her “legacy of compassion and understanding”<\/a> will live on in the charities she founded and in those “lucky enough to love and be loved by her”.<\/p>\nPrime Minister Andy Burnham is among the many to have paid tribute, saying Rantzen “changed countless lives” through her “decades of campaigning”. <\/p>\n
TV stardom<\/p>\n
Rantzen initially found fame as host of consumer programme That’s Life! in 1973, which became an almost instant hit and ran for 21 series – drawing more than 20 million viewers at its peak. <\/p>\n
She later went on to host her own BBC talk show, Esther, appeared in the second series of Strictly Come Dancing and was inducted into the Royal Television Society’s hall of fame in 1997.<\/p>\n
Charity founder<\/p>\n
Outside of TV, Rantzen founded Childline in 1986, a charity that offers a private and confidential helpline for children, and The Silver Line in 2013 to support older people tackle feelings of loneliness and isolation.<\/p>\n
In later life, Rantzen became a vocal advocate for assisted dying after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2023, saying the UK’s laws on the matter were “messy and cruel” and “must change quickly”.<\/p>\n
‘Fighter to the end’<\/p>\n
Others to have paid tribute include Kim Leadbeater, the MP who led an attempt to legalise assisted dying, who described Rantzen “strong, warm” and a “fighter to the end”. <\/p>\n
Rantzen’s former boss, ex-BBC One controller Michael Grade, said: “I”ve lost a friend, and the nation has lost one of the great broadcasting pioneers.” <\/p>\n
We are pausing our live coverage for now, you can hear more about Rantzen’s long and varied career and life in our full online article <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dame Esther Rantzen, broadcaster and campaigner, dies aged 86published at 22:42 BST 30 September 22:42 BST 30 September…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-788024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"File](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1790818331_305_c4da1f34-18d0-41ca-b6a9-2fa2c05981d9.jpg.webp\")
Image source, PA Media<\/p>\n