Anthony Clare, best known for his interviews of high-profile figures on the BBC Radio 4 programme, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair, has died.

Professor Clare, whose sympathetic yet unyielding style led many celebrities to divulge far more than they intended about their lives, had a heart attack in Paris. He was 64.

Those who sat in his chair paid tribute yesterday to a man hailed as having done more to demystify psychiatry and open up psychological medicine to the public than anyone since Sigmund Freud.

Claire Rayner, the former agony aunt who was reduced to fits of tears in a memorable interview as Clare probed her unhappy childhood, said that his Irish burr and demure manner had lulled her into a false sense of security.

She said: “At first I thought he was a sweet little leprechaun of a man. Some bloody leprechaun he turned out to be once I got in his chair. He was a tough individual and he got me at a bad time. He just went for me and reduced me to a jelly, which made me rather cross.

“At the time I thought people would never trust me again. It was a very uncomfortable experience. Even when I made it clear that I didn’t want to talk about something he still went there. I was a pool on the floor by the time he’d finished.”

Clare, who wrote several popular books on psychiatry, came to prominence in the 1970s on the Radio 4 programme Stop the Week, where he interviewed high-flyers about their past. This led to the commissioning of In the Psychiatrist’s Chair in 1982.

He was Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin and was due to retire from his post as consultant adult psychiatrist at St Edmondsbury hospital in Lucan, Co Dublin.

The programme produced many revelations. Bob Monkhouse, the comedian, broke down after admitting that his mother had not spoken to him for 20 years. Esther Rantzen, the television presenter, told him that she was “quite fat” as a teenager and had never thought of herself as attractive.

She said: “He was so focused; he never let you escape. I’m very used to talking about what I do and not who I am and I kept trying to escape down that alley and distract him with a joke, but he wasn’t having it. He wouldn’t let you escape. He was a very attractive man with his nice Irish voice and manner. You were gently lulled and in the end gave up and stopped struggling. It was a privilege to have taken part in that programme. From the point of view of seeing someone so skilled at the techniques he used, and the way he did it, it was fascinating.”

Edwina Currie, who revealed on the programme that she had not spoken to her father since she married a nonJew, hailed Clare as “a very genuine man and a great personality”.

She said: “He was like a sympathetic member of the family. It was as if he knew more than he was letting on but wanted to encourage his victim to talk about it. That meant you’d be far more likely to open up and forget that you were actually making a radio programme that millions of people would be listening to. Before I went on he said he had never done a politician before and thought we would be too good at watching what we say. He was right in that I didn’t give away anything I didn’t want to, but I talked for the first time in public about how my father had not come to my wedding.”

Mark Damazer, Controller of Radio 4, said: “Anthony Clare had a unique interviewing style and In the Psychiatrist’s Chair was a gold-standard Radio 4 programme. “He was perceptive, unafraid and yet courteous. It was a potent mix. His subjects were not in the chair to be belittled. But as his questioning unfolded the audience invariably discovered more about the thoughts and emotions of the famous. He was a terrific broadcaster.”

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