Katy Hill

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Katy Hill (born 15 April 1971) is a British television presenter.

[edit] Biography

Born in Poole, Dorset, her father was the local vicar. Hill has two older siblings, a brother Simon and a sister Naomi. She gained nine O-levels and four A-Levels, and worked in a record shop before she started acting.[1]

Hill began her career in media by doing voluntary work in Essex with hospital television, and then went on to present Katy's Capers on BBC Radio Essex, before transferring to the satellite station Nickelodeon. While working as a secretary for BBC channel controllers and the Head of Children's Television, she bombarded the editor of Blue Peter with ideas and showreels, which resulted in an audition.

On 23rd June 1995, Hill joined the children's television programme Blue Peter, becoming its 23rd presenter; she left on 19th June 2000.

Katy presented with Diane-Louise Jordan, Tim Vincent, Stuart Miles, Romana D'Annunzio, Richard Bacon, Konnie Huq, Simon Thomas and Matt Baker.

As a result of her stint on Blue Peter, she went on to present Live & Kicking, Top of the Pops, Football Fever (she supports Newcastle United FC), and The Millennium Quiz Show (alongside Michael Parkinson). Hill has also presented the weekend breakfast show on 95.8 Capital FM, and now writes a regular column for Cosmopolitan Hair & Beauty magazine

In both 2000 and 2001, Hill presented the finals of A Song For Europe, the competition to select the United Kingdom's entry for the annual Eurovision Song Contest. She revealed she had been a keen follower of the contest since seeing the 1984 victory of her all-time favourite entry, "Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley" by Sweden's the Herreys.

In 2004 Hill presented Deck Dates - a ground breaking dating and cooking show for the UK Food channel, which also featured chef, James Martin. The show, although innovative in style - combining dating, cooking and sailing for the first time - was not well received by critics. It was described by Sam Wollaston in the Guardian as "utterly pointless and awful and deserves to be torpedoed, amidships and below the waterline."

In 2004, Hill appeared on the Channel 4 reality TV show, The Games, in which she came overall second in the female contenders; she is mostly remembered for her antagonism towards the eventual winner, Lady Isabella Hervey.

Hill co-presented the concert held in Trafalgar Square where the host of the 2012 Olympics was announced, and for which London was a candidate; when London was announced as the victor, she was seen cheering and shouting with joy, along with Olympian Kelly Holmes.

[edit] Personal life

In the early stages of her career, Hill proclaimed herself as 'the ultimate virgin', quoted as saying: 'One of the few women to get married in white, and was justified in doing so.' Hill gained respect for preserving her virginity for ‘The One’. Fronting the BBC’s children’s flagship show was the perfect vehicle to promote herself as a role model for young women.

She finally married childhood sweetheart and camera operator Andrew Frampton in 1999. Sadly, the marriage lasted only two years before they split up. Hill then sexed-up her image, appearing in lads' magazines such as GQ and Maxim, bought a Porsche Boxster, and was dating fellow Live & Kicking TV presenter Trey Farley within weeks. Hill became engaged to Farley, after he proposed to her whilst on holiday in Venice, and the couple married in Tuscany on 28 June 2004, with white in evidence everywhere - wedding dress, groom's suit, flowers, and so on. [2] The couple live in Barnes, south-west London.[3] The couple have recently become parents of their first child, born June 2006.