Eye-popping ambition that has made Susanna Reid TV's flirtiest woman: But her dad's friend asks - is she demeaning herself on Strictly?
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Former TV newsreader Angela Rippon is among the guests and spies a knot of nicely groomed young women.
‘So you must be the secretaries, then?’ she asks, not unkindly.
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Stealing the limelight: Susanna Reid with dance partner Kevin Clifton on Strictly Come Dancing
One of the group, Susanna Reid, demurs with polite embarrassment. She is with her friends, a business journalist and a BBC executive, and at the time was three years into her job as a part-time presenter on BBC Breakfast.
Perhaps she went back to her South London terrace home that night and reflected that she wasn’t quite famous, yet. This situation, however, has been remedied — and thoroughly.
For thanks to an extraordinary series of eye-catching episodes, followed by her participation as a contestant in Strictly Come Dancing, 42-year-old Susanna has left that obscurity firmly behind her.
In the past few months she has attracted attention for flashing her knickers on the Breakfast sofa — at 6.50am, which caused some consternation. (For the record, they were a faintly brazen zebra-print design, and no doubt made some viewers swallow their cornflakes the wrong way.)
There was an interview with Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner — all giggles and hair-flicking with a man more than 15 years her junior — that drew criticisms of outright flirting. Viewers took to social media sites to express their astonishment. One said: ‘So much sexual tension in that Alex Turner interview.’
Eye-popping: Miss Reid has dismissed comments about her cleavage saying viewers seem to be perpetually amazed that women have breasts
Others wrote: ‘The interview was the flirtiest thing I’ve ever seen. Felt like quietly tiptoeing out of the room’; and: ‘It was like ear-wigging on a clandestine tryst.’
Meanwhile, eyebrows are often raised over her on-screen outfits which, perhaps surprisingly for a highly intelligent old girl of St Paul’s Girls’ School and a mum-of-three, make much of her cleavage.
Social media sites buzz with discussion about her necklines, but she briskly dismisses such talk by saying she is amazed anyone thinks her chest is remarkable. Indeed, she says sternly, viewers seem to be perpetually amazed that women have breasts.
However, now she is appearing on Strictly, fake-tanned and encrusted with spangles, such frivolous talk about the glamorous Susanna is only growing.
For serious Susanna is stepping out into the limelight as never before.
The path from hard news to light entertainment is, of course, well-trodden. Among others, she is following in the footsteps of newsreaders Angela Rippon, Natasha Kaplinsky and Kate Garraway.
Indeed, performing a pasa doble on a Saturday night is a well-recognised career-maker, even if some grumble it’s not very dignified.
Susanna’s father, Barry, told me this week his daughter’s pursuit of the spangly, glamorous end of showbusiness can prove confusing to some, but should not be regarded as cheap — simply a mark of her ambition.
Barry, who lives in Westerham, Kent, said: ‘A chap at the golf club said to me: “Isn’t she demeaning herself rather on Strictly?” And I said: “Not a bit.” You see, she really wanted to do it. The fame doesn’t bother her. She copes with the attention very well.’
He added: ‘I can tell you that she did prepare her CV carefully so that she would end up doing exactly the job that she is now doing. It has always been her ambition.’
Raunchy routines: Miss Reid rehearsing a jive with dance partner Kevin Clifton, ahead of her first dance on Strictly Come Dancing
Indeed, the rise and rise of Miss Reid — whose jive was one of the highlights of Strictly last weekend — is an impressive story of almost unqualified success.
Born in Purley in 1970 to Barry, a management consultant, and his nurse wife, Susanna is the youngest of three children.
She went to the independent Croham Hurst School in Croydon — a fellow pupil was Great British Bake Off presenter Sue Perkins — then to fee-paying Croydon High, and finally to St Paul’s in London. A contemporary remembers her as ‘a serious young woman — like we all were’. Highly intelligent, she found the teachers inspiring. Those who have marvelled at her twinkle toes will not be surprised to learn that there was always more to her than academic ability, though.
Her father said: ‘She was very into her ballet as a girl, from a tot onwards really. She did dancing locally at dance schools. Then she got into reading poetry, which is probably where she gained the confidence for news presenting.’
Indeed, as a teenager Susanna was a budding thespian. Her father recalls stage appearances in Bromley as a young teenager, and she landed a role in a Channel 4 drama serial, The Price, with actress Harriet Walter, filmed in Ireland. ‘She was 13 or 14 and we used to wave her off,’ he recalled.
However, the precarious acting trade wasn’t for her. ‘I loved acting but I didn’t pursue it because so few actors succeed,’ Susanna said.
She then set her sights on a role at the BBC. Her dad remembers her telling the Young Vic that she wasn’t able to commit to a role in one of their productions because she was heading to university, and then on to a career in broadcasting.
She read Politics, Philosophy and Law at Bristol, before taking a postgraduate course in journalism at Cardiff. Her father says, with evident pride: ‘Susanna learnt her trade absolutely properly.’
Her career at the BBC began at Radio Bristol. She became a reporter for Radio 5 Live, moving to News 24 and then BBC Breakfast in 2003. While at News 24, she met sports producer Dominic Cotton.
‘The first time we went out, I knew we’d be together,’ Susanna later said. ‘We were in the pub with friends and they just kind of disappeared. I said to him: “I know we’re going to have children together.” He said: “We’d better go out on a date then!”.’
The couple bought a home and had three sons, now aged 12, nine and eight. They have never married, and Susanna blames the trauma of her parents’ divorce. They separated when she was nine and she remembers how she cried endlessly.
‘I was a commitment-phobe until I met Dominic, but I’ve learnt a lot,’ she says. ‘He’s very supportive and accepts why I don’t want to get married. I had a choppy childhood after my parents divorced. I want us to do it our way.’
His has been the less stellar career of the two — a few years into her tenure on BBC Breakfast, he stopped working as a sports correspondent and is now the director of a charity.
On the go: Susanna Reid, pictured on the BBC Breakfast sofa, remains living in London with her family and makes a daily commute to Manchester
They share childcare, all the more so since BBC Breakfast moved north to Salford last year.
Several of Susanna’s colleagues — among them Sian Williams and Chris Hollins — quit rather than uproot their families.
But Susanna agreed to a ‘super-commute’ — she travels to Manchester by train after giving her children tea and supervising homework, and then sleeps in a BBC-subsidised hotel room before rising at 4.10am and going to the studio.
After the show, she catches the train back to London and is home for the afternoon school run.
It speaks volumes about her ambition that she would undertake such a gruelling schedule three times a week, and stresses the importance of her family, too.
‘I knew this was an opportunity for me to take on a fantastic role as lead presenter with Bill Turnbull on Breakfast,’ she said. ‘We thought relocating would be an option, but actually, rather than moving everyone, I can just go up and down.’
Susanna is ‘well-regarded’ as a key figure in the programme’s success — it attracts between 1.5 million and 1.8 million viewers, far more than ITV’s Daybreak.
During the show, she sometimes asks for snacks by using semaphore during off-screen moments — drawing a circle in the air if she wants a digestive; if she wants a chocolate Club biscuit, she draws a rectangle. Among colleagues, she is known as a presenter who is ‘not grand’ and will do pretty much whatever she is asked.
In 2009, for instance, at the BBC’s suggestion, she presented coverage of the Oscars wearing a £20 Oxfam dress. Later that year, she joined fellow news girls Fiona Bruce, Sophie Raworth and Kate Silverton to perform a Beyonce-inspired dance routine for Children In Need. It was noted that Susanna was the best mover — though she modestly shrugged off praise as ‘deluded’.
I’m told that both she and her Breakfast co-presenter Bill Turnbull went for the job of hosting BBC TV’s Songs Of Praise earlier this year, and she was saddened when it went to him.
Naturally, with the morning job, the commute and now Strictly — for which she is receiving a £25,000 fee — there is even more of a squeeze on her time than usual.
Her dance partner, Kevin Clifton, has commuted up to Manchester to fit in more practice time.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the ultra-competitive Susanna has reconciled herself to the possibility that she may not win.
After all, viewers so far seem to prefer the out-and-out glamour of lingerie model Abbey Clancy, while the judges have been impressed by Coronation Street’s Natalie Gumede.
But considering her formidable work ethic, flirty Susanna is still far from an outside bet. There can be no doubt Angela Rippon knows exactly who she is now!
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2445071/Eye-popping-ambition-Susanna-Reid-TVs-flirtiest-woman-But-dads-friend-asks--demeaning-Strictly.html#ixzz2grMLKt3F
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