Baroness Bakewell is president of Birkbeck, University of London; she is an author and playwright, and has been awarded Humanist of the year for services to humanism.
24 Facts About Joan Bakewell
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Joan Bakewell was born on 16 April 1933 in Heaton Moor, Stockport, Cheshire, England, and moved to Hazel Grove before she was three.
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Joan Bakewell's great-grandfather moved to Salford, where he was a preacher in the Church Army.
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Joan Bakewell won a scholarship and attended Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, where she studied Economics, then History, and joined the Marshall Society and the Mummers Acting Society.
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Joan Bakewell began her career as a studio manager for BBC Radio, before moving into television.
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Joan Bakewell then left after a year to try supply teaching.
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Joan Bakewell then became an advertising copywriter with McCann Erickson, then with Hobson Bates, and later David Williams Ltd.
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Joan Bakewell first became known as one of the presenters of the BBC2 programme Late Night Line-Up.
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Joan Bakewell starred in 4 series of Granada's pioneering Reports Action, a series that first encouraged the public to contribute goods and services to good causes.
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Joan Bakewell switched to being the main presenter of the ethics documentary series Heart of the Matter, which she presented for 12 years.
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In 2001, Joan Bakewell wrote and presented a four-part series for BBC Two called Taboo, a personal exploration of the concepts of taste, decency and censorship.
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On 26 May 2008, Joan Bakewell introduced an archive evening on BBC Parliament called Permissive Night.
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In 2017, Joan Bakewell was one of the minor hosts of the Channel 5 documentary series Secrets of the National Trust.
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Joan Bakewell writes for the British newspaper The Independent in the 'Editorial and Opinion' section.
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Joan Bakewell is chairman of the theatre company Shared Experience.
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In September 2017, Joan Bakewell was elected co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, the cross-party group which represents humanists in Parliament.
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In 2008, Joan Bakewell criticised the absence of older women on British television.
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Joan Bakewell was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1999 Birthday Honours and was Chairman of the British Film Institute from 2000 to 2002.
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Joan Bakewell was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
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On 20 July 2011, Joan Bakewell was made an honorary graduate at the University of Essex.
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Joan Bakewell has received honorary degrees from Queen Margaret's University Edinburgh, Royal Holloway London, University of the Arts, Staffordshire University, Lancaster University, Newcastle University, Open University and Manchester Metropolitan University.
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Joan Bakewell was made an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge in 2016.
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In January 2023, Joan Bakewell announced that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer.
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The Joan Bakewell Archive is housed at the British Library.