Mavis Nicholson has died aged 91.
The television interviewer, broadcaster and writer was best known for Mavis on 4 and Afternoon Plus.
Her grandson Ben Nicholson confirmed the tragic news of her passing on Saturday 10th September.
“I am incredibly sad to confirm that my grandmother Mavis Nicholson passed away on Thursday,” he wrote on Twitter. “She was a force of nature, an incredible broadcaster, so open-hearted and interested in everyone. She was also my Nana and I miss her like mad. Hope she’s with my granddad Geoff now.”
I am incredibly sad to confirm that my grandmother Mavis Nicholson passed away on Thursday. She was a force of nature, an incredible broadcaster, so open-hearted and interested in everyone. She was also my Nana and I miss her like mad. Hope she’s with my granddad Geoff now. pic.twitter.com/DN7seKEx7T
— Ben Nicholson (@BRNicholson) September 10, 2022
Mavis was born in Briton Ferry near Swansea in the 1930s before becoming a student at Swansea University where she met her future husband, Geoffrey Nicholson.
The pair moved to London and Nicholson worked as a journalist on women’s magazines, including Nova, in the 1960s.
Her second career as a broadcaster began when she appeared on Thames Television’s news magazine programme Today, fronted by Eamonn Andrews, as a guest and was then asked by executive Jeremy Isaacs to come back on air regularly.
Nicholson went on to join an afternoon weekly programme, Tea Break, alongside Jill Tweedie, Judith Chalmers, Mary Parkinson and Rita Dando.
She then hosted various British television programmes such as Good Afternoon and Afternoon Plus. In the 1970s to the 1990s, she hosted Mavis on 4 where she interviewed celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, David Bowie, Kenneth Williams, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
When Michael Grade axed Mavis on 4 in 1988, he was suspected of mistreating an older woman on television and letters poured in accusing him of ageism, which he denied in a letter to the Times.
The BBC took Nicholson on to host the television daytime phone-in Open Air.
In 1991, Nicholson returned to Channel 4 to present further series including Third Wave, Moment of Crisis and In with Mavis.
She continued to front TV and radio shows in the ’90s but also returned to writing, publishing autobiography Martha Jane and Me: A Girlhood in Wales (1991), as well as penning an agony aunt column in The Oldie magazine.
In 2016, BBC Wales ran a documentary as tribute to Nicholson’s life and career.
Nicholson’s husband Geoffrey died in 1999. She is survived by their sons and five grandchildren.