| Penny Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | Penelope Jane Smith Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England,[1] |
| Occupation | Newsreader, television presenter |
Penelope Jane Smith (born 21 September 1958, in Eastwood, England) is an English television presenter and newsreader. She has worked on the breakfast TV show GMTV, for Sky News and for Classic FM.
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She attended Uppingham Primary School[2] in Uppingham and the Rutland High School for Girls (later Rutland College) in Oakham.[3] She was a fan of folk music and regularly sang at folk clubs.
Smith began her career as a reporter and feature writer on the Peterborough Evening Telegraph in 1977.[4] After four years, she left to backpack through Central and South America and South East Asia where she reported and presented on a current affairs programme for Radio Television Hong Kong. In 1984 she joined Radio Trent as a reporter/presenter and then worked for Central Television as press officer for documentaries and drama. After that she co-presented the local evening news for Border Television and after a year she co-presented Thames News with Andrew Gardner. Smith then moved to Sky News before becoming a presenter on GMTV in April 1993. She stayed on the programme until 4 June 2010. [5][6] [7]
Smith has also presented Crime Net, Crime File and Crime Fighters for Carlton, Crime Monthly and Most Wanted for LWT, Going For A Song for the BBC and Celebrity for ITV. She also co-presented the 1995 series of The Krypton Factor alongside Gordon Burns.
In 2006 Smith starred in the BBC2 show Just the Two of Us. She sang with Curtis Stigers and was eliminated on 3 March. She came fourth. She later appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 2006,[8][9] and several episodes of Have I Got News For You.[8][10] She also appeared in Garfield 2 when Garfield was watching television. In February 2009, she appeared on the ITV1 daytime programme Loose Women as a panelist on occasion. She was asked to appear at the last moment because of snow blizzards in London preventing some of the regular panellists from reaching the studio.
In August 2010 she appears as a panellist on ITV's new show 3@Three.[11]
Since September 2010 she has reviewed the newspapers on ITV's This Morning and is a regular contributor on The Alan Titchmarsh Show.
From 18 October 2010 Smith presented Market Kitchen: Big Adventure alongside Matt Tebbutt (weeknights at 7.00pm on the Good Food channel).
Smith has written for a number of national newspapers and magazines, including a beauty column for "Femail" in the Daily Mail and articles in Essentials magazine, Good Housekeeping, and Woman and Home.
She presented an opera show on Classic FM. In July 2010 she presented Kiri Prize, a nationwide hunt to find an opera star on Radio 2.[12]
She has produced three yoga videos: Penny Smith's Power Yoga, Penny Smith's Essential Guide to Yoga and Penny Smith's Yoga Masterclass.
Smith married journalist Tony Birtley in May 1984 in Grantham, but they divorced in 1987. She counts Rory Bremner and Paul McKenna amongst her ex-boyfriends. Since September 2001, Smith has been in a relationship with the actor Vince Leigh.[13] In 2000 she was voted the 92nd sexiest woman in the world by readers of FHM magazine. She is good friends with Mariella Frostrup and lives in Notting Hill. Smith's passions are opera, tennis, hiking and yoga.
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