| Johnny Vaughan | |
|---|---|
Johnny Vaughan at Live 8 in July 2005 |
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| Born | Jonathan Randall Vaughan 16 July 1966 Barnet, London England |
| Years active | 1993 - present |
| Known for | The Big Breakfast, Capital Breakfast with Johnny Vaughan |
| Spouse | Antonia Davies |
Jonathan Randall Vaughan (born 16 July 1966) is an English broadcaster and journalist. Vaughan has become well known as a television and radio personality and has also built a reputation as a film critic. He co-presented Capital Breakfast alongside Lisa Snowdon on 95.8 Capital FM between 2004 and 2011. He also writes a weekly column in The Sun newspaper reviewing recent film releases.
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Vaughan was born in Barnet, North London to an engineer father, Randall, and a psychotherapist mother, Fay.[1][2]
Vaughan was educated at a state school, St Andrew's Primary School in Totteridge, London, followed by two independent boarding schools: Bramcote School near Nottingham [3][4] and Uppingham School in Rutland.[5] During his school years he showed a talent for comedy,[1] playing the violin and singing.[6]
When Vaughan was 16 years old, his father went bankrupt.[7] On leaving school, Vaughan moved to London and originally wanted to become a writer.[1] He ended up with a variety of jobs ranging from a grill chef to even starting his own business selling boxer shorts.[1][8]
In 1988, aged 21, Vaughan was arrested for trying to sell £15,000 of cocaine to undercover police officers in a hotel on the M1 motorway near Northampton.[9] He was found guilty of being "concerned with the supply" of class A drugs (namely cocaine) and sentenced to 4 years in Stocken Prison, of which he served 25 months (2 years and a month).[5][7] In the immediate aftermath of his initial success with Moviewatch, Vaughan claimed in interviews, including one with Mayfair magazine[10] that he had been incarcerated for the distribution of pornographic videotapes.
Latterly, Vaughan recalled the event in an interview with the Daily Telegraph:
One night, an old schoolfriend, a student, called and asked him if he had any drug connections; the friend had met somebody who wanted to know. (The somebody, it turned out, was a drug dealer who had been arrested and was now working for the police.) No, said Vaughan, he didn't. 'The next day,' Vaughan says, 'I do bump into someone. He calls me and says, "Tell your friend it's all sorted."?' Vaughan arranged the meeting at a service station on the M1, and went there to introduce the protagonists. He was slammed against a wall by a policeman who asked him how old he was. When Vaughan said 21, the cop said, "You won't be seeing sunshine again until you're 36."[8]
It was during his time in prison that Vaughan began to take an interest in literature and philosophy.[7] On release from prison, Vaughan decided to turn his life around and started a job working as a journalist for the Peterborough Herald newspaper, reporting on legal cases in his column, Johnny Vaughan in the Courts.[9]
His big break came in 1993 when he visited a friend's production company and through a chance meeting was offered a job with Channel 4.[11] He started his television career presenting the movie review show Moviewatch, as well as the music show Naked City and his own chat show Here's Johnny.[5]
Channel 4 producers decided he was a natural in front of the camera, and in light of ailing viewing figures he was chosen to front The Big Breakfast from 1997 until 2001, forming a successful partnership with former programme weather girl and actress Denise van Outen from 1998. Van Outen's cheeky "Essex Girl" personality played off well against the quick wit of Vaughan, and together they recovered audience figures to record levels.[12] One groundbreaking feature of Johnny's presentation was the way in which he frequently interacted with the various cameramen and technical people in the studio, turning some of them into popular characters in their own right. Also notable was that each programme finished with a zany situational competition in which Johnny revealed considerable talent as a character actor. In parallel with The Big Breakfast Vaughan presented another movie show, The Johnny Vaughan Film Show.
Van Outen left to pursue her acting career at the end of 1998. The partnership with replacement model Kelly Brook failed to reproduce the chemistry between Vaughan and Van Outen,[13] and audience figures "plummeted".[14] Brook was replaced by Liza Tarbuck and Van Outen returned again as main female presenter in 2000[15] but the show was unrevivable. Johnny and Denise left the show in January 2001 after both their contracts had run out.[16]
In 2001, the BBC reportedly paid Vaughan £2.5 million to leave Channel 4.[17] He transferred to the BBC to present a late-night talk show, Johnny Vaughan Tonight in the same vein of American shows by Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. Viewing figures were good (the show regularly received 2.5 - 3 million viewers a night)[7] and commentators suggested that the format was best suited to the free-wheeling Vaughan.[7] However, a highly promoted BBC Two sitcom vehicle 'Orrible, which Vaughan wrote and acted in was poorly received by the critics. Far from being the huge hit that was hoped, the show lost 40% of its audience over its first three episodes[17] and was not renewed for a second series or even repeated.
In October 2003 he devised and produced and was the first presenter of BBC Radio Five Live's Fighting Talk, a sport related comedy show currently presented by Colin Murray. Further television appearances ensued, when Vaughan tried a revival of his on screen relationship with Van Outen in 2004 in the BBC's Saturday night family show Passport to Paradise, which lasted for only one series.[18]
In April 2004 he moved to radio and returned to the "zoo" format, when he replaced Chris Tarrant as the presenter of Capital Breakfast on 95.8 Capital FM, which saw the listening figures for his show drop from over 1.3 million to 980,000 listeners, according to official RAJAR statistics.[19]
In January 2008, Vaughan was reunited with van Outen when she joined him on the breakfast show in a move to boost listening figures,[20] but she left the show half-way through her contract in June 2008.[21]
In August 2008, Van Outen was replaced by model Lisa Snowdon. The show then rose in the ratings, taking the top spot of London's breakfast radio chart in October 2008,[22] with an average weekly audience of 862,000 listeners.
On 18 November 2011, Johnny has stepped down as host of Capital Breakfast. This trended on twitter for over 6 hours in the UK. The official Johnny and Lisa twitter account read "After nearly 8 brilliant years, Johnny has stepped down as host of the 95.8 Capital FM breakfast show." He said ""I've loved this job but after years of getting up in the middle of the night, I think it's right to hand over the mic to someone else." [23]
Vaughan wrote the UK's first "dope opera", Top Buzzer, which aired in 2004 on MTV and later on Five. Vaughan has also been heavily involved with telethon charity drives such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief. In 2004 the BBC ran "a search to find the nation's best-loved sitcom" with a format that aped that of the 100 Greatest Britons. One celebrity championed each of the top ten sitcoms, presenting an hour-long special on why their favourite was the best. Vaughan was the presenter of the segment on prison-based sitcom Porridge.
In 2005, Vaughan became the host of the American reality/game show My Kind of Town on ABC. The show was cancelled after four episodes. He was also featured in the 2005 film, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, playing an awards ceremony host.
Vaughan presented the controversial hoax "reality" show Space Cadets for Channel 4. In June 2006, Vaughan appeared as a guest on TV Heaven, Telly Hell.
He was a team captain on the Channel 4 comedy panel show Best of the Worst that also features team captain David Mitchell (Peep Show), and chairman Alexander Armstrong. The show appears not to have been renewed for a second series.
In December 2006, he made a guest appearance on the BBC comedy panel game QI (Series D, Episode 10, "Divination"). Vaughan has his own television production company, World's End.[5]
In 2011, Vaughan has appeared in the TV show 'MudMen' on History Channel. Johnny Vaughan, accompanied with Steve Brooker, venture out into the Thames shoreline in search of old, hidden artifacts and treasures.
He married costume designer Antonia Davies in August 1999.[5] The couple met when Vaughan was working in a video store at age 19. Elvis Costello performed at their wedding.[2] They live in Wandsworth, South London[1] with their bulldog Harvey-(died) and now have another bulldog named Jeff[2] and their two children, Tabitha (born 2000),[7] and Rafferty (born 2003). Vaughan's father-in-law is Nick Davies, once foreign editor of the Daily Mirror.[2]
In March 1999, in preparation for his marriage to Davies, Vaughan was received into the Catholic Church at Westminster Cathedral.[5]
Vaughan is a big fan of cars and currently owns a Maserati 3200 GT. An avid supporter of Chelsea FC, he travelled to Sweden to see Chelsea win the 1998 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, and spent the next day broadcasting live on The Big Breakfast with images and details of the big moments in the match, with input from his friends. He also has presented Chelsea FC's coverage of their public training days in 2008.
He has had thinning hair for a number of years, and on the television show Best of the Worst expressed jealousy of those with "long fly away locks." In July 2008, he shaved whatever was left to raise money for the Capital Radio charity, Help a Capital Child, of which he is an Ambassador.[24]
| Preceded by First presenter |
BBC Radio Five Live Fighting Talk Presenter 2003 - 2004 |
Succeeded by Christian O'Connell |