Joan Bakewell
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Joan Bakewell (born Joan Dawson Rowlands on April 16 1933) is a British journalist and television presenter.
Born in Stockport, Cheshire, Bakewell was educated at Stockport Grammar School and Newnham College, University of Cambridge, where she first came into contact with another future journalist, Brian Redhead, and a future husband, Michael Bakewell.
She first became well known as one of the presenters of an early BBC2 programme, Late Night Line-Up (1965-72). Frank Muir dubbed her "the thinking man's crumpet" during this period, and the epithet has stuck.
For Granada Television during 1976-78 she co-presented Reports Action, a Sunday teatime programme which encouraged the public to donate their services to various good causes. Subsequently, she returned to the BBC, and co-presented a short-lived late night television arts programme; briefly worked on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme and was Newsnight's arts correspondent (1986-88) before apparently being sacked by John Birt.
Later she came to the fore as the main presenter of the documentary series Heart of the Matter. She was Chairman of the British Film Institute from 2000 to 2002.
She was appointed a CBE in 1999. Her autobiography, The Centre of the Bed, (ISBN 0-340-82310-0) was published in 2004. It describes at length her affair with Harold Pinter, while he was still married to the actress Vivien Merchant and she was still married to Michael Bakewell.