Retirement and Legacy
Norden announced his retirement from his two long-running ITV shows It'll be Alright on the Night and Laughter File on 21 April 2006 because of his age (84) and also because of poor health.
A special show was recorded on 14 May 2006 as a 'farewell tour' to all his shows over the years, called All the Best from Denis Norden, which was shown on 2 January 2007. As the show's closing credits were shown, the studio audience gave Norden a standing ovation, which was followed by Norden placing his trademark clipboard on his desk, which the camera then zoomed in on to as the credits ended. He has since been succeeded on It'll be Alright on the Night by Griff Rhys Jones, as that show resumed in September 2008.
For years, he was resistant to producing an autobiography, claiming that much of his life and career had already been well covered by Frank Muir's A Kentish Lad and that a book called The Bits Frank Left Out would be too brief. Nevertheless, in October 2008, a book containing a sequence of autobiographical sketches was published entitled Clips from a Life.
He continues to make occasional television and radio appearances. He contributed to a BBC Four season about the history of satire, and he appeared as a guest on The One Show on 2 October 2008 to talk about his life and career as well as his book. He was interviewed in a one-off documentary Der Sommer 1939 ("The Summer of 1939"), which was broadcast on 12 August 2009 on the German television station Arte.
Norden also appeared as part of a contribution of showbiz friends, writers and performers in the BBC Documentary, The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse in January 2011.
He and his wife Avril have a son, Nick, an architect, and a daughter, Maggie, a radio personality and lecturer at the London College of Fashion. Maggie was a presenter on London's Capital Radio in its earlier days and presented the Sunday afternoon programme "Hullabaloo".
Norden suffers from macular degeneration. In March 2009, he joined Peter Sallis and Eric Sykes as a patron of the Macular Disease Society.
Read more about this topic: Denis Norden
Famous quotes containing the words retirement and, retirement and/or legacy:
“Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man’s enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)