Chris Foote Wood pays tribute to sister Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood’s brother Chris Foote Wood has paid tribute to his sister Victoria, following her death yesterday aged 62.
Chris paid tribute on ITV’s Good Morning Britain to his sister Victoria who passed away yesterday following a terminal cancer diagnosis around six months ago.
In his first TV interview, speaking to Susanna Reid and Ben Shephard from County Durham, Chris said:
“It’s quite obvious that Victoria is even more loved by the public than perhaps we thought she was because in all her years that she’s been working in various endeavors the public have really taken her to their hearts and everything she’s done in the last 30 years has been very popular. People remember Victoria and her performances and that’s a wonderful thing that although we’ve lost her at a very early age, she’s left all this wonderful work behind that we can enjoy again and again.”
“I count myself as Victoria’s biggest fan… I was always bragging and boasting about her because I was so proud to have such a genius in the family. It’s been my great honour particularly from the earliest days when she struggled quite a lot to come across, because let’s remember she didn’t become famous overnight. She had quite a few years of struggle and difficulty, but it’s a credit to her absolute determination to push through and win her career from sheer hard work. Of course she had the genius there right from the start but it was her character that pulled her through.”
Speaking about Victoria’s decision to keep her cancer diagnosis private,
“She was very adamant that her private life was kept separate particularly in regards to bringing up her two children and I admire that. When it came to her final illness she was absolutely determined that it should not leak out, that it should be kept very private with her and her immediate family and obviously her wishes were complied with and that’s why with some respects it was such a shock when we found that she’d died because very few people knew that she had a terminal illness.”
Related Article: Remembering Victoria Wood
Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, also paid his own tribute to the comedian, singer, writer and actress.
“Victoria Wood was a woman with a stunning array of talents – a comedian, singer, songwriter, actress and director. People identified with her warmth and great charm. She brought people from all walks of life together and made them laugh and cry. She will be greatly missed and our thoughts are with her friends and family.”
While at the start of This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby paid tribute to Victoria Wood with Phillip noting the comedienne was a ‘remarkable woman’.
“Utterly and completely unique, so sharp, so good with words. A master of language… My wife worked with Victoria Wood in one of her series when they were doing Acorn Antiques and said that she was such a wonderful, generous lady… and actually – I don’t think Steph will mind me saying – but at that time in her life Steph was very young and just starting out and they were all discussing if Steph could afford rent or whatever it was, and Victoria said ‘I’ll sort you out, it’s fine’ and she lent her some money… so really such a sweet and lovely lady.”
Other tributes have been paid on Social Media including Julie Walters, long time collaborator with Victoria, who simply said she was “too heart sore to comment,” and noted “The loss of her is incalculable.”
BBC Two and UKTV channel Gold are to air repeats in tribute to Victoria Wood starting tonight at 7.30pm on BBC Two with the 2009 retrospective of Victoria’s work in Victoria Wood on TV. Gold begin repeating her sitcom Dinnerladies from 5.30pm on Saturday. They will also be re-screening Victoria Wood’s Mid-life Christmas over the weekend.
Wonderful lady. Lovely tribute by Manchester to rename the station Victoria Wood Station for a few hours.
Let’s do it, let’s do it tonight…