Esther Rantzen

Dame Esther Louise Rantzen (born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter who presented the BBC television series That's Life! for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. She works with various charitable causes and founded the charities Childline, a helpline for children, which she set up in 1986, and The Silver Line, designed to combat loneliness in older people's lives, which she set up in November 2012.

Rantzen has been recognised for her contribution to television and society. She was awarded an OBE for services to broadcasting in 1991 and a CBE for services to children in 2006, and in the 2015 New Year Honours was made a Dame for services to children and older people through Childline and The Silver Line. She is a patron of a number of charities, including the charity Operation Encompass, and the charity Silver Stories. She remains President of Childline and her daughter Rebecca Wilcox is Deputy President of Childline and has trained to be a volunteer counsellor there. She works closely with Dignity in Dying.

Early life and family Rantzen was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, to Katherine Flora Rantzen (née Leverson, 1911–2005) and Henry Barnato Rantzen (1902–1992), an electrical engineer. Her family is Jewish. She has one younger sister, Priscilla N. Taylor. She attended Buckley Country Day School in New York, leaving in 1952. She was educated at North London Collegiate School, an all-girls independent school in Edgware, North London. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford, where the Principal was Dame Janet Vaughan and one of her tutors was Mary Lascelles. At Oxford she performed with the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), became Secretary of the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) and joined the Oxford Theatre Group, performing in Oxford and Edinburgh.

Rantzen was the subject of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on 3 September 2008 (series 5 episode 4). Her paternal line was traced back, as far as the 1760s, to an established Jewish neighbourhood in Warsaw. Rantzen is also related to Ada Leverson, a British writer and friend of Oscar Wilde, who was portrayed by Zoë Wanamaker in the 1997 film Wilde. She began her television career as a clerk in the programme planning department, then obtained her first production job working as a researcher becoming one of the most popular shows on British television, reaching audiences of more than 18 million.

That's Life! also contained humour such as readings of amusing misprints sent in by viewers; it also featured comic songs that often matched the theme of each show, specially written and performed by artists such as Lynsey de Paul, Victoria Wood, Richard Stilgoe and Jake Thackray.

In 1976, Rantzen devised the documentary series The Big Time, which launched Sheena Easton's singing career. Rantzen had suggested the Childwatch programme to BBC1 Controller Michael Grade after the death of a toddler who had starved to death, locked in a bedroom. The aim of the programme was to find better ways of detecting children at risk of abuse; to that end, viewers of That's Life! who had themselves experienced cruelty as children were asked to take part in a survey detailing the circumstances of their abuse.

The Childwatch programme screened on 30 October 1986 and based on the results of the survey, launched Childline with a specially written jingle (by B. A. Robertson) which featured the free phone number 0800 1111. Childline now has twelve bases around the UK, including two in Northern Ireland, two in Scotland and two in Wales, plus a virtual on-line base. The helpline has now been copied in 150 countries.

The Silver Line

In 2013, Rantzen set up The Silver Line, a charity to benefit elderly people, by combating isolation and loneliness, to provide information and advice and to offer a free confidential helpline. In addition, The Silver Line offers a telephone befriending service, in which trained volunteers make regular weekly calls to older people.

Later career

In 1988, Rantzen created a BBC One television series called Hearts of Gold, celebrating people who had performed unsung acts of outstanding kindness or courage that became a prime time ratings hit. Its theme tune was written by her close friend Lynsey de Paul, and was released as a single on the CBS record label.

After That's Life! finished its 21-year run in 1994, Rantzen presented her own talk show, Esther, on BBC Two from 1994 to 2002.

In 2006, Rantzen took part in the BBC Two programmes Would Like to Meet and Excuse My French, and was selected to present a new consumer affairs show with former Watchdog presenter Lynn Faulds Wood, under the title Old Dogs New Tricks. She made a documentary for ITV called Winton's Children about Sir Nicholas Winton, who (as was first revealed on That's Life!) had rescued a generation of Czech children from The Holocaust and was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following the death of Rantzen's husband, film-maker Desmond Wilcox, she made a landmark programme on palliative care, How to Have a Good Death, for BBC Two. She has campaigned on behalf of hospice care and better care for the elderly and terminally ill, and has also campaigned to raise awareness of ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), as her elder daughter has suffered from the condition. She created the 'Children of Courage' segment for the BBC's Children in Need programme, and the series The Big Time which discovered singer Sheena Easton. Rantzen is also patron of Erosh, a national charity which promotes good quality sheltered and retirement housing and provides resources for its members who support older people.

Rantzen appeared in the 2008 series of ITV show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, and was the fifth celebrity to leave the camp.

In 2016, she was in the first episode of Celebrity First Dates.

In 2018, she presented a new Channel 5 consumer advice show called Esther Rantzen’s House Trap, a 4-part series similar to BBC's long-running Watchdog programme, with hidden cameras trying to trap rogue traders in the homes of a number of undercover actors. Unlike Watchdog, these actors were all people of an advanced age with each episode focusing on a different trade, such as locksmiths, where older people were likely to being preyed upon.

Political career On 26 May 2009, on Stephen Rhodes's BBC Three Counties Breakfast Show, Rantzen announced her intention to stand as an independent candidate for Parliament, if the incumbent Labour MP Margaret Moran stood for Luton South again. This statement was made against the backdrop of the Parliamentary expenses scandal and Moran's expense claims for £23,000 to eliminate dry rot in her second home in Southampton. Two days later, Moran announced she would not stand at the next general election, but Rantzen said she was still considering standing herself and confirmed her candidacy on 28 July 2009. Rantzen stood for election in Luton South against eleven other candidates, of whom four were independent. At the May 2010 election, Rantzen came fourth with 4.4% of the vote, behind the three main parties. In accordance with UK parliamentary electoral process, Rantzen lost her deposit, as only candidates receiving over 5% of the total votes cast have their deposit returned. Labour Party candidate Gavin Shuker won the seat with 34.9% of the vote, the Conservatives got 29.4% and the Liberal Democrats 22.7%.

In August 2014, Rantzen was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote against independence from the United Kingdom in the referendum on that issue.

Relationship with Jimmy Savile

In Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, broadcast on 3 October 2012, Rantzen, after seeing the interviews the programme contains, supported the women abused by the BBC broadcaster Jimmy Savile.

She told Channel 4 News: "If anybody had had concrete evidence, I think and hope the police would have been called in. But all they had was gossip – and gossip isn't evidence."

Abuse campaigner Shy Keenan, writing in The Sun newspaper, subsequently claimed that, using a different name, she had told Rantzen 18 years earlier of allegations that she had heard about Savile. Rantzen has denied hearing specific allegations and said she had no recollection of a conversation with Keenan.

Writing for The Daily Telegraph before the broadcast, Katy Brand also criticised Rantzen for failing to act on rumours she had heard about Savile. Pete Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, at Keenan's request, temporarily asked for all references to Rantzen to be removed from the charity's website, but subsequently defended Rantzen and said she would continue as a patron.

Personal life In 1966, at the age of 26, Rantzen had an affair with the Scottish politician Nicholas Fairbairn. She wrote:

In 1968, Rantzen started an affair with Desmond Wilcox, who was the head of her department and married to Rantzen's friend Patsy who also worked at the BBC. After several years they decided to live together, and informed BBC management of their relationship. Management's solution was to move the entire production team of That's Life! out of Wilcox's department. The new arrangement meant that Rantzen and Patsy were now working in the same department, embarrassing Rantzen and causing further pain to Patsy. After Rantzen and Wilcox married in December 1977, BBC management moved her back into the General Features department run by him. who ascribed the success of the programme to Wilcox's relationship with Rantzen.

As a result, Wilcox resigned,

Health In January 2023, Rantzen announced that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. In a statement, Rantzen said, "In the last few weeks I have discovered that I am suffering from lung cancer which has now spread. At the moment I am undergoing various tests, to assess the best treatment ... I have decided not to keep this secret anymore because I find it difficult to skulk around various hospitals wearing an unconvincing disguise, and because I would rather you heard the facts from me. ... As I am sure you will understand, while I am awaiting the results of the tests, I am unable to answer questions. Thanks to the extraordinary skills of the medical profession there are wonderful new treatments, so I am remaining optimistic."

In May 2023, Rantzen announced that her lung cancer had reached stage IV and that she was on a new form of medication. In December 2023, in an article in The Times, she reflected on her mortality. On 19 December 2023, she said that she had joined the Dignitas assisted dying clinic in Switzerland. On 2 February 2026 came the news "that a drug she has been taking since 2024 has stopped working", stating "I’m definitely not going to live long enough to see the assisted dying bill become law".

She lives in the New Forest, Hampshire.