Jill Wendy Dando was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation’s Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, her television work included co-presenting the BBC One programme Crimewatch with Nick Ross. She was shot dead outside her home in Fulham, southwest London, on 26 April 1999.
About Jill Dando in brief
Jill Wendy Dando was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation’s Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, her television work included co-presenting the BBC One programme Crimewatch with Nick Ross. She was shot dead outside her home at 29 Gowan Avenue, Fulham, southwest London, on 26 April 1999. It prompted the biggest murder inquiry conducted by the Metropolitan Police and the country’s largest criminal investigation since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. A local man, Barry George, was convicted and imprisoned for the murder, but was later acquitted after an appeal and retrial. The case remains unsolved. Her only sibling, brother Nigel, worked as a journalist for BBC Radio Bristol before retiring in 2017. She had a hole in her heart and a blocked pulmonary artery, and had heart surgery on 12 January 1965. Dando’s first job was as a trainee reporter for the local weekly newspaper, the Weston Mercury, where her father and brother worked. In early 1988, Dando moved from regional to national television in London to present BBC television news, specifically the short on-the-hour bulletins that aired on both BBC1 and BBC2 from 1986 until the mid-1990s. On 25 April 1999, she presented the first episode of Antiques Inspectors, and was scheduled to present the Six O’Clock News on the evening of the following day.
The series had made its debut on 25 April, with filming of the final episode completed two days before that. The final episode aired on 24 October, and it was later decided later in the year that it should be aired as a tribute to the presenter. In December 1997, she met gynaecologist Simon Farthing on a blind date set up by a mutual friend. A couple announced that they were engaged on 31 January 1999, and their wedding was set to take place on 25 September. She left Farthing’s home in Chiswick in April 1999 and returned alone, but did not live in the house she owned in Fulham. She then had a brief relationship with national park warden Simon Basil in 1989 to 1989. In the late 1990s, she had a relationship with BBC executive Bob Wheaton. She also had a short-term relationship with TV presenter Michael Parkinson. On 5 September, BBC One resumed airing Antiques inspectors, the final series to be recorded by Dando. The programme was subsequently cancelled following her death but it was subsequently aired as an attempt to aid the police in the search for her killer. She died in September 1999, aged 37-year-old Dando left behind a husband and three children. She is survived by her brother Nigel and her mother, Winifred Mary Jean Dando, who died of leukaemia aged 57.
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This page is based on the article Jill Dando published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 11, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
