- Born
- Birth nameAnne Josephine Robinson
- Nickname
- The Queen of Mean
- Height5′ 4½″ (1.64 m)
- Born Anne Josephine Robinson on September 26, 1944 in Crosby, Liverpool, England, this famous host of the BBC and NBC quiz show The Weakest Link (2001) started her career as a journalist for Rediffusion. She made her way up by working on the Daily Mail, Sunday Times and Daily Mirror. It was at the Mirror where she was to make her mark, being Assistant Editor throughout the 1980s and early 1990s; she was the first woman to regularly edit a national newspaper.
She credits that most of her formative education was gleaned not from attending the convent boarding school or university, but from working on her mother's "marled" stall. She is one of Great Britain's most distinguished broadcasters and journalists and was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool's John Moores University in 1996.
She is well-known (even in America) for her red hair, her dark Giorgio Armani suits, her impatience with organizations that give customers a raw deal (she was the host of the prime time BBC 1 consumer affairs show Watchdog (1985)) and, of course, her wink (which was developed when, in 1987, the director of right-to-reply show Points of View (1961) asked her not to wink - she subsequently winked at the end of every program).
She is married to journalist John Penrose, who also acts as her personal manager (and whom she both divorced and remarried in 1994). Her daughter Emma, from her first husband, Charlie Wilson, is a graduate of the prestigious New York University and works as a freelance television director, writer and presenter in London and New York. Anne Robinson divides her time between her house in Kensington and her home in the Cotswolds, where she enjoys walking her English Setters: Maudie and Sebastian.- IMDb Mini Biography By: RaDragon
- SpousesJohn Penrose(1980 - 2007) (divorced)Charlie Wilson(1968 - 1973) (divorced, 1 child)
- Children
- Always signs off at the end of her television shows with a wink to the camera
- Often wears black trenchcoats
- Her humorously mean comments
- Making people say "Bank!"
- Named one of People magazine's "Breakthrough Stars of 2001".
- Was a reporter for the Liverpool Daily Post newspaper before moving on to the London Daily Mirror and later the Daily Mail in the 1970s.
- Made her peace with the Welsh by fronting an advertising campaign for the Welsh Tourism Board. The ads highlighted the fact that Wales's major tourist locations were open despite the foot-and-mouth crisis in the United Kingdom.
- Mother of Emma Wilson, radio host.
- She was criticised by Outrage!, the gay rights organisation, after comments she made describing a contestant's "gay" T-shirt, which were cut by the BBC from their broadcast of the finished Weakest Link episode. She was also criticised for "homophobic stereotyping" after asking another contestant why she was dressed like a lesbian.
- Sad old blokes, I'm told, now dream of me with a whip in hand.
- I knew I'd conquered America when Mike Tyson told me I was one mean lady.
- You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
- [to a Weakest Link contestant] Why are you dressed like a lesbian?
- [trying to get the Welsh put into Room 101] And what are they for?
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