- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRobert Henry Robinson
- Soon after Robert's birth in Liverpool in 1928 his parents moved to New Malden in Surrey where his father was an accountant for a large chemical company. He was educated at a grammar school in Raynes Park before going to Oxford where he obtained an Honours degree in English and while there he was editor on the university magazine Isis. When he left he joined a newspaper company working on 'The Weekly Telegraph' and progressed to the Sunday Chronicle, Sunday Graphic and Sunday Times. The mid 50's newspaper strike led him to television where he worked on 'Monitor', 'Picture Parade', and 'Points of View' before becoming chairman on 'Call My Bluff' and 'Ask the Family' .After 1967 he did 'The Book Programme' and on radio 'Brain of Britain. Since 1972 he' did 'Stop the Week With Robert Robinson', and 3 years on the 'Today' programme. He's written a number of novels including 'Landscape With Dead Dons', his first written when he was 26, 'The Conspiracy' and 'Inside Robert Robinson'.He has a son, Nicholas born 1960, and daughters Lucy, born 1967 and Suzy born 1973.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpouseJosée Richard(1958 - August 12, 2011) (his death, 3 children)
- Avuncular BBC radio & TV presenter of such shows as Ask The Family and My Word.
- Father of actress Lucy Robinson.
- He insisted on writing all his own dialogue for his brief appearance as himself in "French Dressing", although he received no credit for it. Director Ken Russell agreed readily to this, telling him he could write everyone else's dialogue, too, if he wished. He didn't go that far, however.
- He was the film critic of the London "Sunday Telegraph" newspaper for a time in the mid-1960s, although it was a job he didn't enjoy much. He claimed he was removed from this post after panning a movie which was enjoyed by the wife of the newspaper's proprietor. He also frequently reviewed films on the popular radio program, "The Critics", as well as hosting the long-running BBC-TV series, "Picture Parade".
- He hosted the short-lived 1964 series, "BBC-3", a mixture of songs, satirical sketches and discussion. The most famous segment of this show, which went out live on Saturday nights, featured Kenneth Tynan and Mary McCarthy in a discussion of censorship. Tynan, taking advantage of the fact that it was all live, deliberately used the F-word in his remarks, thereby occasioning a national scandal, as he intended. Robinson, however, remained urbane and simply told Tynan that he'd found an easy way to become famous. Years later, after Tynan's death, he described the critic as "a clever fellow, but a frightful weed".
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