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Robert Wentworth John Holness (12 November 1928 – 6 January 2012) was a British radio and television presenter. He presented the British version of Blockbusters.
Holness joined the BBC as a presenter on Late Night Extra, initially on the BBC Light Programme and later on Radio 1 and Radio 2, presenting alongside Terry Wogan, Michael Parkinson and Keith Fordyce. From 1971, the show was broadcast solely on Radio 2. He moved to independent radio and co-presented the award-winning breakfast-time AM Programme alongside Douglas Cameron on London's LBC radio station between 1975 and 1985. Holness originally joined the station as an airborne traffic reporter, later progressing to reading networked news bulletins for IRN. He won the Variety Club Award for 'Joint Independent Radio Personality of the Year' in both 1979 and 1984.
From 1985 to 1997, Holness returned to Radio 2, presenting many shows including Bob Holness Requests the Pleasure and Bob Holness and Friends, as well as covering various weekday shows for holidaying presenters. From the late 1960s until 1998, he presented the request programme Anything Goes on the BBC World Service.
/ref> Holness starred in a celebrity special of Catchphrase in 1988, and later appeared again with his daughter, Carol, in a Christmas version of Family Catchphrase, he was also on the 1988 Christmas edition of Bullseye partnered with Eric Bristow. In 1990 he was the subject of This Is Your Life.
Holness hosted Yorkshire Television's big-budget game show flop Raise the Roof, in 1995, before becoming the chairman of a revived Call My Bluff for the BBC. Holness appeared on one episode of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway in 2004, when he presented the last round of Ant and Dec's Blockbusters, with Ant as a contestant.
Aside from presenting, Holness had an occasional acting career in television shows including Thriller, Rex the Runt and The Impressionable Jon Culshaw.
Holness gave his support to many charities, including the children's charities Teenage Cancer Trust, Young People's Trust for the Environment and National Children's Home (now Action for Children), of which he was vice-president from 1994.
On 24 November 2002, Holness suffered a major stroke, following which a brain scan revealed he had previously suffered a number of transient ischaemic attacks over several years. He also suffered from hearing loss. Holness was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2005. In the last few years of his life he suffered from vascular dementia and was cared for by his family at their home in Pinner until the last two weeks of his life when he entered Denville Hall nursing home. On 6 January 2012, Holness' family announced that he had died earlier that day, in his sleep, at the age of 83. His wife died on 26 June 2020 in Pinner, London. England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2021 database. GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire. He had seven grandchildren.
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