| Paul O'Grady MBE |
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|---|---|
O'Grady in 2009 |
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| Birth name | Paul James Michael O'Grady |
| Born | 14 June 1955 Birkenhead, Cheshire, England |
| Medium | Broadcaster, actor, entrepreneur, comedian, author, television personality |
| Nationality | British |
| Years active | 1988–present |
| Spouse | Teresa Fernandes (m. 1977–2005) (divorced)[1] |
| Domestic partner(s) | Brendan Murphy (1980–2005) (his death) Andre Portasio (2006–present)[2] |
| Notable works and roles | Blankety Blank (1979–2002) Eyes Down (2003–04) The Paul O'Grady Show (2004–09) Paul O'Grady Live (2010–11) |
| BAFTA Awards | |
| Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance 2004 The Paul O'Grady Show (2008) |
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Paul James Michael O'Grady MBE (born 14 June 1955) is an English comedian, television presenter, actor, writer and radio DJ. He is best known for presenting the daytime chat television series, The Paul O'Grady Show and, more recently, Paul O'Grady Live, as well as his drag queen comedic alter ego, Lily Savage, as whom he performed in various television series including Blankety Blank (1997–1999) and Lily Live! (2000–2001). He also appeared in the comedy sitcom Eyes Down (2003–2004) and presented several travel documentaries.
Born to a working class Irish migrant family in Birkenhead, O'Grady went through various jobs in his youth, including working in various bars, for the civil service and for social services, moving around the country to do so. It was whilst living in London in 1978 that he first turned his hand to drag, developing the character of Lily Savage based upon various female relatives of his.
In 2003, O'Grady was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2006 he was listed by The Independent at number 32 in their 101 most influential gay men and women in Britain. In October 2008, he was appointed MBE in the 2008 Birthday Honours list for services to entertainment. On 23 July 2010, O'Grady received an Honorary Doctor of Arts from De Montfort University, Leicester, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to television, radio and the stage.[3]
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Paul O'Grady's father, Patrick "Paddy" Grady (died 1973),[4] had grown up on a farm in Ballincurry, County Roscommon, Ireland, but moved to England in 1936 in search for work, and settled down in the working class area of Birkenhead. His name was accidentally changed from Grady to O'Grady in a paperwork mistake when he joined the Royal Air Force and he subsequently decided to keep this altered name.[5][6] Patrick married Mary Savage (1916–1988),[7] who was born in England but whose parents had also been Irish immigrants, from County Louth. Patrick and Mary were devout Catholics and brought up their children in the faith. Paul was their third child, born at 7:30am on 14 June 1955 at St. Catherine's Hospital, Tranmere.[8][9] His birth, over a decade after that of his siblings Brendan and Sheila,[4] was not planned; his mother was 39 and she only discovered the pregnancy when she visited the doctor complaining of indigestion. Paul O'Grady spent his early life at the family's rented home of 23 Holly Grove, Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead,[10] a house that had been built in a former quarry during the early 1930s, and O'Grady would later remark that the house was always damp and cold and that it also suffered from "ominous cracks" which "would appear in the walls and ceilings overnight".[11]
He initially attended St. Joseph's, a Catholic primary school, where he excelled in all subjects but mathematics, and so his parents, hoping that he had a good future ahead of him, budgeted so that they could afford to send him to a private school, Redcourt, which was the Roman Catholic primary school attached to St Anselm's College. He subsequently failed the Eleven Plus exam, meaning that he was unable to gain entry to a grammar school, much to his mother's dismay, and went instead to the Blessed Edward Campion R.C. Secondary Modern and the Corpus Christi High School.[12] It was here that he had his first homosexual experience, having a brief romance aged twelve with another boy, although in keeping with societal attitudes at the time he still assumed that he was heterosexual.[13]
"[W]hen I look back on my childhood I have no bad memories. Our family was loving and full of affection. I never knew what divorce was until I moved to London. I was an indulged child and completely protected from anything bad."
At the time he was also a huge fan of the popular television series The Avengers and Batman,[15] and was enrolled in the cub scouts by his mother, which he hated and left after a month. He later became an altar boy at a local Catholic church, though was dismissed from this position after laughing during a funeral service.[16] Following on from this he joined the Marine cadets, later commenting that he was following in the footsteps of his childhood hero, the cartoon Popeye.[17] He enjoyed the cadets, and at the advice of his captain joined the Boys' Amateur Boxing Club, where he gained his lifelong love of the sport.[18][19] Meanwhile, he began playing truant from school, getting him into trouble with his parents, and then got into trouble with the police after he led three other boys into breaking and entering a house to commit burglary.[20] O'Grady's first job was a paper round that he managed to keep for a week, being employed by a woman, Mrs Henshaw, whom his mother despised,[21] and through this and other jobs he saved up to afford Mod clothes, for a time becoming a suedehead.[22]
After leaving school aged sixteen, O'Grady's mother got him a job in the civil service, working as a clerical assistant for the DHSS, who had offices in Liverpool that he could commute to from his parents' home every morning. To supplement this income, he also got a job working part-time at the bar of the Royal Air Forces Association club in Oxton.[23][24] He was later called for a disciplinary hearing at the DHSS, who accused him of being incompetent and often late, and at which he decided to resign.[25] Hoping for a better and more exciting life, he got a job at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Virginia Water, Surrey, and aged seventeen moved away from his parents' home in Birkenhead and travelled south. He subsequently found the work and accommodation to be appalling, although he noted that it was here that he lost his virginity to a woman whom he had met smoking cannabis at a party. He did not remain in Surrey long however, as soon after he was arrested, accused of stealing from the hotel and was subsequently fired despite protesting his innocence.[26]
Promptly returning home to Birkenhead, he soon got his old job at the RAFA club back, and also began to increasingly socialise within the Liverpudlian gay scene, attending local meetings of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and getting a job at a gay bar, the Bear's Paw, all of which he kept a secret from his parents, to whom he was still not "out of the closet".[27] Nonetheless, at the time he considered himself to be bisexual, and began having casual sex with a friend and colleague of his named Diane Jansen.[28][29] Meanwhile, he had befriended a man named Tony on the gay scene, and they had "hit it off after a prolonged bitching session one night, though we were like chalk and cheese." Becoming best friends, the duo would regularly travel down to London to socialise with Tony's friend, the classical music conductor John Pritchard (1921-1989), whom O'Grady became very fond of.[30]
When O'Grady was eighteen, his mother suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital, the stress of which caused his father to suffer the same fate within a matter of hours; whilst his mother recovered, his father soon died. Only a few days later, O'Grady's life was further complicated when he learned that Diane was pregnant with his child, a daughter named Sharon Lee Jansen.[31][32] Following her birth on 16 May 1974, O'Grady agreed to pay £3 every week towards the upkeep of his daughter, but refused to marry Diane as he had begun to recognise that he was homosexual and did not want to enter a marriage that he would hate.[33][34]
"I thought about [my daughter] Sharon every day. I was going over to visit regularly but still couldn't raise any of the paternal instincts I'd hoped might have been lying dormant inside me. No such luck. To be honest, the baby still scared me. No, she terrified the life out of me and I looked upon my daughter, sweet little thing though she undoubtedly was, as if she were somebody else's child, nearly always coming away from a visit hating myself for harbouring what I considered unnatural emotions. After all, didn't I come from a warm, loving family? So why then couldn't I express the same love and affection for this child? Jesus, for an eighteen-year-old I was carrying a lot of guilt around."
Briefly working as an assistant clerk at Liverpool Magistrates' Court, O'Grady subsequently got a job working as a barman at Yates's Wine Lodge, whilst also working the occasional night at the Bear's Paw.[36][37] Realising that the wage from these jobs was not enough to support both himself and his daughter, he decided to travel to London in search for work. Moving in as a lodger of a gay couple in Westbourne Green, he once again only found poorly-paid work as a barman. Meanwhile, it was in London that he first began to associate with drag queens, particularly a man named Alistair and his stage partner Phil, who went under the stage name of The Harlequeens. Although he made friends in the city, O'Grady was homesick for Birkenhead and Liverpool, and feeling that he had few prospects in London, returned home.[38]
Employed as an accountant in a Merseyside abattoir belonging to FMC Meats, he eventually became disgusted by the place and gained employment at Conny Home in West Kirby, a home for disabled and abused children, something he would continue for three years.[39][40] Subsequently entering into a relationship with an older man named Norman, O'Grady moved into his house in Littlehampton, although their relationship was strained, with both cheating on one another, and ultimately it broke apart.[41] Moving once more to London, where he rented a flat in Crouch End, O'Grady initially started busking with a friend in Camden Town before getting a job as a physiotherapist's assistant at the Royal Northern Hospital.[42] Being made redundant from the hospital due to public sector cuts, O'Grady took up a job at a gay club called the Showplace, where he befriended a Portuguese lesbian named Theresa Fernandes, and in May 1977 they legally married in order to prevent her deportation back to Portugal, although eventually lost contact and only gained a divorce in 2005.[43][44] He subsequently took up a job as a cleaner and a waiter at private functions, working for a series of wealthy clients in London, including an elite escort service.[45] Following this, he began working for Camden Council as a peripatetic care officer who would live in with elderly people or dyfunctional families, a job that exposed him to the extreme poverty, poor living conditions and domestic violence faced by many Londoners, and would have a lasting effect on him for many years to come.[46][47]
It was whilst working for Camden social services that O'Grady made his first attempt at putting together a drag act, creating the character of Lily Savage in the process. Commenting on this, he would later relate that "I wanted to get up there but be larger than life, a creature that was more cartoon than human. I wasn't sure yet."[48] His debut was on the afternoon of Saturday 7 October 1978, at a pub called the Black Cap, where he mimed the words to the Barbra Streisand song "Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" from the show Pins and Needles. Coming offstage to a round of applause, another, more experienced drag act in the changing room remarked to him that "Well done, dahling [sic], You weren't bad, no, not bad at all… You've got something you know, de-ah, raw of course but with a little polish… who knows? A word of advice though. If you're considering getting an act together I'd drop the name. Lily Savage is all right for a bit of camp but no one is going to take an act that sounds like an old scrubber seriously, dahling."[49] Nonetheless, the name, which was based upon his mother's maiden name, was one thing that he would maintain, and he would later recollect that:
Following a holiday to Poland,[51] and discovering that he was owed several more weeks off of work, he agreed to go and visit an ex-boyfriend who was living in Manila, The Philippines. Managing to afford the fare due to a "sizeable tax rebate" from the Inland Revenue, O'Grady found Manila to be a "culture shock", having difficulty with the climate, the food and the child sex industry, something which deeply disgusted him. He nonetheless learned to like many things about the city, briefly getting a job as a barman and waiter at a brothel known as Gussie's Bar.[52][53]
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. He performed many times at the Goldsmith's Tavern, New Cross where he'd often precede Vic Reeves' three-hour show Vic Reeves Big Night Out before promptly leaving to do a show elsewhere. O'Grady's Lily was best known at the time for an eight-year residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in south London. As Lily Savage, O'Grady was also in several acts which toured Europe. After appearing at The Edinburgh Festival and gaining a Perrier Award nomination, O'Grady's Lily Savage act became more mainstream and the character became popular on television, making appearances on the ITV daytime programme This Morning and as the 'On the Bed Presenter' on The Big Breakfast. For a few years O'Grady hosted the game show Blankety Blank as Lily Savage, for the BBC and later for ITV. There was also a comedy show built around the character, Lily Live!, appearing on ITV in 2000. Performing as Lily, O'Grady also co-hosted the 1996 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party with Ant & Dec. O'Grady also appeared along side Cilla Black and Barbara Windsor (as Savage) in the 2001 Royal Variety Performance where the trio performed a rendition of "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" from the musical Gypsy.
It was during the 1980s that O'Grady would meet Brendan Murphy, known as "Murph" or "Murphy" to his friends, who would become his partner.[54]
O'Grady retired the 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 on his TV show, he said, "she's escaped the convent and she's heading towards these shores!". On 23 May 2008 on the 500th edition of The Paul O'Grady Show, guest star Julie Goodyear told O'Grady that Bet Lynch, the character she played in television soap opera Coronation Street, had joined Savage in the French convent. On the 7 October 2009 episode of The Paul O'Grady Show, after being prompted by actor Martin Clunes to "bring Lily back", O'Grady said he could not because she had been "bricked up in a chimney" by the Mother Superior of the convent.
However, in March 2010 it was announced that Lily Savage would be resurrected for one last time in the Christmas pantomime Aladdin – A Wish Come True at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, from December 2010 till January 2011.[55]
Following the success of Lily Savage, O'Grady played a prostitute informant, 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.
Abandoning drag, to portray himself, in 2000 he appeared in a six-part travelogue series entitled Paul O'Grady's Orient, filmed in Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Bangkok, Bali and Singapore. This was followed in 2001 by Paul O'Grady's America.
From 2002 onwards, he appeared less as Savage 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 manager of a northern Bingo hall. He also appeared in Celebrity Driving School for the BBC.
Richard and Judy are close friends of O'Grady, and gave him one of his first TV breaks on This Morning on ITV in the early 90s.
In July 2010 The Sun tipped that Paul O'Grady may judge acts in next year's series of Britain's Got Talent at the audition stages.[56]
In December 2010, O'Grady hosted Coronation Street: The Big 50, to mark the end of Coronation Street's 50th anniversary week. The show featured 9 Corrie stars and 3 "superfans" in the bid to be crowned champions. The "Rovers Regulars" team which consisted of Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster), Barbara Knox (Rita Sullivan) and William Roache (Ken Barlow) won overall. The show also featured popular ITV show The X Factor as Kirk Sutherland went on it, singing Sex on Fire and judges such as Simon Cowell praised him. It also featured boy band Boyzone (Keith Duffy starred on Corrie), singer Kym Marsh (who played Michelle Connor), Rachel Leskovac (who played Natasha Blakeman) as well as Norris Cole and Mary Taylor who went head to head on Countdown.
"I just want the show to be like a party, a group of pals gabbing away about the first things that come into their heads. There are always enough things in life to worry and get depressed about. I want my show to take our minds off all that stuff, even if it's only for a while."
O'Grady stood in for Des O'Connor on an episode of the lunchtime celebrity chat show Today with Des and Mel, something that impressed ITV enough that they asked him to stand in for O'Connor on other occasions as well. Eventually they decided that O'Grady would be a success if he presented his own daytime television show, and so commissioned a series, The Paul O'Grady Show, which first aired on October 2004 in the 5 to 6pm slot. The show, which involved O'Grady interviewing celebrity guests, aired at the same time at Channel 4's similar series Richard and Judy, creating a friendly rivalry between the two programs for ratings. Despite the competition, O'Grady's was a success, and won a number of awards in 2005, including a BAFTA and the award for Best TV Comedy Entertainment Personality at the British Comedy Awards. The show ran on ITV for three series, before O'Grady fell out with the broadcasting company and decided to switch to Channel 4.
In producing the show, O'Grady worked with many of his old friends, including Andy Collins, his warm-up man, whose job it was to "make sure the [studio] audience is relaxed, happy and ready for the main event".[58]
The show gained a devout following, with an "extraordinary hardcore of fans [who] try to be at as many recordings as possible", in many cases arriving at the studio gates two hours before the advertised starting time in order to get the best seats.[59] O'Grady's biographer Neil Simpson commented on the crowds coming to see the show being recorded when he related that "Groups of middle aged women dominate - but they are joined by beautiful twenty-something women with flawless make-up, flash City boys with Louis Vuitton briefcases, hip-looking students out for a good time and pensioners just wanting a laugh in the afternoon."[60] In many cases, fans queuing to see the show had to be turned away because too many had turned up, and for live shows as many as a hundred often had to be turned away.[61]
The fourth series of the show appeared on Channel 4 under the title of The New Paul O'Grady Show and began broadcasting in March 2006. On 24 August 2007 the Daily Mirror revealed that O'Grady had rejected a £5 million deal to return to ITV as the "New Parkinson." Instead he signed a £4 million deal to remain with Channel 4 until the end of 2009.
"On or off camera it is the brilliant anecdotes about his life and the endless stream of trenchant opinions on the world in general that keep Paul’s fans coming back for more."
On 28 June 2008, O'Grady appeared in the Doctor Who episode The Stolen Earth.[63] On 6 June 2009, the Daily Mirror confirmed that O'Grady will sign a new two year contract with Channel 4 in autumn 2009 to keep his show on air until the end of 2011. However Channel 4 have told O'Grady that his show will face huge budget cuts, and his salary will most likely be halved.[64] On Monday 21 September 2009, O'Grady returned to present the 11th (including ITV series) and final series of The Paul O'Grady Show.[65] On 14 October 2009, O'Grady agreed to an £8 million deal with ITV to host a Friday prime-time chat-show, to rival that of BBC One's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross from 2010, after budget talks broke-down with Channel 4.[65]
On 30 November 2009, O'Grady was a guest presenter on ITV's GMTV with Lorraine, in celebration of Lorraine Kelly's 50th birthday. 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. Also in November 2009, O'Grady reunited with Yvette Fielding to take part in a 2 part paranormal investigation series called Death In Venice where he and Fielding investigated haunted locations in Venice. The episodes were called "Vampire Island" and "Demonic Doctor".
On 18 December 2009, Channel 4 broadcast the final ever episode of The Paul O'Grady Show, after 11 series which started in 2004. Guests included in the final line up were, JLS, Beverley Callard, Catherine Tate, William Roache, Linda Thorson, Honor Blackman, Joe McFadden, Natalie Cassidy, Scott Maslen, Kate Thornton and Melanie Sykes.
Paul O'Grady spoke to The People in March 2010 about his new ITV show, saying "I have no idea what format it will take yet because we have not sat down with the producers ... The show will still have dogs and children but I want it to be a bit more adult too."[66]
The programme began on ITV on Friday 10 September 2010 and ran for 10 episodes, ending on Friday 12 November 2010.[67]
In October 2010, O'Grady attracted media attention when, on an episode of Paul O'Grady Live, he openly criticised the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government for their implementation of mass cuts to government spending on social services, calling them "bastards" and remarking that "Do you know what got my back up? Those Tories hooping and hollering when they heard about the cuts. Gonna scrap the pensions – yeah! – no more wheelchairs – yeah!… I bet when they were children they laughed in Bambi when his mother got shot."[68] His Bambi quote was soon after quoted by Peter Taffe at the Socialism 2010 conference.[69] Meanwhile, O'Grady also used the show to voice his support for those student protesters who had occupied and vandalised the headquarters of the Conservative Party at Millbank Tower on Wednesday 10 November 2010.[70][71] It was revealed on 6 October 2011, that ITV had axed his show after 2 series.[72][73]
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" (as Lily Savage), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as "the Childcatcher" and in the pantomime 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". O'Grady announced on 18 October 2009 that he would be doing pantomime again in 2009-10 in Wimbledon. He appeared at the Mayflower Southampton as Lily Savage in Aladdin in 2010.
O'Grady made his radio debut on 12 April 2003, when he stood in for Jonathan Ross to present the Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2. Then, later in December 2003, O'Grady presented a two-part documentary about Cilla Black's illustrious career, with contributions from Black's other celebrity friends. O'Grady then presented his own radio show for the first time on Christmas Day afternoon of that year.
On 28 December 2003, O'Grady chose the tracks on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4.
Throughout 2004 and 2005, O'Grady voiced many adverts for other local radio stations.
O'Grady returned to Radio 2 on Easter Saturday 2006, with his very own live 3-hour special radio show. The show featured special guests and celebrity chat, the best music and a whole host of games and competitions. O'Grady also taste-tested a selection of the finest Easter Eggs in a search for Britain's Best.
O'Grady then stood in for Elaine Paige on her Sunday radio show Elaine Paige on Sunday for two weeks, on 28 January and 4 February 2007. John Barrowman then took over from O'Grady for the following two weeks, before Paige returned.
O'Grady returned with his own show on Easter Monday 2007. The show featured special guests and celebrity chat, the best music and a whole host of games and competitions.
In January 2008, O'Grady once again presented Elaine Paige on Sunday, on 13, 20 and 27 January. He sat in for her once again on 31 August, and again on 9 November.
On Christmas 2008, O'Grady returned to Radio 2 with his own show The Paul O'Grady Christmas Show, featuring a seasonal mix of Christmas music and some of the biggest hits of the year, including music from McFly and Girls Aloud.
O'Grady presented a two-part documentary on New Year's Eve and New Years Day 2008 on Radio 2, which was a tribute to Bill Cotton.
From 22 February 2009, O'Grady returned to Elaine Paige on Sunday to present the show for a month, whilst Paige was on tour.
After 6 years, O'Grady was given his own show on BBC Radio 2 entitled Paul O'Grady On The Wireless, each Sunday.[74]
O'Grady once again presented a Christmas Day show in 2009, from 11am until 1pm. Like The Paul O'Grady Christmas Show that he presented last year, the show featured a round-up of the nation's favourite pantos. There was also a Christmas Motown Triple, a Carpenters Christmas Triple, and Christmas Thank Yous.
On 7 September 2010, O'Grady presented 'Come To The Cabaret', a documentary celebrating the boozy, glitzy and subversive delights of the cabaret.
For the third year running, O'Grady once again presented a special show on Christmas Day. This year, the show was three hours long, running on Christmas morning from 10.00am until 1.00pm. There were Christmas phone messages from celebrity callers, and Christmas triples from Bette Middler, Sir Cliff Richard and Dolly Parton.
O'Grady is openly gay. However, he has previously had relationships with women as well as men, and married a Portuguese lesbian, Teresa Fernandes, who was from a Catholic family, at Harrow Road register office, London,[1] on 1 April 1977[75] in a marriage of convenience. They separated in 1980, before eventually divorcing in 2005.[1] He is very close to his daughter Sharyn, who married her childhood friend Philip Mousley at Liverpool Town Hall on 30 July 2005. O'Grady's long-term lover and business partner of 20 years was Irish television producer Brendan Frank Murphy (4 March 1956[7] – 9 June 2005), who was HIV+ and died of brain cancer at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London,[76] five days before O'Grady'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 flat in London, and a farm in Aldington near Ashford, Kent where his neighbour is Julian Clary. 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).[77] O'Grady had a grey Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise crossbreed dog named Buster Elvis Savage, who was euthanised on 19 November 2009,[78] after he was diagnosed with cancer.[79] A spokeswoman said "Buster had been suffering and in a lot of pain. Putting him down was the kind thing to do."[80] O'Grady would later dedicate the second volume of his autobiography to his canine companion, describing him as "The greatest canine star since Lassie."[81]
This came a few days after O'Grady announced on his show that Buster was 'in retirement' after viewers had asked if Buster had been given away, as Buster frequently appeared on his TV show with him, but has recently been replaced by one of O'Grady's other dogs, Olga, a Cairn Terrier after whom O'Grady named his recently formed production company, 'Olga TV'.[79] He also has another dog called Louie, who only appeared a few times in the first ITV series (mainly due to his bad behaviour), before he adopted Olga live on air.[77] On 29 September 2009, O'Grady adopted a puppy called Bullseye, who appeared on his show after much nagging from the crowd.
O'Grady became a grandfather on 26 December 2006, when his daughter Sharyn gave birth to a son, Abel. He revealed on his show on 2 December 2009 that he had become a grandfather again as Sharyn had given birth to a girl in the early hours of that morning.[82]
O'Grady is publicly known for having had many high profile and celebrity friends, including the late politician Mo Mowlam, actresses Amanda Mealing and Barbara Windsor, comedienne Brenda Gilhoohy, and singer Cilla Black.[83]
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, his health recovered and he gave up smoking for two years. O'Grady went back to his 40-a-day habit after his lover and business partner Brendan Murphy died; 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;[84] 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.[85] He therefore postponed the new series of his show from 4 September to the end of the month. The delayed second series started on 25 September 2006, and ran over three weeks into January (for the only time in the show's history), due to its 3 week delay start.
On 18 September 2008, O'Grady released his first autobiography entitled, At My Mother's Knee... And Other Low Joints,[86] which was given a positive review by Private Eye who noted that the book did not fall into the most common celebrity biography traps of being ghost written, settling scores or not sounding like it had been written by its subject. His second book entitled The Devil Rides Out: The Second Coming was released on the 16 September 2010.[87] He confirmed on 14 October 2010, during an interview on Loose Women, that he will write a third and final chapter.[88]
| Title | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Live from the Hackney Empire | 1991 | Live at London's Hackney Empire |
| Live: Paying the Rent | 1993 | |
| Live and Outrageous from The Garrick Theatre | 2 June 1997 | Live at London's Garrick Theatre |
| The Live Show | 1 October 1999 |
| Preceded by Les Dawson |
Host of Blankety Blank 1997–2002 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |