Broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen has died at the age of 86, her family said in a statement.
The former presenter, known for hosting shows such as That’s Life!, established charities to help the young and old, and in recent years became a prominent voice in the campaign to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.
She passed away following a battle with lung cancer, first revealed in January 2023, with her family paying tribute the ‘most wonderful mother’ and ‘cherished grandmother’ who will be remembered for her ‘endless capacity for joy’.
She died surrounded by family at her home in the New Forest, a spokesperson confirmed.
Dame Esther revealed in December 2023 that she had joined Dignitas and would consider going there to end her life.
But earlier this month, she shared in a heartfelt statement that it was too late for her to ‘buzz off’ to the Swiss clinic as planned and revealed her anguish over loved ones being left to witness her suffering.
Dame Esther also criticised the ‘messy and cruel’ law in England and Wales which would criminalise loved ones who tried to help.
She said that despite having ‘spent the money and made the plans’ to go to Switzerland she was now ‘too physically fragile to make the journey’.
Her death came just weeks after the second reading of the Assisted Dying Bill – which she had heavily supported – was narrowly defeated in the House of Commons.
Dame Esther expressed sadness after the Bill was rejected – branding it a ‘tragic day’.
Broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen has died at the age of 86, her family said in a statement
Dame Esther with her husband Desmond Wilcox at the 53rd Bafta Film Award in 2000
Esther Rantzen made her final public appearance in June while celebrating her 85th birthday
The nation’s favourite beamed a wide smile alongside her daughter Rebecca Wilcox
Tonight her family revealed Dame Esther had penned a poignant message before her death, her children revealed today.
The message read: ‘Dear Everybody, I am so sorry I cannot send you each individual thanks for the fun, the support and the help you have been to me.
‘I have been immensely lucky in the friendship and the professional advice I have had from you which has enabled me to live such a long and happy life.
‘If any of you would like to donate something to charity in my name as a celebration of what we have had together, I do know that the Dignitas charity in Switzerland is facing serious challenges and would be very grateful.
‘And the Oakhaven Hospice in Lymington has also been wonderful to me. And Cathy would like me to pay tribute to Cats Protection of course.
‘Sadly, all good things come to an end, as they say. So I particularly wanted to say goodbye and thank you so very, very much. Perhaps I will see you eventually, on the other side. I do hope so. With very good wishes, as ever, Esther.’
Announcing the news of her death, her family shared poignant photographs of the TV personality in her last public appearance as she enjoyed an 85th birthday lunch with her loved ones.
A statement issued tonight by her children, Miriam Wilcox, Rebecca Wilcox and Joshua Wilcox said: ‘Our adored mother, Dame Esther Rantzen, died today. Her legacy of compassion and understanding will live on in her charities Childline and the Silverline, and through those of us who were lucky enough to love and be loved by her.
‘We are grateful she is finally at rest with her beloved husband, Desmond Wilcox, but we will miss her immeasurably. She was our sunshine.
‘We will always remember her endless capacity for joy, her ability to comfort every heartache, her beautiful way with words and her expert guidance in all things.
‘She was the most wonderful mother to us three children and a cherished grandmother to her five treasured grandchildren.
‘We have been so lucky for so long, no matter how much time we had with Mum it could be never be enough, but we are so grateful for our lives together.
‘Mum’s work with charities and campaigning, particularly for children, older people, and the terminally ill, meant the world to her so thank you to everyone who has written to her, shared their stories with her over the years and worked alongside her.
‘We hope the humour, ingenuity and audacity she brought to her work may continue to inspire you as it will do us. We kindly ask that we are given privacy and time to grieve.’
Tributes have since poured in for the ‘much-loved public figure’.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Dame Esther had ‘changed countless lives and gave a voice to people who often went unheard’.
Dignity in Dying, which worked with the broadcaster and campaigner to legalise assisted dying, said Dame Esther Rantzen had used her platform to ‘speak truth to power’.
In a statement, the charity said: ‘Dame Esther was a true force of nature whose compassion, tenacity and wit will be greatly missed. Our heartfelt condolences are with her family and loved ones.
‘Throughout her life, Dame Esther fought for people’s rights: for children, for older people and latterly, for dying people who needed more choice and compassion, a cause she championed right up to her death.
‘She spoke bravely about her experience and her family’s own pain, but only so that those without a public voice could be heard.
‘She used her platform to speak truth to power and gave a voice to so many other terminally ill and bereaved people across the country.
‘We owe Dame Esther and her daughter Rebecca Wilcox, broadcaster and inimitable campaigner, a huge debt of gratitude for their tireless efforts to challenge a status quo they saw was broken; efforts which undoubtedly helped bring the UK closer than ever before to a safe, compassionate assisted dying law.
‘In Dame Esther’s memory, and in the memory of too many others who have died while fighting for choice, we will not rest until dying people in this country finally have the choice and protection they want and need.’
Dame Esther Rantzen fronted That’s Life from 1973 until the show came off air in 1994
Dame Esther Rantzen with her husband, Desmond Wilcox, and their children Emily, Joshua and Rebecca in 1986
Dame Esther Rantzen at her home after being diagnosed with cancer
Dame Esther at home in Hampshire with her children and grandchildren
In one of the most memorable episodes of That’s Life, Esther Rantzen brought together scores of people who owed their lives to Sir Nicholas Winton
In an emotional moment watched millions of times since, Dame Esther said: ‘Is there anybody in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton? If so, can you stand up please.’ After a short pause, four rows stood up, leaving the retired stockbroker in tears
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater – who led the campaign to legalise assisted dying, said Dame Esther was ‘a strong, warm and compassionate woman and a fighter to the end’.
She said: ‘Like so many people all across the country, I felt that Esther was always a part of my life.
‘From growing up watching her on TV to seeing her work tirelessly for the causes she cared so passionately about, like ChildLine and The Silver Line, she has been a constant source of inspiration and admiration.
‘Her positivity and determination never to give in gave me strength, but more importantly helped all those others like her who were confronting a terminal illness to keep going in the knowledge that they were not alone.’
Senior Conservative MP and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel wrote on X: ‘From That’s Life! to launching the charity Childline to the many causes she championed, Dame Esther Rantzen was a remarkable journalist and campaigner.
‘She was compassionate and a much loved public figure the nation respected. May she rest in peace.’
Age UK chief executive Pail Farmer described Dame Esther as ‘a true inspiration’ and ‘spent her life working tirelessly to help others.’
Through the Silver Line Helpline, she had ‘helped to support thousands of lonely older people, making sure they have someone to talk to whenever they might need it’.
He says her dedication to older people was ‘unrivalled’, adding ‘we can never thank her enough’.
The beloved broadcaster was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2023 and subsequently told there was no prospect of being cured.
Dame Esther said she did not think she would live long enough to turn 84, but defied doctors’ expectations after being treated with an experimental drug.
The presenter, who was made a Dame in 2015, was best known as the face of long-running BBC consumer affairs show That’s Life! and for founding ChildLine and The Silver Line.
She had three children with her late producer husband Desmond Wilcox, who she had an affair with when he was her boss at the BBC.
Esther Louise Rantzen was born into a Jewish family in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, in June 1940, shortly after Britain’s humiliating retreat from Dunkirk in the face of the Nazis’ rampage through France.
One of her earliest memories was of standing in her cot aged around 18 months listening to the wail of air raid sirens.
When she was five, her parents – Harry and Katherine – decided to move the family, which included younger daughter Priscilla, back to the leafy suburbs of Hampstead in north London.
During the war, Dame Esther’s parents sponsored a Jewish boy who had fled Germany aged seven.
When Dame Esther was 10, her father was offered a job with the United Nations in New York and the family moved stateside for two years.
On their return, they moved back to Hampstead. Esther was educated at North London Collegiate in Edgware, an elite private school for girls.
Dame Esther remembered the excitement of being the first house on her street to get a television.
It was banished to the hall as her parents believed television ‘killed the art of conversation’.
Instead it was enjoyed by the paper boy, who would spend hours watching it through their letterbox.
The broadcaster described herself as a naughty child, a trait inherited from her mother. She recalled an occasion when she invited a friend who had ‘an anarchist husband’ to tea.
When her mother entered the room and he didn’t stand up, she tipped his chair forward.
Later in life Dame Esther said: ‘The importance of family and hearth and home is central to Judaism and to me.
‘My children will tell you I’m the archetypal Jewish mother. I have a little sign up in my house: ‘Mirror mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all.”
Dame Esther Rantzen on Good Morning Britain in 2020
Dame Esther Rantzen as a child. She spent two years living in America when she was young
Dame Esther, pictured right, aged four with her younger sister Cilla and their golden retriever Polly, 1944
Esther Rantzen recording an episode of Wagoners’ Walk in 1977
Her father also encouraged the rule-breaker and expected her and her sister to ‘have a career as if [they] were boys.’
Encouraged to go to university, she won a place at Oxford, where she studied English and appeared in plays and revues.
After graduating, Dame Esther was hired at the BBC in a radio sound effects department and then was taken on as a TV researcher.
She was given her first role on screen by Canadian star Bernard Braden, who had his own programme, Braden’s Week.
But it was in 1973 that Dame Esther received her big break with the creation of magazine show That’s Life!
She was handpicked as the star of the new show by her future husband, who was head of general features at the BBC.
Dame Esther and Wilcox met when she was on Braden’s Week. The producer was married with three children, but the pair could not help falling in love, she later recalled.
Their marriage in 1977 was followed by consternation among BBC colleagues.
Wilcox ended up resigning from his BBC job in 1980 amid accusations he had breached rules by employing his future wife.
But the couple were devoted to each other, to the extent Wilcox converted to Judaism.
The birth of their first daughter Emily in early 1978 was followed by the arrival of Rebecca in 1980 and then son Joshua in 1981.
Dame Esther’s career went from strength to strength. By the late 1970s, That’s Life!, which featured reports on consumer affairs often blended with satire, was pulling in an incredible 15million viewers.
One of That’s Life!’s most iconic episodes came in the 1988 episode when hero stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton was introduced to some of the people he had saved from death in the Holocaust.
In a tear-jerking moment watched millions of times since, Dame Esther said: ‘Is there anybody in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton? If so, can you stand up please.’
After a short pause, four rows of middle-aged people seated around the brave lifesaver stood up. All of them owed their lives to Sir Nicholas, who was knighted for in 2003.
Sir Nicholas stood up, acknowledged them all and then sat down to wipe away his tears.
The hero rescued 669 youngsters in Europe by organising Kindertransport trains that brought them to Britain before the outbreak of the Second World War.
He also organised flights that brought children out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the conflict.
By the 1990s, what had been the revolutionary formula of That’s Life! looked tired. Amid dwindling viewing figures, the show was axed in 1994.
Dame Esther had by then launched Childline, which grew out of 1986 programme Childwatch. It officially merged with the NSPCC in 2006 and still provides a support line for children and young people in danger or distress.
Following the success of the charity, she also set up The Silver Line in 2013, as way of helping older people combat loneliness and isolation. In 2019, the charity came under the umbrella of Age UK.
