Celebrated chat show host Michael Parkinson has died peacefully at home at the age of 88 surrounded by loved ones, his family has said.
The TV star interviewed some of Hollywood's biggest names throughout his illustrious career - with names such as Jimmy Cagney, Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman on the list.
A statement from his family said: "After a brief illness, Sir Michael Parkinson passed away peacefully at home last night in the company of his family.
"The family request that they are given privacy and time to grieve."
Michael Parkinson became a familiar face on both the BBC and ITV because of his intimate celebrity interviews, most notably on the BBC show Parkinson.
Parkinson first aired on the BBC on 19 June 1971 and enjoyed a successful run until 1982. In 1998, the chat show was revived on the BBC and proved an instant hit.
Watch: Michael Parkinson on The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne in 1982
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It switched from the BBC to ITV1 in 2004 and ran until 2007 - the same year he retired from his Sunday morning BBC Radio 2 programme.
His career saw him welcome the likes of boxer Muhammad Ali, footballer David Beckham and comedian Rod Hull - with puppet Emu - onto his chat show during a long and distinguished career.
During the hundreds of episodes of his talk show, he also interviewed stars including David Bowie, John Lennon and Celine Dion.
Headline-making interviews throughout his career included those with actresses Helen Mirren and Meg Ryan.
He famously introduced stage and screen star Mirren as the "sex queen" of the Royal Shakespeare Company during their 1975 chat show encounter. He asked if her "equipment" hindered her from being recognised as a serious actress.
In 2003, his interview with Ryan made headlines following a frosty one-on-one with the Hollywood actress while she was promoting the poorly received erotic thriller In The Cut.
Ryan sat stony-faced for the sit-down, delivering one-word answers after allegedly being rude to her fellow guests on the show, the fashion double act Trinny and Susannah.
Before his TV career, he started life as an only child, growing up in a council house in the coal mining village of Cudworth, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire in the UK.
As a teenager, his father, a miner, took him down the pit to put him off working there.
When his dreams of playing cricket for Yorkshire were dashed, he left school at 16 and began working at a local paper, later joining the Manchester Guardian and then the Daily Express.
His first TV job was as a producer at Granada, and he later moved to Thames TV, before landing his chat show Parkinson at the BBC.
He had a short-lived term at TV-am as part of the original presenting line-up alongside Angela Rippon and David Frost, and appeared on the shows Give Us A Clue, one-off drama Ghostwatch and Going For A Song.
Parkinson brought down the curtain on more than 30 years of his chat show at the end of 2007 with a final show featuring David Beckham, Michael Caine, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, Edna Everage, Billy Connolly, Peter Kay and Jamie Cullum in a two-hour special.
Speaking on the final show, he said: "Over the years it has been a privilege to meet some of the most intelligent and interesting people. It has always been a great joy and I shall miss it."
As well as his television career, he was a respected radio broadcaster, having hosted Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 as well as his own sports shows on Five Live. He was also an award-winning sports writer, having been a lifelong cricket fan.
In 2013, he spoke openly about being diagnosed with prostate cancer following a routine health check.
He had three sons with his wife Mary, who he married in 1959.
Source: Press Association
