Joan Bakewell, 91, reveals she regrets being known as ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ after creating a ‘frivolous’ stereotype as a 60s sex symbol
- Do YOU have a story? Email tips@dailymail.com
Veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell has said she regrets being known as ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ because her image created a stereotype of a ‘frivolous girl with short skirts’.
The TV presenter was given the nickname in the 1960s, which stuck for years, after appearing on the groundbreaking BBC2 discussion program Late Night Line-Up.
She was one of the relatively few prominent female TV presenters in the 1960s, appearing on air in fashionable clothes, such as chic dresses and miniskirts, becoming a sex symbol over the course of the decade.
But in a speech about her career in broadcasting, Dame Joan, 91, said she didn’t like being judged on her appearance, saying it made her feel like the things she cared about didn’t matter to people did.
Speaking at the Royal Television Society/The Media Society’s Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture, she said: ‘I was one of the first women to appear on television. And with that goes the attention of Fleet Street, which isn’t particularly attractive, and I got a label that stuck with me for a long time, until I got too old for it.
Joan Bakewell has said she regrets being known as ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ because her image created a stereotype about a ‘frivolous girl in short skirts’ (pictured with Stephen Mangan in April)
The presenter was given the nickname in the 1960s after appearing on the groundbreaking BBC2 discussion program Late Night Line-Up (pictured in 1967)
“But there were a lot of articles about my short skirts and my hair and things like that.”
She added, “I was getting the kind of attention that was focused on where I didn’t want it, and I had to put up with it. It really wasn’t appropriate to come out and complain.
‘Now young women would go to court and say: that is damaging my career.’
Dame Joan, who has presented art shows for Sky in recent years, said at the time that the press allegedly told her the coverage “enhanced” her career.
The Labor peer added: ‘I kind of put up with it, and years later I was quite sorry that it created this kind of whimsy about a frivolous girl in short skirts.
‘Well, that was the fashion, and I suppose it didn’t do me any harm, but it didn’t make me feel like what I cared about mattered, which was ideas, people, conversations, the benefits of television, the good . it could do, the good we could do in the world.”
She said that despite her discomfort, she “swept through all the talk about short skirts” to get her message across.
Bakewell added: “I certainly have plenty to be grateful for. It was a great era. There was a lot of freedom, but also a lot of restrictions.’
In the 1960s she was jokingly labeled “the thinking man’s crumpet” by comedy writer and TV star Frank Muir, but the name stuck.
But speaking about her career in broadcasting, Joan said she felt uncomfortable being judged on her appearance (pictured in 2020)
In an earlier interview, she said she was not “offended” by the label, but that feminists felt she had “sold out” by not being “outraged.”
She told The Guardian that people had pressured her in 2016 to denounce Muir over the comment, but she said he was a “sweetheart” who would have “dissolved in shame” if she had done so.
In another interview, she had described it as a “silly comment” from someone who was her friend.
Bakewell famously had an affair with the playwright Harold Pinter in the 1960s. Pinter wrote the 1978 drama Betrayal about their secret affair.
Last year, Bakewell revealed she had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.