Paul O'Grady

For the Australian soccer player, see Paul O'Grady (footballer).

Paul O'Grady
File:PaulOGrady.jpg Paul O'Grady presenting his Channel 4 series, The New Paul O'Grady Show
Born	(1955-06-14) June 14, 1955 Birkenhead, Wirral, Cheshire (now Merseyside)England
Occupation(s)	Television presenter, comedian
Height	6 ft 1 in (186 cm)
Children	Sharyn

Paul James O'Grady (born 14 June 1955) is an English comedian and television personality. He is the creator of comic drag character Lily Savage (the "Birkenhead Bombsite"), a vampish Liverpudlian woman. He is noted for his strong Scouse accent.

Biography

Born in Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, O'Grady was brought up in an Irish Catholic household in Tranmere. He attended Blessed Edward Campion School, Birkenhead. When he was 19, he worked as a clerk in a magistrate's court and met a woman ten years his senior, with whom he had a daughter, Sharyn. Three years after his daughter was born, Paul wed a Portuguese lesbian waitress called Maralyn Sydie in a marriage of convenience.

His jobs have included civil servant, barman for Yates Wine Lodge, office work in an abattoir and a woodsman. He has also worked in a children's home in Kirkby and spent some years as a peripatetic care officer for Camden council. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2006 he was listed in The Guardian as one of the most powerful men in media.

Lily Savage

File:Lilysavage 1.jpg

Paul O'Grady's alter-ego, Lily Savage

In 1977, Paul went to Manila where he worked as a waiter in Gussy's Bar (also a brothel). It was here he got the idea for Lily Savage, his now famous drag alter-ego. He returned to London in the early 1980s and subsequently achieved fame with his creation of Lily, initially playing to gay clubs and pubs up and down the country. Lily was best known at the time for her eight year residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London He was in numerous double and treble acts such as 'High Society' with Adrella {Peter Searle}, 'L.S.D.' with David Dale and Sandra Hush (David Hunter), The Playgirls, again with Hunter and The Glamazons with Paul Banks, a former nurse. He toured Europe with some of these acts, appearing at Madame Arthurs in Denmark and various night clubs and theatres in Germany, Finland, Sweden, Holland, France and Israel. After appearing at The Edinburgh Festival, for which he was nominated for a Perrier Award, he became more mainstream. Lily first became popular on television, making appearances on ITV daytime programme This Morning, and as the 'On the Bed Presenter' on The Big Breakfast. Lily was given several shows, by both BBC and ITV, and although they achieved reasonable ratings, they weren't the huge hits that either channel was hoping for. For a few years Lily hosted the game show Blankety Blank for the BBC and later for ITV, as well as her own comedy show Lily Live! with ITV in 2000. Lily Savage also co-hosted the 1996 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party with Ant & Dec. In an interview O'Grady stated that Lily Savage was now living in a convent in Brittany.

The character of Lily Savage is often compared with former Coronation Street pub landlady Bet Lynch, and it is often rumoured that Savage's appearance was based on the character's; though this has never been confirmed.

Theatre

As well as numerous national tours, O'Grady has appeared on stage in Prisoner Cell Block H - The Musical, the musical Annie as "Miss Hannigan", Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as "the Childcatcher" and in the panto Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as the "Wicked Queen". He has been quoted as saying 'I seem to be making a living frightening children'

Television

O'Grady played a prostitute snout called Roxanne in several episodes of The Bill between 1988 and 1990.

In 2000 he appeared in a travelogue show as himself, entitled "Paul O'Grady's Orient", which was followed in 2001 by "Paul O'Grady's America". These were amongst his first major television appearances out of drag. From 2002 onwards, he has appeared less as Lily and more often as himself. In 2002 he presented Outtake TV, a bloopers show, and in 2003 starred as the lead character in the BBC sitcom "Eyes Down" for two series, as the vicious yet hilarious manager of a northern Bingo hall. He also appeared in Celebrity Driving School for the BBC.

Since then, he has had success as the presenter of his own early evening talk show, The Paul O'Grady Show, on ITV. He won the position after he stood in for Des O'Connor on the now defunct lunchtime celebrity chat show Today with Des and Mel. The Paul O'Grady Show somewhat controversially ran head to head with Richard and Judy, who are close friends of Paul, and gave him one of his first TV breaks on This Morning, on rival terrestrial station Channel 4. He has guested on LivingTV's paranormal show, Most Haunted Live, after presenter Yvette Fielding was a guest on his show and invited him on. He holds many awards, and in December 2005 he won the Best TV Comedy Entertainment Personality category of the British Comedy Awards. In 2005, he won a BAFTA and is also the recipient of two Royal Television Awards and three National Television Awards.

On 10 January 2006, in a shock decision, O'Grady decided to defect from ITV and take his daytime chat show to Channel 4 after ITV apparently 'forgot' to renew his contract. It was said that he had wanted to produce the series with his own company and had wanted to from the start but Granada always refused. He is still in an ongoing dispute with ITV, regarding the use of props and studio design for his daytime chat show (The New Paul O'Grady Show). As a consequence of this, O'Grady has decided he never wanted to work for ITV again and has pulled out of appearing on a new talent show and was replaced as host of The British Soap Awards. He was very outspoken in his anger towards ITV for a while after his move to Channel 4, but less so recently.

On 27 March 2006, Paul O'Grady began hosting his talk show on Channel 4, now called The New Paul O'Grady Show. It is shown weekdays from 17:00 to 18:00 UTC. and the first series ended its run on the 16 June 2006. Channel Four's Richard and Judy and O'Grady share the Channel Four 5pm-6pm slot with each show sharing taking 3 months of the Channel 4 teatime schedule.

O'Grady retired his Lily Savage character around 2004. He claimed she had "seen the light, taken the veil and packed herself off to a convent in France" but recently on his current TV show, he said, "she's escaped the convent and she's heading towards these shores!", which may signal the return of the Lily Savage character.

On 16 March 2007, Paul presented part of Red Nose Day 2007, where he performed several circus tricks, including fire eating.

The third Channel 4 series (6th series when including the three original ITV series) started on 2 April 2007 and ends on 15 June.

Personal life

O'Grady is openly gay, although he was once married to a good friend of his, a Portuguese lesbian, through convenience. O'Grady is now very close to his daughter, who married her childhood friend Philip Moseley at Liverpool Town Hall on 30 July, 2005. His long term lover and business partner of 20 years was Irishman Brendan Murphy, who died of cancer on 9 June 2005, five days before Paul's fiftieth birthday. After the first show of series three of The Paul O'Grady Show there was a tribute to him.

O'Grady owns a 200-acre farm near Ashford, Kent. The farm is stocked with 32 animals, including a flock of geese which O'Grady refers to as the "Geese-stapo." O'Grady has a grey Shih Tzu dog called Buster, who usually appears on his TV show with him, or occasionally will be replaced by Paul's other dog, Olga. He also has another dog called Louie, who only appeared a few times in the first ITV series, before he adopted Olga live on air. O'Grady is a frequent traveller on The Orient Express, likes to dress well and has numerous hobbies.

On Boxing Day, 2006, O'Grady's daughter Sharyn gave birth to O'Grady's first grandchild, a boy - Abel. O'Grady introduced his grandson to the audience on his show on January 17th, 2007.

Health

In April 2002, O'Grady suffered a heart attack after weeks of complaining that he felt unwell. After an emergency operation and weeks of rest, Paul's health recovered and he gave up smoking for two years.

O'Grady went back to his 40-a-day habit after his boyfriend and business partner Brendan Murphy died in 2005. He had continued to work on the show at the same time as nursing his beloved partner. As a result, he suffered a second heart attack on 30 June, 2006 [1]. Again he was taken to the William Harvey Hospital and was taken into intensive care. He was then given an angioplasty operation, before being moved to a cardiac unit. He was released on 4 July and again promised to give up smoking [2]. He therefore postponed the new series of his show from 4 September to the end of the month. The delayed second series started on Monday 25 September.

Likes

O'Grady is a massive Beverley Knight fan and is often commenting on her music, his good friend Julian Clary said, "He turned up at my house, Bev Knight blaring". Knight has guested on The Paul O'Grady Show. He has also expressed a liking for Janis Joplin music on several occasions. He is also good friends with Kim Cattrall His favourite TV shows would seem to be The Avengers, Hi-De-Hi and Popeye. However, it is extremely hard to keep up with all his likes as he has a broad range of tastes. He has celebrity friends on regularly as guests which makes for uncomfortable viewing. He reads all the biographies of every guest that has written one and tells each guest individually "it's a great read".

He is a big fan of musicals, his favourites being Gypsy, Sunset Boulevard and Oliver!. He often tells his guests that he will come to see them in their musical or play.

External links

• Article about move to Channel 4 at digitalspy.co.uk
• The New Paul O'Grady Show at Channel 4