British media personality, journalist and broadcaster
Not to be confused with
Janet Porter
, an American anti-abortion activist.
Janet Street-Porter
|
---|
|
Born
| Janet Vera Bull
(
1946-12-27
)
27 December 1946
(age 77)
[1]
|
---|
Education
| |
---|
Alma mater
| Architectural Association School of Architecture
|
---|
Occupations
| - Broadcaster
- journalist
- writer
- producer
- media personality
|
---|
Years active
| 1967?present
|
---|
Spouses
|
Tim Street-Porter
(
m.
1967;
div.
1975)
(
m.
1975;
div.
1977)
(
m.
1979;
div.
1981)
David Sorkin
(
m.
1997;
div.
1999)
|
---|
Partner
| Peter Spanton (1999?present)
|
---|
|
Website
| Official website
|
---|
Janet Vera Street-Porter
CBE
(
nee
Bull
; born 27 December 1946) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and media personality. She began her career as a fashion writer and columnist at the
Daily Mail
and was later appointed fashion editor of the
Evening Standard
in 1971. In 1973, she co-presented a mid-morning radio show with
Paul Callan
on
LBC
.
Street-Porter began working on television at
London Weekend Television
in 1975, first as a presenter of a series of mainly youth-oriented programmes. She was the editor and producer of the
Network 7
series on
Channel 4
in 1987, and was a
BBC Television
executive from 1987 until 1994. She was an editor of
The Independent on Sunday
from 1999 until 2002, but relinquished the job to become
editor-at-large
.
Since 2011, Street-Porter has been a regular panellist on the
ITV
talk show
Loose Women
. Her other television appearances include
Question Time
(1998?2015),
Have I Got News for You
(1996?2023),
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
(2004),
Deadline
(2007),
Celebrity MasterChef
(2013, 2020), and
A Taste of Britain
(2014).
Street-Porter was appointed a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in the
2016 Birthday Honours
for services to journalism and broadcasting.
Early life
[
edit
]
Street-Porter was born in
Brentford
,
Middlesex
(now in the
London Borough of Hounslow
). She is the daughter of Stanley W. G. Bull, an electrical engineer who had served as a sergeant in the
Royal Corps of Signals
in the
Second World War
, and Cherry Cuff Ardern (nee Jones), who was
Welsh
[3]
and worked as a
school dinner lady
and in the civil service as a clerical assistant in a tax office.
[4]
Street-Porter is of
Ashkenazi Jewish
descent and considers herself
nonreligious
.
[5]
Her mother was still married to her first husband, George Ardern, at the time, and was not to marry Stanley until 1954, hence her name being recorded thus in the birth records. She was later to take her father's surname.
[4]
Street-Porter grew up in
Fulham
,
West London
, and
Perivale
,
Middlesex
, after the family moved there when she was 14 and the family would stay in her mother's home town of
Llanfairfechan
in
North Wales
for their holidays.
[4]
She attended Peterborough Primary and Junior Schools in Fulham and Lady Margaret Grammar School for Girls (now
Lady Margaret School
) in
Parsons Green
from 1958 to 1964 where she passed 8
O-levels
and 3
A-levels
in English, History and Art. She also took an A-level in pure mathematics but did not pass the exam. Whilst studying A-levels, she had an illegal abortion.
[6]
She then spent two years at the
Architectural Association School of Architecture
, where she met her first husband, photographer Tim Street-Porter.
[4]
[7]
Career
[
edit
]
Street-Porter began her career as a fashion writer and columnist on the
Daily Mail
, and was appointed as the newspaper's deputy fashion editor in 1969 by
Shirley Conran
.
[8]
She subsequently became fashion editor of the
Evening Standard
in 1971.
[7]
When the
London Broadcasting Company
(LBC) local radio station began to broadcast in 1973, Street-Porter co-presented a mid-morning show with
Fleet Street
columnist
Paul Callan
.
[9]
The intention was sharply to contrast the urbane Callan and the urban Street-Porter. Their respective accents became known to the station's studio engineers as "cut-glass" and "cut-froat". Friction between the ill-matched pair involved constant
one-upmanship
.
In early 1975, Street-Porter was launch editor of
Sell Out
, an offshoot of the London listings magazine
Time Out
, with its publisher and her second husband,
Tony Elliott
. The magazine was not a success.
[10]
Television
[
edit
]
Street-Porter began to work in television at
London Weekend Television
(LWT) in 1975, first as a reporter on a series of mainly youth-oriented programmes, including
The London Weekend Show
(1975?79), then went on to present the late-night chat show
Saturday Night People
(1978?80) with
Clive James
and
Russell Harty
. She later produced
Twentieth Century Box
(1980?82), presented by
Danny Baker
.
[7]
Street-Porter was editor of the
Network 7
series on
Channel 4
from 1987. In the same year,
BBC Two
controller
Alan Yentob
appointed her to become head of youth and entertainment features, making her responsible for the twice-weekly
DEF II
. She commissioned
Rapido
,
Red Dwarf
and
Rough Guide
.
[11]
She was responsible for the cancellation of the long-running music series
The Old Grey Whistle Test
.
[12]
Her
Network 7
show was awarded a
BAFTA
for its graphics in 1988.
In 1992, Street-Porter provided the story for
The Vampyr: A Soap Opera
, the BBC's adaptation of
Heinrich August Marschner
's opera
Der Vampyr
, which featured a new libretto by
Charles Hart
. Street-Porter's approach did not endear her to critics, who objected to her diction and questioned her suitability as an influence on Britain's youth.
[11]
In her final year at the BBC, she became head of independent commissioning. She left the BBC for
Mirror Group Newspapers
in 1994 to become joint-managing director with
Kelvin MacKenzie
[11]
of the ill-fated
L!VE TV
channel. She left in October 1995, four months after L!ve had begun broadcasting.
[7]
In 1996, Street-Porter established her own production company. Since 1996, Street-Porter has appeared several times on the
BBC
panel show
Have I Got News for You
, most recently in December 2023.
[13]
From 1998 until 2015 (except 2013), Street-Porter appeared annually on BBC's
Question Time
.
In 2000, Street-Porter was nominated for the "Mae West Award for the Most Outspoken Woman in the Industry" at
Carlton Television
's Women in Film and Television Awards.
[7]
In 2007, Street-Porter starred in an
ITV2
reality show called
Deadline
, serving as a tough-talking editor who worked with a team of celebrity "reporters" whose job it was to produce a weekly gossip magazine. The celebrities in question had to endure the Street-Porter tongue as she decided each week which of them to fire.
[14]
In 2011, Street-Porter became a regular panellist on
ITV's
chat show
Loose Women
. In 2013, she appeared in
Celebrity MasterChef
reaching the final three, and returned again for a Christmas special in 2020, in which she was crowned the winner.
[15]
She also appeared in the television show
QI
. Since 1 September 2014, Street-Porter has co-hosted
BBC One
cookery programme
A Taste of Britain
with chef
Brian Turner
and ran for 20 episodes in one series.
[16]
Street-Porter has appeared on many reality TV shows, including
Call Me a Cabbie
and
So You Think You Can Teach
; the latter saw her trying to work as a primary school teacher.
[17]
She conducted numerous interviews with business figures and others for
Bloomberg Television
.
[17]
Newspaper work
[
edit
]
Street-Porter became editor of
The Independent on Sunday
in 1999. Despite derision from her critics, she took the paper's circulation up to 270,460, an increase of 11.6 per cent.
[7]
In 2001, Street-Porter became editor-at-large, as well as writing a weekly column and regular features.
[18]
[19]
Editor-at-large column
[
edit
]
Following the
death of Ian Tomlinson
, Street-Porter dedicated her editor-at-large column in
The Independent on Sunday
to painting a picture of Tomlinson as a "troubled man with quite a few problems":
Knowing that he was an alcoholic is critical to understanding his sense of disorientation and his attitude towards the police, which might on first viewing of the video footage, seem a bit stroppy.
[20]
Other activities
[
edit
]
A rambler, Street-Porter was president of the
Ramblers' Association
for two years from 1994. She walked across Britain from
Dungeness
in Kent to
Conwy
in Wales for the television series
Coast to Coast
in 1998.
[7]
Street-Porter also walked from Edinburgh to London in a straight line in 1998, for a television series and her book,
As the Crow Flies
.
[21]
In 1994, for the documentary series
The Longest Walk
, Street-Porter visited long-distance walker
Ffyona Campbell
on the last section of her round-the-world walk.
In 1966, Street-Porter appeared as an extra in the nightclub scene in
Blowup
, dancing in a silver coat and striped trousers. In 2003, she wrote and presented a one-woman show at the
Edinburgh Festival
titled
All the Rage
.
[22]
She published the autobiographical
Baggage
in 2004, about her childhood in working class London. Its sequel is titled
Fallout
.
[22]
Life's Too F***ing Short
is a volume which presents, as she puts it, her answer to "getting what you want out of life by the most direct route."
Personal life
[
edit
]
While studying architecture she married fellow student and photographer Tim Street-Porter.
[7]
They were together until 1975 when she went on to marry
Time Out
editor
Tony Elliott
. Her third marriage was to film director
Frank Cvitanovich
, who was 19 years her senior, before her final brief marriage in her fifties to the 27-year-old David Sorkin. Before marrying Sorkin, she lived with DEF II presenter
Normski
for four years.
[24]
Since 1999, she has been in a relationship with restaurateur Peter Spanton. She has no children.
[25]
She currently lives in
Haddiscoe
[26]
in Norfolk,
Kent
and London. She previously had a home in
Nidderdale
, North Yorkshire.
[27]
[28]
An active member of the Nidderdale community, she contributed her time and energy to a number of local causes. She was the president of the Burley Bridge Association, leading a campaign for a crossing over the
River Wharfe
linking North and West Yorkshire.
[29]
Health
[
edit
]
During the
COVID-19 pandemic
, Street-Porter regularly appeared as a guest on
This Morning
to review the political decisions taken by the government alongside
Matthew Wright
, via video call from her home in
Kent
.
Street-Porter was diagnosed with
basal-cell carcinoma
, a type of
skin cancer
, in January 2020. On 23 June 2020, she announced her news on
Loose Women
from home via video call because of COVID-19 restrictions.
[30]
Filmography
[
edit
]
Television
[
edit
]
Film
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Scandal!
(1981)
- The British Teapot
(1983)
- Coast to Coast with Janet Street-Porter
(1998)
- As the Crow Flies: A Walk from Edinburgh to London - in a Straight Line
(1998)
- Baggage: My Childhood
(2004)
- The Walk of Life
(2005)
- Fall Out
(2007)
- Life's Too F***ing Short
(2008)
- Don't Let the B*****ds Get You Down
(2009)
Honours and awards
[
edit
]
Street-Porter was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and broadcasting.
[31]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Branigan, Tania (19 November 2004).
"The Guardian profile: Janet Street-Porter"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
8 December
2016
.
- ^
"Janet Street-Porter"
.
Desert Island Discs
. 23 November 2008.
BBC Radio 4
. Retrieved
18 January
2014
.
- ^
Loose Women
, 22 March 2012
- ^
a
b
c
d
Janet Street-Porter (2004).
Baggage ? My Childhood
. Headline.
ISBN
0755312651
.
- ^
"Janet Street Porter: Own Words"
.
The Guardian
. 19 October 2008.
Archived
from the original on 31 March 2024
. Retrieved
30 March
2024
.
The youngest of four girls growing up in a middle-class Jewish family in New Hampshire, her parents divorced when she was 6.
- ^
Generation '66
,
BBC Four
, 31 July 2016
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
"BFI Screenonline: Street-Porter, Janet (1946?) Biography"
. Screenonline.org.uk. 19 March 1996
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
Street-Porter, Janet (14 December 2017).
"Janet Street-Porter remembers Fleet Street in the 1960s"
.
Evening Standard
. Retrieved
22 August
2021
.
- ^
"media.info - worldwide media contacts and information"
.
media.info
. Archived from
the original
on 16 October 2006.
- ^
"Magazine launches & events 1975?89"
. Magforum.com
. Retrieved
23 September
2011
.
- ^
a
b
c
Stuart Jeffries (6 April 2007).
"Interview: Janet Street-Porter talks to Stuart Jeffries | Media | The Guardian"
.
The Guardian
. Media.guardian.co.uk
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
Kershaw, Andy (2012).
No Off Switch
. Virgin. p. 213.
ISBN
978-0415892131
.
- ^
"BBC One ? Have I Got News for You, Series 66, Episode 8"
. Bbc.co.uk
. Retrieved
11 May
2016
.
- ^
[1]
Archived
21 August 2008 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
West, Amy (21 December 2020).
"Celebrity MasterChef Christmas crowns its first festive special winner"
.
Digital Spy
. Retrieved
23 December
2020
.
- ^
"BBC One ? A Taste of Britain"
. Bbc.co.uk
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
a
b
"Janet Street-Porter - jsp_tv.html"
.
janetstreetporter.com
. Archived from
the original
on 12 February 2007.
- ^
Day, Emma (21 December 2009).
"The Independent: A rollercoaster 23 years"
.
Press Gazette
. Retrieved
22 August
2021
.
- ^
"Street-Porter steps down as editor"
.
BBC News
. 11 April 2001
. Retrieved
22 August
2021
.
- ^
"Editor-at-Large: Tomlinson was no saint, but he deserved better ? Janet Street-Porter ? Columnists"
.
The Independent
. 12 April 2009
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
As the Crow Flies
, Metro Books, London (1998)
ISBN
978-1-900512-71-8
- ^
a
b
[2]
[
dead link
]
- ^
Robinson, Jamie (6 February 2018).
"Janet Street-Porter's 'extroverted' Postmodern home is listed"
.
The Spaces
. Retrieved
24 November
2020
.
- ^
"Janet Street-Porter tells Lynn Barber that she has no intention of mellowing with age"
.
The Guardian
. 23 September 2006.
- ^
"Not everyone wants kids, and some are too scared to talk about it"
.
The Independent
. 25 April 2014.
- ^
Baldwin, Louisa (9 August 2019).
"
'It's exactly like The Archers' ? Janet Street-Porter reveals she has moved to Norfolk"
.
Eastern Daily Press
. Retrieved
12 August
2019
.
- ^
"The Dales: A lifelong romance ? UK ? Travel"
.
The Independent
. 6 November 2005
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
Lynn Barber.
"Janet Street-Porter tells Lynn Barber that she has no intention of mellowing with age | Media"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
"BBA: Burley Bridge News"
. Burleybridge.com. Archived from
the original
on 5 September 2013
. Retrieved
21 February
2015
.
- ^
Chase, Stephanie (7 July 2020).
"Janet Street-Porter returns to Loose Women studio after skin cancer diagnosis"
.
Digital Spy
. (
Hearst Communications
)
. Retrieved
18 July
2023
.
- ^
"No. 61608"
.
The London Gazette
(Supplement). 11 June 2016. p. B9.
External links
[
edit
]
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International
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