Cleo Rocos

Cleo Rocos
Born	Cleopatra Anderson Rocos (1962-07-24) 24 July 1962 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Cleo Rocos (born 24 July 1962 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a UK-based comedy actress and television/theatre producer and presenter, who appeared on The Kenny Everett Television Show. She is of Greek and English descent. Her father was Greek, and her mother was English.

Career

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Rocos appeared regularly on television, from a minor role in the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to being a roving reporter for the consumer affairs show That's Life!. She was most frequently seen in Kenny Everett's BBC series The Kenny Everett Television Show, in which her glamorous and curvaceous figure was often used to comic effect as a focus for drooling, lascivious men - a role echoed by her similar appearances in the 1985 TV sketch series Assaulted Nuts. She also appeared alongside Everett in BBC1 science quiz series Brainstorm, playing a white-coated lab assistant.

Rocos' autobiographical book Bananas Forever: Kenny Everett and Me (co-authored by Richard Topping) detailing her relationship with Everett, was published in 1998 but later reissued under the title Kenny and Me.

In the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Rocos starred in a Welsh comedy show on S4C called Pobol y Chyff. Rhys Ifans and Meirion Davies played the main characters.

An occasional sidekick to 'shock jock' DJ James Whale on late-night ITV in the early 1990s, she fulfilled a similar role with TV critic Garry Bushell on ITV nocturnal TV-review series Bushell on the Box. She also made a few appearances in the Ugly Bloke slot, as an incongruously glamorous escort to facially-challenged males, on Chris Evans' Channel 4 series TFI Friday in about 1996.

Other TV credits include an acting role in US drama series Highlander, presenting and co-producing a short channel Five series on Princess Diana's dresses, participating in BBC game shows such as Wipeout, Blankety Blank and Ready, Steady, Cook, and partaking in Five's karaoke show Night Fever.

Films include 1980s comedy horror spoof Bloodbath at the House of Death (with Kenny Everett) and Babyjuice Express.

She produced a revival of The Seven-Year Itch for the London stage, starring Darryl Hannah, in 2000 and also starred in Leigh Francis' TV series Whatever I Want as herself, as did Big Brother host Davina McCall. Rocos later appeared again with Francis, AKA zany celebrity-stalker character Avid Merrion, on Bo'! in the USA, the US version of Bo' Selecta!.

Although her television work became lower-profile after Everett's death, during the late 1990s she presented quirky reports from exotic locations for the long-running ITV travel show Wish You Were Here...?. In 2002-3 she presented and produced a travel show for Five called Cleo Worldwide, and she spent much of summer 2006 recording a new travel show for television about the wonders of the world.

In 2005, Rocos produced ...Sex Actually, a special episode of The Comic Strip Presents in which a murder occurs amongst a group of swingers. She is an occasional presenter for BBC London 94.9FM radio.

Dabbling in print journalism, she has contributed travel articles to publications such as The Daily Telegraph.

She has collaborated on a few pop music singles, such as Love Dilemma in the mid-1980s - a traditionally-crooned number with the Enrico Valdez Orchestra - and 1993 dance track Back to Love with the band Vertigo. She is not named on the latter's sleeve, beyond a small co-writing credit.

In 2007, Rocos entered the Celebrity Big Brother house and remained in the house until the final week. She was voted off the show on 26 January 2007 as part of a surprise joint eviction along with singer Jo O'Meara, a former member of pop group S Club 7.

In March 2007, she was announced as the first Patron of the charity London's Air Ambulance.

On 30 December 2007, Rocos was interviewed on Sky News as a "friend of Benazir Bhutto", the recently-assassinated Pakistan politician.

On 2 January 2010, she appeared on the BBC celebrity special of Total Wipeout and on 2 May 2010, she appeared on the Watch game show, Scream If You Know the Answer. In October 2011, she was a participant in Channel 4 show Come Dine With Me and was joint winner with the pop singer Pete Burns.

Personal life

Rocos was for many years in a relationship with Some Bizzare Records supremo Stevo Pearce, but he says their engagement ended because Rocos kept bringing her mother with her on dates.

External links

• Cleo Rocos at IMDb
• Cleo Rocos The Telegraph: How Cleo Rocos replaced light entertainment with tequila

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