Jack de Manio

Giovanni Batista "Jack" de Manio[1] MC and Bar (26 January 1914 – 28 October 1988) was a British journalist, best known as a radio presenter.

In 1958 de Manio was chosen to present the morning current affairs programme Today, which had begun a few months earlier.

The programme was less hard news oriented than it would eventually become and was well suited to de Manio's relaxed, humorous style.

The World at One had successfully brought to the BBC the best of Fleet Street values and a hardened newspaper editor in the form of William Hardcastle.

Hardcastle contrasted unflatteringly with de Manio, whom David Hendy described in Life on Air: A History of Radio 4 as "a Bentley-driving habitué of Chelsea and the clubs of St James, complete with a rich gin and tonic voice".

He was married for a second time in 1947 in Chelsea, London, to Loveday Elizabeth Matthews, a widow (née Abbott), (2 February 1917 – April 1999).