Phillip Schofield

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Phillip Schofield (born on April 1, 1962 in Oldham, Lancashire) is an English television presenter and occasional actor and singer.

Contents 1 Television 2 Radio 3 Theatre 4 Personal life 5 Trivia 6 External links

Television

When he was 17, he moved with his family to New Zealand where he made his TV debut presenting the children's music programme Shazam! on February 23, 1982. In 1985, he moved back to England, where he became the first in-vision continuity presenter for Children's BBC on weekdays for two years from September. He left the "Broom Cupboard" to present Going Live! on Saturday mornings between September 1987 and April 1993.

He then moved onto adult-oriented TV with various documentaries and holiday programmes for ITV. From 1994 to 1997, Schofield presented Talking Telephone Numbers for five series until its demise, and the National Lottery Winning Lines programme for BBC One between June 2001 and October 2004.

His two current assignments with ITV1 are as presenter of daytime TV talk-show, This Morning (since 2002) with Fern Britton (Mondays-Thursdays) and Ruth Langsford (Fridays) and also the celebrity reality television show, Dancing on Ice (since 2006) alongside Holly Willoughby.

Following the success of that show and his continued spot on This Morning, ITV signed Schofield to an exclusive two year contract (a so-called Golden handcuffs deal) in July 2006. [1]

However his first project following this development (a prime-time Saturday night gameshow called It's Now Or Never) was axed after only one episode, which received viewing figures of just 1.7 million. "As a commercial broadcaster ITV is occasionally forced to take decisions like this to protect the schedule as a whole and the programme in question," said an ITV spokeswoman. [2]

The exclusive deal also meant he could no longer present the BBC nationwide quiz Test the Nation - which he'd presented for 15 editions with Anne Robinson between 2002 and 2006. Phillip was replaced by Danny Wallace.

During the run of the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here!, Phillip co-hosted the new ITV1 spin-off series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here! Exclusive with Sheree Murphy. He has also presented Have I Been Here Before? a daytime programme, in which a celebrity attempts to use regression to get in touch with their previous life.

On February 23, 2007 Schofield celebrated his 25th anniversary as a television presenter, when a surprise feature on This Morning shown highlights of his career and his parents and wife, Steph joined in the celebration.

Radio

During the same period Schofield was presenting Going Live!, he was also broadcasting on BBC Radio 1 with a Sunday show (also called Going Live).

When Radio 1 made the switch from medium wave to FM Stereo in 1988 he was one of the presenters chosen to help with the launch by officiating at the turning on of the Southend transmitter. During his 2005 appearance on Room 101, Schofield recalled how a large crowd gathered in expectation of Simon Mayo arriving by helicopter to turn on the transmitter. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, Mayo instead flew to nearby Norwich. Realising the crowd would be disappointed by Mayo's failure to appear Schofield and an unnamed producer fled in a Radio 1 outside broadcast vehicle without revealing the bad news and leaving the crowd - which included the town's mayor - still watching the sky. For this reason, and as a result of a later incident involving wing walking on a plane leaving Southend Airport, Schofield chose Southend as one of his pet hates for the programme.

Theatre

To many people's surprise (but to enormous acclaim), he also elected to try theatre and took over the role of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat from Jason Donovan on the West End stage. As a consequence he achieved a moderately placed single in the UK charts with Close Every Door. Another theatre production he was involved in was Dr Doolittle.

Personal life

Phillip married Stephanie Lowe in 1993 - they have two daughters, Molly and Ruby. He was infamous for going grey-haired at an early age and subsequently dyeing it black for a while. He is now proudly grey again. Schofield has said that he doesn't like football.

Schofield is constantly remembered as the companion of Gordon the Gopher (a puppet) from his Children's BBC and Going Live! days. The Gopher is often mentioned, and sometimes appears, on Schofield's TV interviews, usually as a joke or novelty. When Schofield appeared on Room 101 Gordon was the first thing Schofield asked to be interred there - however, the audience took the side of the rodent. His four choices for inclusion were Gordon the Gopher, (not included), Rooks (included), Southend-on-Sea - (included) and Satellite navigation systems (included).

Trivia

• Phillip Schofield was rugby tackled by Fruitbat from Carter USM in front of millions of television viewers at the children's music awards TV show Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in 1991.[3]
• Schofield was twice gunged on Noel's House Party.

Wikipedia information about Phillip Schofield This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Phillip Schofield". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.