She dazzled viewers with her jaw-dropping high kick when she was a competitor on Strictly Come Dancing two years ago.
Now, Angela Rippon wants to succeed Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly as a presenter of the hit BBC show – at the age of 81.
It would come more than three decades after the corporation’s then-director-general, Lord (John) Birt, told her she’d ‘had her day’ when she was a spring chicken aged 50.
‘If they asked me, of course,’ she tells me. ‘It’s a very popular programme. Claudia and Tess have done a fabulous job, but no job is for life.’
Speaking at the Starry Night Gala supporting the charity Action for Children at The Peninsula London, she says the next host must be ‘someone that will bring the glamour, and just what everyone loves about Strictly’.
Angela certainly couldn’t be better qualified for the job. She was a presenter of the show’s forerunner for amateurs, Come Dancing, for three years until 1991, as well as hosting other programmes including Top Gear and reading the BBC News.
Speaking at the Starry Night Gala supporting the charity Action for Children, Angela Rippon, 81, said the next Strictly host must be ‘someone that will bring the glamour’
She was Strictly’s oldest-ever contestant when she competed in 2023 and now credits the experience with ‘reawakening’ her love of dance.
‘She is the dream signing,’ a source close to the show said at the time. ‘The audience at home will love her, and many of them will remember her from her days hosting the show in its previous incarnation.’
Her appearance on Strictly came 47 years after she impressed the 27 million viewers of Morecambe and Wise’s 1976 Christmas special with a high-kicking dance routine.
Angela has stayed close to her Strictly partner, Kai Widdrington, 30, and the pair recently joined forces to launch ‘Let’s Dance!’, a project aimed at encouraging people of all ages to discover the joy of dance.
Susannah tells all on royal split
She was used to people accepting her advice on the BBC makeover show What Not To Wear, but Susannah Constantine had less success convincing the Earl of Snowdon to get down on bended knee.
The TV star, 63, went out with King Charles’s cousin David, 64, the son of Princess Margaret, for six years.
‘My God, I tried,’ she admits on the podcast Spooning With Mark Wogan. ‘I mean, he never asked me. So that’s why I moved on. I did try.’
She even crossed the Atlantic in the hope that absence would make his heart grow fonder. ‘I moved to New York for six months,’ she explains. ‘I thought, “This’ll do it.” No, nothing. So in the end I just thought, “Right, I’m off.” ’
‘SAS show prepared me for motherhood’
Love Island star Georgia Harrison says taking part in the Channel 4 show Celebrity SAS: Who Dares helped her to embrace motherhood
Love Island star Georgia Harrison won last year’s series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins after a ‘demoralising’ interrogation exercise in the final.
Despite having cold water poured over her while locked in a cage, she admits the gruelling Channel 4 show helped her to embrace a new challenge – motherhood.
‘SAS helped me learn to get up in the night, stuff like that, and just face it,’ she tells me at the launch party for Velvet Taco restaurant in Broadgate Circle, east London.
Georgia, 30, pictured, gave birth to her first child, a daughter Sahara, this month with her boyfriend Jack Stacey, 33.
‘I always think, no matter how hard this is, it’s never worse than some of the experiences I’ve had in the past, so I just get on with it,’ she says.
Lord Mandelson waits to see if he will be fined for urinating in a street in Notting Hill, west London.
He should have followed the example of his late Labour comrade (and former Notting Hill resident) Tony Benn.
In later life, the darling of the Left would often be taken short while driving around the country. Knowing he would be instantly recognised if he stopped to relieve himself at the side of the road, Benn had an ingenious solution.
He would pull over, lift the bonnet and, shielded from the view of the oncoming traffic, pee on the engine.
Feltz: I want a facelift for Christmas
‘What I want for Christmas is a Kris Jenner facelift,’ 63-year-old broadcaster Vanessa Feltz tells me
Advent is not yet upon us, but Vanessa Feltz has decided on the festive gift she desires.
‘What I want for Christmas is a Kris Jenner facelift,’ the 63-year-old broadcaster tells me at a London charity event.
Jenner, 70, the matriarch of the Kardashian clan of TV stars, spent $100,000 (£76,500) on a recent facelift.
She celebrated her birthday this month with a party at the Los Angeles home of billionaire Jeff Bezos. Guests included Prince Harry and wife Meghan, who caused a row when they asked for photographs of them to be removed from social media.
‘I wish I’d been invited,’ laments Vanessa. Maybe next year?
Saltburn writer’s own party palace
Emerald Fennell’s twisted thriller Saltburn depicts decadent aristocrats hosting wild parties at their stately pile.
And social gatherings appear to have got out of hand at the film director’s Berkshire family home, too.
‘They like to throw a party or two,’ photographer Hugo Burnand says of Emerald’s parents, Theo and Louise Fennell, whom he captured in their living room for a photoshoot, which needed a digital clean-up.
‘There was evidence of parties in the past on the carpet – a few wine stains and maybe a little cigarette had burnt,’ he says on his podcast, Double Exposure. ‘I basically photoshopped the carpet to death – to make it look like a new one.’
Blair actor berates his ‘fans’
Michael Sheen, best known for playing Tony Blair in films including The Deal and The Queen, has taken furious aim at so-called ‘fans’ insulting his loved ones.
Father-of-three Michael, 56, whose girlfriend is Swedish actress Anna Lundberg, 31, rages online: ‘Everyone of course is allowed their opinion, but unkindness to those I love means I have no interest in anything you have to say… Do not kid yourself you are “fans”. If continued I will publicly name you.’
