Nigella Lawson
The Honourable Nigella Lucy Lawson (born
6 January,
1960) is a
English journalist,
cookery writer and television presenter. Lawson grew up in a
Jewish family; she is the daughter of politician
Lord Lawson and sister of
Dominic Lawson, the former editor of
The Sunday Telegraph. She became a newspaper reviewer on
Breakfast with Frost.
Her mother was socialite Vanessa Salmon, heir to the
Lyons Corner House empire; she died of
liver cancer in 1985. Her sister, Thomasina, died of
breast cancer in 1993 while in her early thirties.
Lawson attended
Godolphin and Latymer School and
Westminster School before graduating from
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford with a degree in Medieval and Modern Languages. She then wrote a restaurant column for the
Spectator before becoming deputy literary editor of the
Sunday Times in 1986.
She has had two television cooking series broadcast in the UK on
Channel 4:
Nigella Bites in 2001 and
Forever Summer with Nigella in 2002, both of which have accompanying recipe books. She hosted a daytime TV programme on
ITV1 titled
Nigella! in which celebrity guests joined her in the kitchen. The show was not well received by critics and ended after a short run. Besides her own cookbooks, Nigella is featured in
Off Duty, The World's Greatest Chefs Cook at Home (2005). A third series called
'Nigella Feasts', based on her book
Feast, is scheduled to begin filming for the USA's
Food Network for Fall 2006 airing.
Her style of presentation is sometimes gently mocked by comedians and commentators (particular a regularly occurring impersonation of her in the
BBC television comedy series
Dead Ringers) who perceive that she plays overtly upon her attractiveness and sexuality as a device to engage viewers of her cookery programmes, despite Lawson's repeated denials that she does so.
She was married to journalist
John Diamond, with whom she had two children, Cosima and Bruno. Diamond died of
throat cancer in 2001. They had met in 1986 when they were both writing for
The Sunday Times. She married
Charles Saatchi (17 years her senior) in September
2003. Lawson came under some criticism when it was discovered that she started her affair with Saatchi before the death of Diamond, albeit with his consent.
According to
UKTV Food Lawson is worth in excess of £1.7 million.
Her first biography,
Nigella Lawson by Gilly Smith, was published by Andre Deutsch in September 2005. The paperback, subtitled "A Very British Dish", will be published in the summer of 2006.
On
18 July 2006, the
BBC announced that Lawson would be one of the participants in the third series of their documentary series
Who Do You Think You Are?, Chatto and Windus, (1999) or John Wiley & Sons, (ISBN 0471257508, 2002)
How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701168889, 2000)
Nigella Bites, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701172878, 2001)
Forever Summer with Nigella, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701173815, 2002)
Forever Summer, Hyperion, (ISBN 1401300162, 2003)
Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701175214, 2004) or Hyperion (ISBN 1401301363, 2004)
*
Nigella Lawson's official website*
itv.com - Nigella!*
itv.com - Upclose - Interview with Nigella Lawson*
Biography from
Channel 4*
Biography from
Style Network*
NPR:
Interview from May 2004Business Week:
Interview from November 2002GQ:
Interview from January 2001The Guardian:
Interview from December 2000*
Nigella's Kitchen ~ Unofficial fan site*
List of British Jews*
Domestic goddess
