Nicholas Parsons Net Worth

Nicholas Parsons's Quotes

• [speaking in 2004] Oh, we're an ageist society all right. You can say what you like about the old. If you made similar remarks about race or disability it would be embarrassing ... I have three comedy shows and lots of after dinner speaking engagements. I just think I'm so lucky to be working at my age.
• [on Kenneth Williams] I think his whole persona, even his sex life, was with his audience. The adrenaline would pump and more adrenaline pumped in his system than others and the thing is that when you pump a lot of adrenaline, you slowly come off that high, and I think Kenneth went back to his little sparse little bare flat, and it was very austere, and so as the adrenaline ran down, all that angst would come out and then he'd write all these terrible things about all the people he knew and was fond of. It was very sad in one sense and that was his life.
• [on his performance in Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric: Part One (1989)] I'm very flattered as I've always loved the show and it's nice to be associated with something which is a cult, but to be in one of the best episodes of a cult show has been to me one of the most treasured memories.
• [on becoming a CBE] I think it's a very nice honour - I'm flattered and I'm delighted. I think honours are a wonderful thing to receive if you have worked hard and that is recognised. I don't understand these people who are pompous and say they don't want it.

Interesting Facts about Nicholas Parsons

1. He is a member of the entertainment charity The Grand Order of Water Rats.
2. Outside the world of TV, he is probably best known as the presenter of BBC Radio 4's long running panel game "Just a Minute", also repeated on the BBC World Service.
3. He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 Queen's New Year Honours List for his services to drama and broadcasting.
4. His father was a GP (doctor) and is rumored to have delivered Margaret Thatcher.
5. In a The Benny Hill Show (1969) sketch, the vampire Dracula is waved away from a would-be victim not with a cross, but with a photo of Parsons smiling.
6. He was originally chosen to be the Gamesmaster in Gamesmaster (1992), but the application of the facial distortion techniques didn't work properly so Patrick Moore was ultimately chosen instead.
7. He lives near Burford, Oxfordshire, England.
8. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2014 Queen's New Year Honours List for charitable services, particularly to children's charities.
9. He has a lifelong interest in horology. Nicholas Parsons owns a large collection of antique clocks and watches, and as a trained engineer is able to maintain and repair them himself. He is a member of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.
10. In 1983/4 he wrote, produced and directed the shorts British Life, and Rubbish and in 1980 made the short A Fair Way to Play about the Lord Taverners with various show business personalities.
11. In the 1950s and 1960s, he appeared in many supporting roles in British films. In the late 1960s, he portrayed David Courtney in the short-lived American sitcom The Ugliest Girl in Town.
12. He was the middle child of the family, having an older brother and a younger sister.
13. He starred in the West End show Boeing-Boeing for 15 months in the mid-1960s and later, other West End productions throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
14. He made his film debut in Master of Bankdam in 1947 and continued his stage career, with two years in repertory at Bromley, and later, Windsor and Maidstone.
15. Parsons started his career while training as an engineering apprentice; he was discovered by Canadian impresario Carroll Levis, and appeared in his radio show as an impersonator. He also gained valuable early experience in amateur concert parties.
16. His father was a general practitioner whose patients included the family of Margaret Thatcher; claims that he delivered her are unproven.
17. During the late 1960s he created and presented a satirical programme on BBC Radio 4 called Listen to This Space, which by the standards of its time was very avant-garde, and he received the Radio Personality of the Year Award for his work on this programme in 1967.
18. As a child, he had a stutter, which he managed to control as he grew older, and was slow to learn owing to dyslexia. He also suffered from migraines but nevertheless excelled at school.
19. After education at Colet Court and St Paul's School in London, Parsons' initial career plan was to become an actor. However, his parents believed that a career in engineering would be better, as he had repaired grandfather clocks as a young man and was creative with his hands.
20. He hosted Sale of the Century throughout its initial incarnation from 1971 to 1983. During his tenure, the audience peaked at over 21 million viewers, a record for an ITV game show.