'm so glad I'm not in prison.

"I'll never offend because if this is what I've got to sit and watch

"every day I'll go out of my mind!"

It's all, "What you got in your attic?" "A bit of junk."

"Let's go rooting round somebody's house we're going to flog."

"Let's bake a cake." Would you ever go back and do the chat show?

I'd quite like to have one more go.

Yeah, I think you should. Mmm.

You were always the voice of sanity, seriously. No, really, you were.

If I had a problem and you were my auntie, I'd go,

"I'm going up to see Mavis."

Well, any time. You have that quality.

Any time, Paul.

THEY LAUGH

It's lovely seeing you, though, Mavis,

and seeing you so well an all and still as vibrant as ever.

Still got the spark and still one I wouldn't cross(!)

THEY LAUGH

As in Mavis' day, Soho is the media hub of London.

The streets bustle with bright, young hipsters

hurrying to be the next big thing.

It's a no-go zone for most 85-year-olds.

You know when you're a kid and you have an aunt who's kind of not old,

so that she still wears foxy clothes and says things like,

"Don't hassle me?" In my generation. Well, that's Mave.

I've never felt an age gap. She's 14 years older than me.

I've never felt an age gap and she's funky as all get out,

and you feel you could talk to her about anything

and she would keep the secret.

I love the fact that she loves young people.

She's surrounded by people who see her just as a buddy.

Mavis is meeting her granddaughters Maude and Tess.

Hi, Nana. Hello. How are you?

They're from a social media generation who are finding

a new worth to Mavis' interviews, having discovered them online.

I say Bowie. What do you say? I say Bowie. We say Bowie.

He says Bowie. Does he?

Well, I think that's why I called him it. OK.

Let's have a look. So what was Bowie like then when you met him?

Bowie? I like Bowie a lot. He was shy. A very shy person, really is.

Yeah, he seems quite shy. Quite chronically shy.

What's the name of the... BOTH: Ziggy Stardust.

Stiggy? Ziggy. Ziggy!

Ziggy Stardust!

It's lovely having you here correcting me!

No, I found him really appealing.

It was an amazing image, wasn't it?

I've sort of been thinking quite a lot about you and often seen

you anyway... Is this smoke bothering you?

No, it's not at all because we've got to make you through that

mysterious aura you've talked about.

I think that it's not at all mystifying why you change

your appearance as often as you do, to my view, by the way,

because I think you've used yourself as a canvas.

Yes, very much so.

Is that right? Yes, very much so.

I never wanted to appear as myself on stage ever at any time

until recently, I think.

As I did write in character form,

I wanted to produce those characters on stage,

which is something I feel I did quite successfully at the time.

167,000 views it's had.

These are younger people, aren't they? Yeah.

There's loads of people commentating, saying,

"Who is this interviewer?" and wanting to find out more about you.

"Best interviewer of David Bowie I've ever seen."

"Nicholson was very respectful and asked deep questions."

"Much better than the likes of Graham Norton and Alan Carr

"style of today."

Really? Really.

That was simply an exercise of projecting something else.

Like you say, for instance, you were presenting a picture.

Well, I wanted to use rock and roll in some way or other and I got tired

of the, sort of, the lie of the rock performer as exactly the same

on stage as he is off stage, which, in most cases, isn't true at all.

So I thought, well, take it a stage further and completely

separate the personalities.

The person behind it all who's writing it and creating it

and the one up front that does the interviews and does the shows

and so I created the characters and put them on stage.

Then I would take them further and put them into interviews and

I would only do interviews as the character.

Were you hiding yourself from us?

Partly but I was enjoying it very much.

I like the idea of taking it to that surreal stage.

I mean, how does it feel seeing the fact that your videos are

being viewed by people who have never heard of you before?

Well, I really feel really chuffed.

It warms the cockles of my heart because,

in a sense that I enjoyed being quite well known, if not famous.

MAVIS CHUCKLES

I like the fact that the interviews that I think were good

will be shown again.

If you offered her a major series now, she'd bite your hand off.

And they should.

I still think she's got every skill still there

to do very good interviews.

It's not too late for somebody of her intelligence and

curiosity to have a show where she interviews the great and the

near-great and possibly it's not going to be famous people because...

Interview Gwyneth Paltrow, I don't know, you might.

She'd probably be very good with Gwyneth because she'd spend

a lot of time talking about vaginal steaming.

Mave would love that.

I suppose I've got to come to the conclusion I'm a born interviewer

because I think my friends find me an interviewer, my family find

me an interviewer, so life as an interviewer still remains.