Angela Rippon /

Angela M. Rippon, OBE (born 12 October 1944, Plymouth, England) is an English television journalist, newsreader and presenter. Rippon's father was a Royal Marine, and she saw him for the first time in 1947 when he returned from World War II. Rippon attended a single-sex grammar school in Plymouth and was a Girl Guide. Upon leaving school at age 17, Rippon joined the photographic office of the Western Morning News and worked for the Sunday Independent. She then worked in BBC local radio and for Westward Television as an editor. Her presenting career started at the BBC in Plymouth. She is often erroneously stated to have been the first female newsreader on prime-time television news, on BBC2 in 1974 (later presenting the BBC's Nine O'Clock News), but ITN's Barbara Mandell predated her, having first appeared on the second night of ITV in 1955, and Nan Winton was the first to do so on the BBC, in 1960. However, Rippon was the first female newsreader to hold the job on a regular basis. She famously guest-starred in the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Christmas show, first appearing behind a newsdesk and then emerging to do a high-kicking dance routine. Her appearance was so popular she made a