Vanessa Feltz

Vanessa Feltz
Born	(1962-02-21) 21 February 1962 United Kingdom
Occupation	TV Presenter/Journalist
Notable credit(s)	Presenter of The Big Breakfast (Channel 4) Presenter of Vanessa (ITV) Columnist for The Daily Express Presenter of Vanessa's Real Lives
Spouse	Michael Kurer (1985-1999),
Partner	Ben Ofoedu
Children	Allegra, Saskia

Vanessa Jane Feltz (born 21 February 1962) is an English journalist.

Biography

Family and early life

Vanessa Feltz was born in Islington, London, and grew up in Totteridge. On her radio show she frequently refers to Totteridge as "the Beverly Hills of North London", and her middle-class Jewish background as like "growing up in Fiddler on the Roof". Her father Norman was in the lingerie business.

At 10 years old, her first kiss was with DJ Pete Tong, then 12 years old, during a family holiday in Majorca.

Her mother Valerie (née Ohrenstein) was a housewife who died from cancer at the age of 57 in 1995. She has one sister who runs a violin and roof repair shop in London. She was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, an independent school in North West London. She then went on to study English at Trinity College, Cambridge, England.

Personal life

Feltz married Michael Kurer, a surgeon, in 1985. They have two daughters, Allegra (born 1986) and Saskia (born 1989). Kurer left Feltz in 2000 and they divorced the same year.

During her breakup with Kurer, Feltz lost four stones in weight with the help of fitness instructor Dennis Duhaney. After a six-year relationship with Duhaney, Feltz met Anglo-Nigerian singer Ben Ofoedu in 2006. They became engaged in December 2006, and their wedding was originally planned for late 2007.

She lives in St John's Wood, London, in a house previously occupied by Reverend John Hugh Smyth-Piggott, and by Charles Saatchi, and which was featured in Sir John Betjeman's 1973 film Metro-land.

After contracting a rare skin irritation, doctors decided it was fitting to name the inflammation "The Feltz".

Career

1980s and 90s

After graduating from Cambridge with a First Class Honours degree, she moved from temping work to writing for The Jewish Chronicle then the Daily Mirror. She often specialised in sex advice, writing for the magazine Men Only, and her sex tips for girls book called "What Are These Strawberries Doing on My Nipples? I Need Them For The Fruit Salad!". She also presented a Jewish radio show on BBC GLR (now BBC London 94.9).

She replaced Paula Yates on Channel 4 morning TV show The Big Breakfast, presenting a regular item where she interviewed celebrities while in a bed. She also presented a show called Value for Money.

She presented the ITV daytime television chat show Vanessa, made by independent TV company Anglia Television. She moved to the BBC to host a similar show, The Vanessa Show, in 1998 in a reported £2.7 million deal. ITV replaced her show with Trisha.

In 1999 her show was cancelled and BBC One controller Peter Salmon said the bad publicity about the fact that some guests were actually actors from an agency had effectively killed the show.

2000s

Vanessa Feltz was a contestant on the first British version of Celebrity Big Brother in 2001. She has appeared on its spin-off shows Big Brother's Big Mouth and Big Brother's Little Brother on numerous occasions.

In May 2003 she was voted 93rd on the list of worst Britons in Channel 4's poll of the 100 Worst Britons.

She made an appearance in a sketch in the first episode of the second series of BBC comedy sketch show Little Britain, playing a spokeswoman for fictional slimming club Fat Fighters. In 2004, she appeared in the second series of reality TV show Celebrity Fit Club in a bid to lose weight.

In recent years Feltz has been a regular guest on The Wright Stuff and presented two series of Cosmetic Surgery Live, both screened on Five.

Since late 2002 she has been presenting a three-hour radio show on BBC London 94.9, Monday to Saturday. She replaced previous host Jon Gaunt. The show is a phone-in on current topics, with occasional studio guests. She also writes a weekly column on her views on topical subjects, published in the Tuesday Daily Express newspaper.

In December 2006 she made a comeback to ITV as the host of talk show Vanessa's Real Lives, and she recently played herself in an episode of BBC comedy drama series Hotel Babylon. This was followed in April 2007 by her participation in an episode of Channel 4's Celebrity Wife Swap, in which she moved in with magician Paul Daniels for one week, while his wife Debbie McGee moved in with Feltz's musician fiance Ben Ofoedu.

On 22 September 2007 Feltz and Ofoedu won £150,000 for a cancer charity on the celebrity version of ITV's Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Just over a year later Feltz won another £10,000 for Cancer Care as a victorious member of Anton Du Beke's team on BBC One gameshow Hole in the Wall.

On 11 May 2009 Feltz was named Speech Radio Personality of the Year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards.

External links

• Vanessa Feltz at IMDb
• Profile at BBC London 94.9