Paul O'Grady

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Paul O'Grady
Born	14 June 1955 (1955-06-14) (age 52) Birkenhead, Wirral, Cheshire, UK
Residence	London
Nationality	British
Occupation	Television presenter, comedian, actor
Height	6' 1" (186 cm)

Paul James O'Grady (born 14 June 1955), is an English comedian and television personality of Irish descent. He is the creator of comic drag character Lily Savage (the "Birkenhead Bombshell"), a vampish Birkenhead woman. He is noted for his strong Scouse accent. He is the presenter of the television series The Paul O'Grady Show, which currently airs on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

1 Biography
2 Personal life
- 2.1 Health
3 Books
- 3.1 Autobiography
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

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Born in Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula to an Irish father, O'Grady was brought up in Tranmere. When he was 18 he had a relationship with 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, woodsman and a time as an assistant clerk at Liverpool Magistrates' Court.^[1] He has also worked in a children's home in West Kirby 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.

[edit] Lily Savage

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 infamous 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 a 2006 interview O'Grady stated that Lily Savage was now living in a convent in Brittany, although on several occasions he has announced that she has escaped the convent, which was interpreted by some as meaning that the character is returning.

[edit] 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'

[edit] Television

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

In 1990 he appeared in the ITV miniseries Chimera as Tony Donaldson, a social worker skilled in signing for the deaf.

In 2000 he appeared in a six-part travelogue series as himself, entitled "Paul O'Grady's Orient". Shot in Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Bangkok, Bali and Singapore, it was produced by Gavin Hill and Collette Valentine and directed by Paul Watson. This 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 ITV back in the early 90's. Now that both Richard and Judy's and Paul's chatshows both run on Channel 4, whenever Paul's show is off the air Richard and Judy fill the tea-time slot, and vice-versa. He has guest starred on Living'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 Society 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 4's Richard and Judy and O'Grady share the Channel 4, 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. 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. Also on 23 January 2007 on his show, someone wrote in saying is Lily Savage going to be working in a midnight burlesque club and Paul says that there's a 99.9% chance of that happening, so he could be bringing her back. However, on the 30th October episode on his show, Lily Savage was one of 10 "smiles" examined by a body language expert. After finding out that it's Lily, Paul covered her up before revealing her again, claiming she's still in the convent. On 23 May 2008 on the 500th edition of the Paul O'Grady Show, guest star Julie Goodyear told Paul that Bet Lynch, the character she famously played in Coronation Street, had joined Savage in the French convent.

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

The fourth Channel 4 series (7th series when including the three original ITV series) started on 17 September 2007. On 24 August The Daily Mirror revealed that Paul had rejected a £5 million deal to return to ITV as the "New Parkinson."^{[citation needed]} Instead he has signed a £4 million deal to remain with Channel 4 until the end of 2009.^{[citation needed]}

It was announced in February 2008 that O'Grady would be appearing in the final episode of the 2008 series of Doctor Who.^[2]

[edit] Personal life

O'Grady is openly gay, but has previously had relationships with women, and was once married to a female Portuguese friend in a marriage of convenience. He 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 farm in Aldington near Ashford, Kent and a flat in London. The farm is stocked with 32 animals, including a flock of geese which O'Grady refers to as the "Geese-stapo" (a pun on the Gestapo).^[3] O'Grady has a grey Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise crossbreed dog called Buster^[4], who usually appears on his TV show with him, or occasionally will be replaced by Paul's other dog, Olga, a Cairn Terrier who Paul named his recently formed production company, 'Olga TV' after.^[4] He also has another dog called Louie, who only appeared a few times (mainly due to his bad behaviour), in the first ITV series, before he adopted Olga live on air.^[3]

O'Grady became a grandfather on 26 December 2006, when his daughter Sharon gave birth to a son, Abel.^[5]

[edit] 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 Murphy. He suffered a second heart attack on 30 June 2006;^[6] again he was taken to the William Harvey Hospital and into intensive care. He was given an angioplasty operation before being moved to a cardiac unit. He was released on 4 July and again promised to give up smoking ^[7]. 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 2006.

Preceded by Les Dawson	Host of Blankety Blank 1997 - 2002	Succeeded by Chris Tarrant

[edit] Books

[edit] Autobiography

In early 2006, Paul announced that he was writing his autobiography which was originally to be released in late 2007. However it took longer to write than expected. On June 9, 2008, he revealed on The Paul O'Grady Show that it is finished and will be out in September 2008 to coincide with the return of the show.