Bill Hagerty. Picture: Reach PLC
Former Sunday Today and The People editor Bill Hagerty has died aged 86 after a 70-year career spanning showbusiness, theatre and sports coverage.
Hagerty was called “a titan of our industry” by The Sun’s editor-in-chief Victoria Newton in the paper’s coverage of his death .
Doug Wills, chair of the London Press Club, said: “Such sad news. Bill was a doyen of all things journalistic. Particularly for me in recent years as a former chair of judges of the London Press Club Awards and the Hugh Cudlipp Award. We will miss him greatly.”
Hagerty began his career aged 16 with the Walthamstow Post, followed by the Reynolds News, which in 1962 became the Sunday Citizen.
He then moved to the Daily Sketch and then the Mirror group, where he worked as assistant editor of the Daily Mirror , Sunday Mirror and The People.
As showbusiness editor of the Daily Mirror, Hagerty interviewed famous names including: John Wayne, Richard Burton, Michael Caine, Roger Moore, Gene Kelly, Neil Diamond, Sammy Davis Jr and Joan Collins.
He departed the Mirror group in 1985, moving on to Today as managing editor and, from 1987, editor of Sunday Today.
This was followed by a stint as deputy editor of the Sunday Mirror in 1988, before becoming deputy editor and subsequently acting editor of the Daily Mirror in 1990.
In 1991, Hagerty assumed the role of editor of The People, where he broke the story of Conservative minister David Mellor’s adulterous relationship with the actress Antonia de Sancha in 1992.
Hagerty’s career then took a turn towards arts coverage, becoming theatre critic at The Sun followed by editor of British Journalism Review in 2002, and chairman of the journal a decade later.
He also edited all eight volumes of the diaries of Alastair Campbell, former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Downing Street press secretary, published between 2010 to 2021.
“He was so professional, he paid such attention to detail, I couldn’t have asked for anybody better,” Campbell once said.
In October 2023, he was awarded the Journalist Laureate prize by the London Press Club. It was awarded for his lifetime of work both as a journalist and as an ambassador for journalism.
Hagerty was married to the former Mirror journalist Liz Vercoe, who survives him alongside children Will, 55, a journalist, Faith, 50, a teacher, and Adam, 32, a documentary filmmaker, and five grandchildren.
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