Hughie Green

Later that year, Claire married Upstairs, Downstairs actor David Langton. After separation from Claire, Green's drinking became more compulsive, while his affairs continued even during the height of his fame presenting Opportunity Knocks. Journalist Noel Botham approached Green to expose him, but Green countered with a lawsuit threat. Eventually the two became good friends.

Botham then became key in two stories in Green's life. The replacement producer for Opportunity Knocks after the failure of The Sky's the Limit was Jess Yates. Green grew frustrated by the lack of ITV's action to remove Yates when he requested and (ironically) leaked to Botham the stories of Yates's affair with the young actress Anita Kay, whose story, published in News of the World, destroyed Yates's career. After Green's death from lung cancer, Botham wrote the exposé story, also in the News of the World, of Green being the biological father of Jess Yates's daughter, TV presenter Paula Yates, a fact she had first learned after the tabloids printed the story (although Green being her father had been an "urban legend" for many years). Thus Green had four granddaughters that he never knew: Fifi, Peaches, and Pixie Geldof, and their younger half sister Tiger Lily Hutchence. Read Less

Right up until its final shows, Opportunity Knocks was a ratings hit that attracted 18 million viewers weekly. But Green, known for his right-wing politics, had decided he was bigger than the show format he devised and began politicising an apolitical family-friendly format. Read Less