Who was Hughie Green – Paula Yates’ biological father?

Many remember Hughie Green as the affable face of Opportunity Knocks, but the presenter’s legacy has not been spared by scandal. 

It was revealed after he died aged 77 in 1997, that the TV presenter was the biological father of Big Breakfast star Paula Yates, who later died of a heroin overdose in 2000. 

Up until then, it had been believed Paula’s father was ITV presenter Jess Yates, with whom Green had worked with earlier on in his career.  

At the time of his death from oesophageal cancer, Green was a household name, having become famous presenting a number of game shows on ITV, including the long-running Opportunity Knocks. 

But in his personal life, Green was painted as a ‘bully’ who terrorised his children, with his son Christopher telling the Daily Mail in 2008 that his father was a ‘s***’ who ‘hated women, was a weak man’ and was ‘homophobic.‘ 

Who was Hughie Green?

Born in Marylebone in London in 1920, the TV personality lived with his mother Violet Eleanore Green and his siblings in Meopham, Kent, while his Scottish father, Hugh Aitchison Green. was often on business in London, where he stayed at the Savoy. 

As a child, Hughie attended Arnold House, an all-boy school in the St Johns’ Wood of Westminster.

From a young age, he was encouraged by his father to take up a career in showbusiness to help with finances after the family business went bankrupt. 

By age 14, Hughie had his own BBC radio show and had created his own group of child performers, called ‘Hughie Green and his Gang,’ with whom he toured.  

Following a tour of Canada in 1935, he starred in his first movie, Midshipman Easy, and moved to Hollywood, starring in Tom Brown’s School Days and starring in a cabaret act at the Cocoanut Grove. 

Hughie was in North America at the start of the second World War and served as a pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force during the conflict across the Atlantic with the  RAF Ferry Command. 

After the war ended, Hughie returned to London, where he debuted the early version of Opportunity Knocks as a radio show for the BBC, which only lasted for one series because it was judged ‘too American.’

Green was a child star in Canada and the US, before taking his chance as a TV presenter in the 1950s in London 

In 1955, the presenter was propelled to fame thanks to the ITV show Double Your Money, which was the first of its kind, where contestants had to answer questions for a chance to win the prize money of £1,000.

In 1956, he debuted Opportunity Knocks for ITV as a touring radio talent show that lasted one series. The show returned in 1964, and remained on air until 1978. 

The show discovered numerous stars, including singer Frankie Vaughan and Les Dawson, Mary Hopkin and Pam Ayres. 

Opportunity Knocks was a hit with audiences until its very last episode, raking 18millions viewers per show. 

It was confirmed via DNA tests in 1997 that Green was the biological father of presenter Paula Yates, who died of a heroin overdose in 2000

At the height of his fame, far from the family-friendly image he kept onscreen, Hughie was having several affairs and was addicted to alcohol and several barbiturates. 

British tabloid Noel Botham tried to expose Green in an article for the now defunct News of the World, but Green threatened him with a lawsuit, eventually, the pair struck a friendship. 

Green used the show as a way to broadcast his right-wing political beliefs, including his support of the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and production company Thames Television eventually axed Opportunity Knocks in 1978 after receiving several viewer complaints.  

After he was sacked, Green’s other shows failed to take hold, and he moved to presenting international versions of Opportunity Knocks around the world, including in Ireland and in the USSR. 

Green’s son Christopher told the Daily Mail in 2008 that his father was homophobic, a weak man and that he hated women (pictured in 1987)

Green ended up ruined after losing a copyright battle he took up against the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation

One of Hughie’s other project, Sky’s The Limit, was a failure, and was discontinued after a short run. It continued airing in Grenada and Yorkshire until 1974, when Hughie had a falling out with producer Jess Yates.

Yates was the popular creator and presenter of the religious programme Stars on Sunday for Yorkshire Television, and was married to author Heller Toren, with whom he was raising their daughter, Paula Yates.  

That year, following Yorkshire Television’s refusal to access his demand to remove Yates, Hughie leaked to Botham that Yates had had an affair with the young actress Anita Kay. 

Yates had been separated from Torren at the time of the affair, but the fallout from the News of the World article exposing him was so that his career never recovered. 

In 1983, Hughie sued the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation for copyright infringement over their version of Opportunity Knocks, but lost, which left with with a legal bill of £250,000. 

The presenter spent his later years away from the spotlight and in solitude.  

Following years of heavy drinking and substance abuse, Hughie was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 1993 amd he was admitted to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea where he received treatment. 

By 1997, the cancer had spread to his lungs, and his died on May 3 of that year. 

Who are Hughie Green’s children? 

Hughie met his first wife, Montreal socialite Claire Wilson, in the mid-30s when they were teenagers. The pair married in 1942 and lived in Montreal before moving to London in 1947. 

They had two children, Christopher Green and daughter Linda Plentl, who later said that their family was ‘highly dysfunctional’ due to Hughie’s numerous affairs and narcissistic tendencies. 

The father-of-two would take himself on expensive holidays and would not spend Christmas with his family.  

Speaking of his father in 2008, Christopher told the Daily Mail: ‘My father was a s***, I make no bones about it.

‘He hated women. He was homophobic. He was a weak man. But he’d been abused as a child. His life was ruined by his parents by the time he was 14,’ he added. 

Pictured: Paula and Bob Geldof with Fifi, left, and Peaches Geldof as a baby in 1989. Paula died in 2000

Talking of his and his sister’s relationship with their father, Christopher said: ‘He couldn’t stand the sight of Linda and me, and we would cower under the blankets at night when we heard him returning home in one of his drunken rages.’

Claire and Hughie separated in 1961 and filed for divorce in 1975. Following his separation from his wife, Hughie multiplied affairs and became addicted to alcohol. 

British tabloid Noel Botham tried to expose Green in an article for the now defunct News of the World, but Green threatened him with a lawsuit, eventually, the pair struck a friendship. 

In 1997, following Green’s death from oesophageal cancer, Botham wrote an expose on the presenter in the News of the World, revealing that he was Paula Yates’ biological father. 

Paula, who was at the height of her fame at the time, learned of the news when the article was published. 

Heller Toren first denied the rumours, but eventually admitted having had an affair with Hughie, whilst insisting that Paula was Jess’s daughter. 

Botham’s claims were confirmed when the Big Breakfast presenter took a DNA test that stated she was indeed Hughie’s daughter and not Paul Yates’. 

Christopher Green, Hughie’s son, told the Independent at the time: ‘This is not the result we wanted or expected. We can’t walk away from Paula Yates.

‘My father let us down by never telling us about this while he was alive. Now we shall all suffer.’

The news was reportedly devastating for Yates, who had just lost her partner Michael Hutchence, the frontman of the rock band INXS, to suicide. 

She told The Sun at the time: ‘I’m horrified. I thought I was at the darkest point in my life – now this.’

After the DNA results were released, Paula told The Mirror she had ‘always loathed’ Hughie Green, whom she held responsible for wrecking Jess Yates’ TV career. 

‘To learn your real father is a man you have always despised is beyond comprehension,’ she said.

‘I loved Jess and never believed for one moment that the accusations made at Hughie Green’s funeral could be true – not for one second,’ she added. 

Paula admitted at the time she only consented to having the DNA test to disprove the rumours surrounding her paternity. 

After learning the identity of her biological father, she said that Hughie Green was nothing to her. 

Hughie also fathered an illegitimate child when he was 17 in 1937 with Vera Hands, a Birmingham usherette. 

Who are Hughie Green’s grandchildren?

Through his daughter Linda, Hughie had four granddaughters, Delia, Christina, Stephanie and Marina. 

Through Paula Yates, the presenter also counted four granddaughters: Fifi, Peaches and Pixie, whom Paula had with Bob Geldof, and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence, whom she had with Michael Hutchence. 

After Michael took his own life in 1997, and Paula died in 2000, Bob Geldof legally adopted Heavenly in 2007. 

From left to right: Fifi, Pixie and Peaches Geldof with Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, centre, in November 2004

Fifi with Bob Geldof, Pixie, Peaches and Tiger Lily in 2005 in London. Bob legally adopted Tiger Lily in 2007

The eldest of the Geldof daughters, Fifi, has been keeping a low profile and stays away from the limelight.  

Her sister Peaches, a socialite and author, died from a heroin overdose in 2014 aged 25.  

Pixie, the third daughter of Paula and Bob, is a singer-songwriter and DJ, and has also made headlines thanks to her activism.

Meanwhile, Heavenly, who is known as Tiger by her friends, is now 26, and a budding musician, just like her late father.