Comic Relief is a charity which was founded in the United Kingdom in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and Alexander Mendis in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March. Comic Relief is one of the two high profile telethon events held in Britain, the other being Children in Need held annually in November.
Comic Relief was launched live on Noel Edmonds's Late, Late Breakfast Show on BBC1, on Christmas Day 1985 from a refugee camp in Sudan. The idea for Comic Relief came from the noted charity worker Jane Tewson, who established it as the operating name of Charity Projects, a registered charity in England and Scotland.
One of the fundamental principles behind working at Comic Relief is the "Golden Pound Principle" where every single donated pound (£) is spent on charitable projects. All operating costs, such as staff salaries, are covered by corporate sponsors, or interest earned on money waiting to be distributed.
Currently, its main supporters are the BBC, BT and Sainsbury's supermarket chain. The BBC is responsible for the live television extravaganza on Red Nose Day; BT provides the telephony, and Sainsbury's sells merchandise on behalf of the charity.
Since the charity was started in the 1980s, Comic Relief has raised over £600 million.
In 2002, Comic Relief and BBC Sport teamed up to create Sport Relief, a new initiative, aiming to unite the sporting community and culminate in a night of sport, entertainment and fund-raising on BBC One. Sport Relief is a biennial charity event, and the campaign deliberately alternates years with Red Nose Day, Comic Relief's flagship event. Red Nose Day occurs in odd-numbered years, and Sport Relief in even-numbered years.
In 2009, Comic Relief launched a website calling for a financial transaction tax, the "Robin Hood" tax.
Regular themes throughout the shows include parodies of recent popular shows, films and events, and specially-filmed versions of comedy shows. Smith and Jones, and a parody sketch starring Rowan Atkinson are both regularly featured – the first being (1988).
Jack Dee stood outside at the top of a pole for the duration of the show, parodying the acts of David Blaine. Celebrity Driving School led up to the event, with the test results announced during the telethon: they all failed.
The hosts of "Red Nose Day" 2003 were:
Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan, a parody of Harry Potter, starring Dawn French as Harry Potter, Jennifer Saunders as Ron Weasley and Miranda Richardson as Hermione Granger.
2005's telethon, more than any other, severely overran and many pre-filmed segments were cut short, including Harry Hill's TV Burp, Smith and Jones, and Lenny Henry as Condoleezza Rice. The uncut versions have never been screened.
McFly released the official single, a double A-side of "All About You/You've Got a Friend" which reached Number 1 in the UK singles chart, and also Number 1 in the Irish singles chart. The cover is predominantly red and features the members of McFly dressed in red, wearing red noses, in honour of Red Nose Day.
Raised by March 2006: £65 m.
Some of the sketches shown were: The Vicar of Dibley. Also intended to be shown was A Question of Comedy, a comedy quiz utilising the format (and set) of A Question of Sport, and hosted by Jack Dee, with team captains Frank Skinner, Dara Ó Briain, and Mr. Bean and guests including Jade Goody. However, in light of the Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy involving Goody, the pre-recorded segment was scrapped by BBC producers.
In the lead up to Red Nose Day many different fund raising events occurred: Beginning Friday 9 March 2007, the BBC Radio 1 breakfast team staged a tour around the UK entitled The Chris Moyles Rallyoke. The tour involved seven Karaoke nights held in a well known UK location featuring members of the public and well known celebrities and music artists. Most Radio 1 shows report on their progress, and hold competitions to win tickets to be at the final on Red Nose Day, and also to win the contents of a truck donated by various celebrities. As well as raising money at each event, the profit of the phone-in competitions go to Comic Relief making a total of £600,000
* Televised events included a third series of Comic Relief Does Fame Academy, and a celebrity version of The Apprentice entitled Comic Relief Does The Apprentice has also been screened. Also a special hybrid of Top of the Pops and Top Gear titled Top Gear of the Pops was made for Red Nose Day. It featured its presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May singing with Justin Hawkins, as well as Top Gear segments such as The Cool Wall.
* Fund raising merchandise sold during the 2007 campaign included the Big One (Red Nose) itself, 'Walkears', an Andrex Puppy with a red nose, a special Little Britain Live DVD and the official single, which was a cover of Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' sung by Girls Aloud and Sugababes.
*The last episode of the Vicar of Dibley was aired as part of the show, starring the usual cast. It featured Sting taking part with a celebrity and non-entity television show, swapping wives with the vicar's husband Harry.
*The special Little Britain Live featured famous people such as: Dennis Waterman, Chris Moyles, Jonathan Ross, Kate Moss and Russell Brand. Kate Moss played a chav, Russell Brand played a transvestite, and both Chris Moyles and Jonathan Ross were brought on as either small parts, or people who came up to the audience to be embarrassed.
*There were several sketches from Catherine Tate: in which David Tennant became a school teacher; Daniel Craig fell in love with Tate; mouthy teenager Lauren was given work experience at 10 Downing Street, leading to Tony Blair using her catchphrase "Am I bovvered?"; and foul-mouthed "Nan" appeared with Noel Edmonds on Deal or No Deal.
*To gain additional money, Peter Kay and Matt Lucas released a cover of The Proclaimers hit, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), and released it as a single 'I Would Roll (500 Miles)' (both were playing wheelchair bound characters from Little Britain and Phoenix Nights). It also featured numerous celebrity guests.
*There was also a live show from The Mighty Boosh.
A variety of events and promotions took place in the run up to the big day. Comic Relief's Chief Executive announced that the UK's landmarks were going red before the big day. Claudia Winkleman and Steve Jones presented a new Comic Relief show called Let's Dance for Comic Relief. A special limited edition Mr. Men book, Mr. Funny's Red Nose Day, went on sale with £2 from the sale of each book going to Comic Relief. Between 3 February and 23 March 2009, Kimberley Walsh, Cheryl Cole, Gary Barlow, Chris Moyles, and Fearne Cotton raised money by lending their voices to the BT Speaking Clock. Dialling 123 was one of the ways BT hopes to raise more than £300,000, as the company donated 10p for each call received from a BT landline. The Red Nose Climb saw nine celebrities successfully scale the peak of Kilimanjaro at to reach the summit of Africa's highest mountain to raise money for Comic Relief. On 27 February 2009, Gary Barlow, Ronan Keating, Chris Moyles, Ben Shephard, Cheryl Cole, Kimberley Walsh, Denise Van Outen, Fearne Cotton, and Alesha Dixon set off to Tanzania to tackle Mount Kilimanjaro with project manager and guide Jeremy Gane of Charity Challenge. The Climb has already raised in excess of £3.3 million with over £1.8 million coming from the audience of Radio 1 (a record for the station). All nine celebrities reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on Saturday 7 March 2009. Cheryl Cole, Fearne Cotton, Denise Van Outen and Ben Shephard reached the summit first at sunrise.
The following took place during the live broadcast on the night:
This was the first Comic Relief show to feature no input from Rowan Atkinson and no comedic material from Lenny Henry.
Also, by 2 July 2009 – £80 million had been raised
In addition, the first Red Nose Day Schools' song ('Make Someone Happy') was published in 2007. A CD of the song, together with backing tracks and fundraising ideas was sent free of charge to all primary schools in the UK in February by the education music publisher 'Out of the Ark Music'. Schools will be free to use the song in assemblies, singathons, or other fundraising activities. A second Red Nose Day Song has been released for every school in the UK to use free of charge. It can be downloaded from the Red Nose Day 09 website, or watched on YouTube, and a copy is being sent to every primary school in the UK. It has again been published by "Out of the Ark" music, and contains a more upbeat melody than the 2007 song. It was recorded at Hook Studios, Hook, Surrey, by the Out of the Ark Choir, which is completely made up of children. The children in the video wear Stella McCartney's special edition Comic Relief T-Shirts, and has been filmed in black and white so only the red stands out.
Comic Relief is an irregularly held event, televised on Home Box Office (HBO), which has raised and distributed nearly US$50 million toward providing health care services to homeless people throughout the United States. Comedians Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, and Whoopi Goldberg are hosts of the event.
The 1989 HBO Comic Relief show debuted the song "Mr. President", written by Joe Sterling, Ray Reach and Mike Loveless. The song was sung by Al Jarreau and Natalie Cole.
On 18 November 2006, the event was revived as a fundraiser for those affected by Hurricane Katrina, and was simulcast on TBS.
Richard Curtis also created the Idol Gives Back special for American Idol, which follows the same basic premise as Comic Relief, with specially filmed shorts, performances and footage of the stars of the show visiting impoverished countries.
An Australian version of Comic Relief, Comic Relief Australia, has also been set up. It plans to divide the money raised between Australian causes (at least 40%) and overseas charities largely in Asia Pacific (at least 40%).
Following a campaign encouraging people to buy articles such as red wristbands, the first telethon-style event was held on 6 November 2005 on the Seven Network. It followed the established format, with comedy interspersed with examples of the sorts of charities to benefit. According to its website, this raised over AUS $800,000. Another telethon was broadcast on 27 November 2006 on Seven Network. The 2006 Comic Relief Show was held under the title '50 Years of Laughs' celebrating 50 years of Television in Australia. It was hosted by Colin Lane, and featured presenters such as Amanda Keller, Mikey Robbins, Ugly Dave Grey and Derryn Hinch interviewing Kylie Mole.
Category:Charities based in the United Kingdom Category:Charities based in the United States Category:Seven Network shows Category:Organizations established in 1985
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| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Catherine Tate |
| Caption | Catherine Tate in 2008 |
| Birthname | Catherine Ford |
| Birthdate | May 12, 1968 |
| Birthplace | Bloomsbury, London, England |
| Yearsactive | 1990–present |
| Occupation | Actress, writer, comedienne |
| Domesticpartner | Twig Clark (?–present) |
| Children | Erin Clark (born January 2003) |
| Television | Big Train Wild West The Catherine Tate Show Doctor Who |
| Residence | Richmond upon Thames, London, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Ethnicity | White British |
Soon after, she became involved with Lee Mack's Perrier Comedy Award-nominated New Bits show at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2000. who commented "Catherine Tate is far too talented and she must be destroyed."
Produced by Perkins at Tiger Aspect, Tate was given her own programme on BBC Two in 2004, which she co-wrote and starred in with Derren Litten, entitled The Catherine Tate Show, which ran for three seasons. and with the first series becoming a success, in March 2005, Tate made a guest appearance during the BBC's Comic Relief as the character of Lauren from The Catherine Tate Show, alongside boy-band McFly, which gained her further exposure. Also at that time, she was a guest star at the 77th Royal Variety Performance and appeared again in the guise of Lauren Cooper. During the sketch, Tate looked up at the Royal Box and asked The Queen, "Is one bovvered? Is one's face bovvered?". She also commented during the sketch that Prince Philip had fallen asleep: "she is bling, but the old fella next to her is asleep!" He then reportedly complained to the show's executive producer, saying he had been insulted. At the end of 2005, she appeared in the BBC television adaptation of Bleak House.
Tate returned to the stage for the first time since working with the RSC, to play a role in the 2005 West End revival of Some Girl(s), alongside Sara Powell, Lesley Manville, Saffron Burrows and Friends star David Schwimmer. In an interview, Tate commented that she could not look Schwimmer in the eye during her time with him, leading to speculation that the pair did not get on.
Tate had roles in three films in 2006, these included, Starter for 10, Sixty Six,
In the 2007 television adaptation of the novel, The Bad Mother's Handbook, she played the lead role and co-starred with Anne Reid.
On 16 March 2007, Tate appeared for a second time on Comic Relief as some of her well-known characters from The Catherine Tate Show. She acted in sketches with David Tennant, Daniel Craig, Lenny Henry, and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, who used the show's famous catchphrase, "Am I bovvered?" Tate also appeared as Joannie "Nan" Taylor in an episode of Deal or No Deal, hosted by Noel Edmonds.
Tate became a Patron of the performing arts group Theatretrain.
She has also been nominated for four BAFTA Awards for her work on The Catherine Tate Show to date, including Best Comedy Performance.
Tate returned to Doctor Who in 2008 to reprise the role of Donna Noble as the Doctor's companion throughout the fourth series, which was shown on BBC One starting on 5 April for a 13-week run. Producer Russell T Davies said, "We are delighted that one of Britain's greatest talents has agreed to join us for the fourth series." Tate added, "I am delighted to be returning to Doctor Who. I had a blast last Christmas and look forward to travelling again through time and space with that nice man from Gallifrey." She returned as Donna Noble in the two-part Doctor Who Christmas special "The End of Time" which was broadcast over Christmas 2009.
In 2008 she starred as Michelle, a 38-year-old promiscuous maths teacher, in David Eldridge's Under The Blue Sky at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, alongside Francesca Annis and Nigel Lindsay. Tate injured her ankle in rehearsal on 15 July. She tackled previews with the aid of a crutch.On 11 April 2009, 26 December 2009, and 30 January 2010, Tate with David Tennant guest hosted Jonathan Ross' BBC Radio 2 show.
In 2009 she created a one off special spin off to her long running TV sketch show. Although this time the show only starred 'Nan'. In the show, Nan played Scrooge, and was visited by 3 ghosts, one of which being David Tennant. The show was a one off Christmas special.
In 2010, Tate took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.
Tate took part in a series of short comedy films called 'Little Crackers'.
Tate appeared as Queen Isabelle of Lilliput in the 2010 film adaptation of "Gulliver's Travels".
Tate will be appearing alongside former co-star David Tennant in the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing at London's Wyndham's Theatre from 16 May to September 2011.
Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:21st-century women writers Category:Actors from London Category:Alumni of the Central School of Speech and Drama Category:Audio book narrators Category:English comedians Category:English film actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English television writers Category:English women writers Category:People from Bloomsbury Category:People from Holborn Category:Royal National Theatre Company members Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members Category:Women comedians
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| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Tim Westwood |
| Background | non_performing_personnel |
| Born | October 03, 1957 Lowestoft, Suffolk, England |
| Genre | Hip-Hop, grime, R&B; |
| Occupation | Radio DJ/Television presenter |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Label | Mercury Records |
| Url | Official website |
Timothy Westwood (born 3 October 1957) is an English DJ and presenter of radio and television. He also presents the UK version of the MTV show Pimp My Ride. He is often referred to by other DJs and artists appearing on his shows simply as 'Westwood'.
His first broadcast on a legal station appears to have been on 23 March 1985, when he was already working as a pirate DJ. He was a guest on a BBC World Service programme called Meridian where he discussed early hip-hop culture in London. After appearing in the 1987 BBC Open Space documentary Bad Meaning Good, which was an early work of his own company Justice Entertainment, he achieved TV exposure in the late 1980s on the ITV programme Night Network, produced by London Weekend Television.
More recently, he presented a series of his own television programme on UKTV channel UK Play, which has since ceased broadcasting. His Radio 1 show is produced by his independent company Justice Entertainment, which also produces Chris Goldfinger's dancehall show for Radio 1.
In the late 1980s his name was often mentioned in British rap records, as he was the only well-known DJ playing hip hop on legal radio in Britain. He was named Best UK Radio DJ in the MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards in 2000, 2003 and 2005. He is a patron of the internal radio station at Feltham Young Offenders' Institution in west London.
Westwood was injured in a drive-by shooting in Kennington, South London, on 18 July 1999 - after he had been playing at the Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park. According to police reports, gunmen on a motorbike pulled up alongside his Range Rover and shot him and his assistant.
In a recent radio interview on Conspiracy Worldwide Radio Tim Westwood explained to host Mista Montana the necessity for change and evolution, emphasizing his continued love for hip hop and his excitement for the UK grime scene.
In 2009 Tim Westwood helped make the video for Next Hype. In it Westwood fires Tempa T for not making enough pars.
In interviews Sacha Baron Cohen has stated that Westwood, including his supposed fake Caribbean accent, was an inspiration for his fictional Ali G character.
Category:British radio DJs Category:British television presenters Category:Hip hop DJs Category:Pirate radio personalities Category:Old Norvicensians Category:People from Lowestoft Category:Shadyville Entertainment artists Category:Shooting survivors Category:1957 births Category:Living people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Robbie Williams |
| Landscape | No |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Robert Peter Williams |
| Born | February 13, 1974 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, synthesiser, drums, piano, violin, harmonica, marimba |
| Genre | Pop, Pop rock, dance |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, musician, vocal coach, record producer, actor |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Label | Chrysalis, Virgin, EMI |
| Associated acts | Take That |
| Url |
Williams has sold more than 57 million albums worldwide. He is the best-selling British solo artist in the United Kingdom and the best selling non-Latino artist in Latin America. Six of his albums are among the top 100 biggest-selling albums in the United Kingdom. He has also been honoured with fifteen BRIT Awards—more than any other artist—and seven ECHO Awards. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame after being voted as the "Greatest Artist of the 1990s."
In July 1995, Williams's drug abuse had escalated to the point of his having a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards. According to the documentary For the Record, he stated that he was unhappy with his musical ideas not being taken seriously by lead singer Barlow and Nigel Martin-Smith, because his desire to explore hip hop and rap conflicted with the band's usual ballads. Barlow explained in interviews that Williams had given up trying to offer creative input and merely did as he was told. As well as Williams's friction with the management of the band, Jason Orange had problems with his increasingly belligerent behaviour, his lack of interest in performing, and his frequent habit of missing the band's rehearsals.
Both Orange and Barlow confronted Martin-Smith about the internal conflict, because they did not want him dropping out while touring and before any possible future touring of America, which never took place. During one of the last rehearsals before the tour commenced, the group confronted Williams about his attitude and stated they wanted to do the tour without him. He agreed to quit the band and left; it would be the last time for twelve years that they were all together. Despite the departure of Williams, Take That completed their Nobody Else Tour as a four-piece band. They later disbanded on 13 February 1996, Williams's twenty-second birthday.
Shortly afterwards, Williams was photographed by the press partying with the members of Oasis at Glastonbury Festival. Following his departure, he became the subject of talk shows and newspapers as he acknowledged his plans to become a solo singer, and he was spotted partying with George Michael in France. However, a clause in his Take That contract prohibited him from releasing any material until after the group was officially dissolved, and he was later sued by Martin-Smith and forced to pay $200,000 in commission. After various legal battles over his right to a solo career, Williams was victorious in getting released from his contract with BMG. On 27 June 1996, Williams formally announced that he had signed with Chrysalis Records.
Recordings for Williams's first album began at London's Maison Rouge studios in March of that year. Shortly after his introduction to Guy Chambers, Williams released "Old Before I Die" which would be the first single taken from his début album. Co-written by Williams with Eric Bazilian and Desmond Child, the single was released in April 1997, hitting number two on the UK Charts; The song, apart from becoming a hit around Europe and Latin America, caused sales of his album to skyrocket. The album remained inside the British top ten for forty weeks and spent 218 weeks there altogether, making it the 58th best selling album in UK History with sales of over 2.4 million. The album eventually managed to sell over three million copies in Europe alone.
Williams and Chambers started writing the second album in Jamaica in early 1998. The first single, "Millennium", was inspired by John Barry's, theme song for You Only Live Twice, the James Bond movie. The song became Williams' first solo number one single in the United Kingdom when it was released in September of that year. It also became a top twenty hit in many European countries, as well becoming a hit in Latin America and Australia.
When the album I've Been Expecting You was released in late October 1998, it débuted at number one in the UK Albums Chart. The album received more attention outside the United Kingdom, leaving its mark in the European and Latin American markets with hits such as "No Regrets", a collaboration with The Pet Shop Boys' singer Neil Tennant and The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon. The single "No Regrets" was released in November 1998, reaching number four in the UK Singles Chart, backed with the cover of Adam and the Ants, "Antmusic". The single eventually sold over 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom being certified Silver in October 2004, almost six years after its original release.
The third single "Strong" from the album debuted at number four in the United Kingdom and number nine in New Zealand, however peaked moderately at only number 68 in Germany, number 99 in France and number 55 in the Netherlands. The fourth single, "She's the One", a cover of a track from World Party's album, Egyptology, became his second number one hit in the United Kingdom. Williams finished the year with an extensive European Tour late in 1999.
The album I've Been Expecting You was a smash hit, selling almost 3 million copies in the United Kingdom alone: certified 10x Platinum by the BPI. In Europe alone, the album sold over 4 million copies.
Capitol Records, trying to make Williams a bigger star, released a second single from the album, the ballad "Angels". Williams shot a new video for it, and when it was released in fall of that year, the song became a somewhat bigger hit than "Millennium", peaking at number 53, but this was not enough for Williams, so he concentrated on the rest of the world where he was already an established act. The album went on to sell 596,000 copies in the United States, certified Gold by the RIAA in November of that year. The compilation was released worldwide (as a limited edition in Europe); the album was a success in New Zealand reaching number one on the official album charts.
In the middle of promotion and the tours in 1999, becoming an established worldwide pop star, Williams found time to start work on what would be his third studio album. This time he had finally found his inner confidence.
The first single taken from the album was "Rock DJ", a song inspired by Williams's UNICEF mentor, the late Ian Dury. The video showed Williams in an attempt to get noticed by a group of females, first stripping and then tearing chunks of skin and muscle from his body, and caused controversy in the United Kingdom and many other countries. The video was edited by Top of the Pops for its graphic content and many other channels followed suit. The song became an instant hit, making number one in the United Kingdom and becoming his third number one single as a solo artist exactly a year after his sell-out concert at the Slane Castle. The song also reached number one in New Zealand and hit the Top 10 placings in many countries including Germany, Despite this success, the song failed to break into the United States charts, but it did get some TV Airplay on channels such as MTV and VH1. The song went on to win several awards; among them, "Best Song of 2000" at the MTV Europe Music Awards, "Best Single of the Year" at the BRIT Awards and an MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects. It sold over 600,000 copies in the UK alone, being certified Platinum by the BPI.
When the album, Sing When You're Winning was released in August 2000, it topped the charts in many different countries all over the world including Germany, New Zealand and The Netherlands and secured top ten placings in Italy, Austria, Australia, Finland and Sweden, among many others. As for the UK, the album débuted at number one being certified 2x Platinum on its first week of release.
The album's second single, a collaboration with Australian singer Kylie Minogue, titled "Kids", was written when Minogue approached Williams to write material for what would be her first album Light Years under Parlophone; Williams decided to include the track on his album and release it as a single. It was an instant hit when it was released in October of that year, hitting number two in the United Kingdom and reaching top twenty placings in countries like Australia and New Zealand. Kids became one of the biggest hits of that year selling over 200,000 copies in the UK alone and was certified Silver.
Further singles, such as "Supreme" (which Williams also recorded in French), and "Better Man" became big hits reaching the top 10 in numerous countries around the world.
"Eternity", a track that was not featured on the album, was released in mid 2001 backed with "The Road to Mandalay" - the former was written by Williams. It became his fourth number one single in the United Kingdom, selling over 70,000 copies in its first week in the UK alone, and also hit the top 10 in many countries including Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy among others.
The album spent 91 weeks inside the UK Charts, going on to sell 2.4 million copies in the UK alone and was certified 8x Platinum by the BPI. It became the 51st Best Selling album in UK Music History Born from his life-long love for Frank Sinatra combined with the success of the track "Have You Met Miss Jones?" that he recorded for the film Bridget Jones' Diary in early 2001 the album was recorded at the Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, California.
Williams took the chance to duet with his long-time friend Jonathan Wilkes, Little Voice star Jane Horrocks, Saturday Night Live star Jon Lovitz, Rupert Everett and the Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman. The first single released from the album was a duet with Kidman, on "Somethin' Stupid". Originally a hit for Frank and Nancy Sinatra, the song became Williams' fifth number one hit in the United Kingdom, selling almost 100,000 copies in its first week of release, as well as hitting the top 5 in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and New Zealand. It eventually went on to become one of the biggest hits of 2001, selling over 200,000 copies in the UK alone. After spending three weeks at the top of the charts in 2001, it was certified Silver in January 2002.
When the album Swing When You're Winning (in reference to his 2000 studio album Sing When You're Winning) was released in late 2001, it became an instant hit in the United Kingdom (spending six consecutive weeks at number one), Ireland, New Zealand, Austria, Germany and Switzerland and it reached the top ten in the rest of the world, going on to sell over 2 million copies by the end of 2001 and over 7 million altogether. A second single was released from the album, a double a-side "Mr. Bojangles/I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen". It was, however, released only in Central and Eastern Europe. "Mack the Knife" was released as a radio single in Mexico.
The album spent 57 weeks inside the UK Charts, selling more than 2.1 million copies. It was certified 7x Platinum in the United Kingdom and ultimately became the 49th Best Selling Album in UK Music History. "Beyond the Sea" was put in the credits of the film Finding Nemo in 2003 and was also released on the film's soundtrack CD.
A DVD called Robbie Williams Live at the Albert Hall was released in December of that year. So far, it has become one of the best selling music DVDs in Europe, being certified 6x Platinum in the United Kingdom and 2x Platinum in Germany.
Williams began working on what would be his fifth studio album, spending a year in the recording studio. The album heralded a new era for Williams. He had taken a more active role in the making of this album, giving an indication of his growing confidence in the studio. "One Fine Day", "Nan's Song", and "Come Undone" were the first songs that Williams wrote without the input of Guy Chambers. Most of the songs were recorded in Los Angeles. When the single was released in late 2002, it became Williams' biggest international hit, going number one in countries like The Netherlands and Italy, as well as reaching the top ten in almost every single European country.
When Williams' fifth studio album, Escapology, was released in late 2002, it hit number one in at least 10 countries around the world including the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Elsewhere, it made the top ten. In the United States, however, it failed to make such an impact, reaching only number forty-three on the Billboard Albums Chart.
The album's second single, "Come Undone" became a top ten hit around the world. Due to its controversial video, it was heavily censored by MTV Networks Europe for depicting a debauched (but fully-clothed) Williams having three-way sex with two women. The video was about some young people having a party and it showed footage of fights, drug taking and alcohol abuse. It also showed unsettling images of insects and reptiles. The uncensored version of the video was released on DVD single in Europe and was also included on the Enhanced CD Single. BBC Radio 2 also banned the song for its explicit content. At that time, it was confirmed that Williams and Guy Chambers were to officially split up. The single was released in mid-2003. While it had minor success compared to Williams' previous songs, it did manage to enter the top ten in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Denmark. However it failed to make much of an impact in the music charts in other countries. The video featured a number of people from all over Europe vying to win the chance to perform as Robbie Williams at the end of the same video. The three winners had the chance to meet Williams. Three different versions of the video were released in different parts of the world, featuring the different winners. Williams started his world tour in the mid-2003, and he was about to do three live concerts in Knebworth. The Knebworth shows attracted a total of 375,000 fans.
Escapology ended up selling almost 2 million copies by the end of 2003 in the United Kingdom. It was certified 6x Platinum by the BPI, becoming the 60th best selling album in UK music history.
In October 2003, Williams released his first live album, Live at Knebworth which peaked at number two in the UK. The live record ended up selling a little over 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom and was certified 2x Platinum by the BPI. It sold a total of 2 million units in Europe alone. "Radio", the compilation's first single was released in October 2004, which debuted at number one of the UK Singles Chart The song was also a number one hit in Denmark, and it hit the top ten in The Netherlands, Italy, Austria and Norway.
When the compilation Greatest Hits was released two weeks later, it went on to sell 320,000 copies in its first week in the United Kingdom debuting at number one.
The album's second single, the ballad "Misunderstood", which was also the soundtrack of the film hit the top ten in Italy and Denmark in December of that year, making the album the best selling album of the year in the United Kingdom and becoming the 61st Best Selling Album in UK Music History, It also became the best selling album of the year in Europe, being certified 5x Platinum, with over 5 million copies sold.
Eight years after the release of "Angels", in February 2005 the British public voted it as the "Best Single of the Past Twenty-Five Years" at the 2005 BRIT Awards.
After touring Latin America in late 2004 for the promotion of his Greatest Hits album, Williams started working on his sixth studio album. Recorded in his bedroom in the Hollywood Hills, the album was co-written by Stephen Duffy over the course of 24 months.
The track "Ghosts" was inspired by the Human League's "Louise", about a man who breaks off a relationship with his partner and realises he still has strong feelings for her.
The album Intensive Care was launched in Berlin, Germany on 9 October. It became a smash hit around the world, hitting number one in the United Kingdom, as well as topping the charts in Germany,
In November 2005, Williams took home the MTV Europe Music Award for 'Best Male', but also, entered in The Guinness Book of World Records when he announced his World Tour for 2006, selling 1.6 million tickets in one single day. But after the success, Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Jason Orange, and Howard Donald had agreed to reunite in Notting Hill, west London, for a preview screening of a documentary about Take That. The documentary screened on ITV1 on 16 November 2005. Unfortunately, according to a source quoted by The Sunday Mirror, "Robbie announced he wasn't coming. The rest of the band were gutted but felt the show had to go on."
By December, the second single from the album was released. The ballad "Advertising Space" reached the top ten in some European countries including the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
Williams kicked off his Close Encounters World Tour in South Africa in April 2006, when he finished his European leg of the tour. 2.5 million had seen the show, and after touring Latin America and Australia the numbers went up to 3 million.
After a long gap between singles, the third cut from the album was released in the mid-2006. "Sin Sin Sin" was the first song Williams and Duffy wrote together, the video of which was shot in Cape Town, South Africa right before the start of his tour. The track became Williams' first single not to make the UK Top 20, charting at only number 22, but managed to enter the top 20 in some countries including Germany,
By the end of the promotion of the album, it was announced that it had sold over five million copies in Europe alone, and was certified 5x Platinum by the IFPI. It was also certified 5x Platinum in the United Kingdom becoming, at the time, his lowest selling studio album in the country.
The first single, "Rudebox", was premièred on radio by Scott Mills on his show on BBC Radio 1. The event caused some controversy, as the record label's embargo date was broken, although the artist himself later backed the presenter for doing so. More controversy followed due to the first single's radical change of direction when compared to his older releases. British newspaper The Sun named the song "The Worst Song Ever". However, Victoria Newton stated that there were sure-fire hits on the album. The song was released in September that year reaching number four in the UK Singles Chart. It hit the number one spot in Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
Williams released his much anticipated dance/electro album, Rudebox, on 23 October 2006. It received mixed reviews: Allmusic gave it a four star rating, the NME 8 out of 10, and Music Week and MOJO were equally positive, but it received much weaker reviews from some of the British press. Despite reaching the number one spot, sales were far below what was expected by his label, and overall sales in the UK were overtaken by his former band, Take That's Beautiful World. The album has sold a little under 500,000 copies in the United Kingdom, becoming his lowest-selling album in the country, being certified 2x Platinum by the BPI. The album was received with a warmer reception by the public in other parts of the world where it hit number one including Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Finland and Italy.
The album sold 2x Platinum in Europe with sales of over 2 million making it the fastest platinum-selling album of 2006. The album finished at number eighteen in the list of 2006's best selling albums worldwide. Neil Tennant claimed the album had sold 4.5 million copies by early 2007.
The second single, "Lovelight", came out right before the release of the album, and was commercially released on 13 November. The single reached the top ten in the United Kingdom, but failed to reach the success of Williams' previous releases when the track showed no longevity in the charts.
The third single, "She's Madonna" included remixes from Kris Menace and Chris Lake and was released on European radio in late January to precede the commercial release which was scheduled for 5 March 2007. The track reached only number sixteen on the Singles Chart in the United Kingdom, but fared better in Continental Europe hitting the top ten in most countries. It rose to number one on the European Airplay Chart after spending four weeks at number two, a feat his former band, Take That, failed to achieve. It was confirmed that this single was not going to be released in Latin America or Australia, but did receive heavy airplay in the latter country. Despite this, the single was released as Digital Download in Mexico in four different formats. In August 2007, the single reached number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart.
"Bongo Bong and Je Ne T'Aime Plus", a collaboration with British singer Lily Allen, was released as the third single in Latin America and other European countries, hitting radio in January 2007, and as a Digital Download in February. To promote his album, Williams commissioned a series of short films. Goodbye to the Normals was directed by Jim Field Smith and features "Burslem Normals" by Robbie Williams.
On 4 October 2007, Williams made a return to the live stage after almost ten months, when he made a guest appearance at Mark Ronson's concert in Los Angeles. He performed The Charlatans' song "The Only One I Know", which features on Ronson's album Version.
Rumours of a new studio album co-written with Guy Chambers had surfaced in early 2007, along with known commitments required by Williams to his EMI contract. British singer-songwriter Laura Critchley commented that she had sung vocals for three songs, and said that it would not be released until 2009.
On 16 January 2008 UK tabloid The Sun announced that Williams had been working on some songs with The Blockheads member Chaz Jankel. The article went on to state that the reunion with Chambers hadn't worked out and that the material that Williams is working on with Jankel will form the basis of his next studio album. However, although it had been confirmed on the Blockheads' official site that Jankel was writing with Williams, the rumour that Chambers was no longer working with him was not official. In late August 2008, Williams' friend Callum Blue commented that he was still working on the album.
In February 2009, it was confirmed that Williams had written material with Guy Chambers and Mark Ronson. A spokesman said that Williams was planning to begin the recording sessions in March and that the new album would be released in late 2009. This will probably be the last Williams album released by EMI. On his official website, Williams confirmed that he is working with producer Trevor Horn on his new album; he described himself as "buzzing" and that the new album sounds "big. Very, very big". The new album will be titled Reality Killed the Video Star, a reference to the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" by Horn's former band The Buggles. The album was released on 9 November 2009 in the United Kingdom. The new song "Bodies" saw its first play on 4 September 2009 during the Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1, where Moyles described it as "a grower", with Williams later agreeing that it may take a few listens for people to like it.
On 11 October 2009 Williams published a 12-track compilation album, titled Songbook, as a free CD for the newspaper The Mail on Sunday. The CD is a one-off album of some of his biggest hits - including several rare live performances and images from his new album. The CD also included the 'completemyartist' software which gave access to more exclusive content and playlists online. That same evening, Williams made his "comeback" on The X Factor results show, performing his new single "Bodies" for the first time live. The appearance proved to be somewhat controversial as press and viewers alike questioned Williams' well-being following a bizarre and erratic performance. A spokesperson for Williams later issued a public statement declaring that Williams had not been taking drugs. On 12 December 2009 Williams appeared again on the show to duet with finalist Olly Murs. There were claims that Robbie missed his cue, and he was unaware of the long instrumental and therefore began too early. However, after laughing it off and picking up his place again from Olly Murs, he managed to complete the performance without any other negative incidents.
On 20 October 2009 Williams opened the BBC Electric Proms at the London RoundHouse. It was his first live concert for 3 years and was beamed across 200 cinemas around the world. Accompanied by a string section, horn section, full band and producer Trevor Horn, Williams performed several new tracks from Reality Killed the Video Star and several of his greatest hits. Among the musicians, the harpist in the band Lucinda Belle was spotted in this live show by BBC DJ Fearne Cotton, which directly led to her being signed by Universal Records with a five-record deal worth 1.25 million pounds.
Reality Killed the Video Star was exclusively previewed in the UK on the Spotify music streaming service on 6 November 2009, three days before its official release on 9 November. In a high profile chart battle, Williams' album was pitted against X Factor 2008 runners-up JLS who released their debut album the same day. JLS beat Williams to the number one spot by 1500 sales - both were the two biggest-selling albums of the year so far in the UK - making Reality... Williams' first studio album not to reach no.1 in the UK. However it reached number 1 globally that week.
The album was also released in the United States (Williams' first album to be released there since 2002's Escapology). However, the album peaked at #160 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and dropped out of the chart after only one week.
In late November 2009, Williams traveled to Australia to perform at the ARIA Music Awards of 2009.
On 26 August 2010, it was announced Williams would become a guest vocal coach on the ninth series of German reality television show to teach candidates for a girl group. On 20 September 2010, Williams released his second book called "You Know Me" in collaboration with Chris Heath. The book features a personal photo collection from the past 20 years of his career and behind-the-scenes insight from Williams.
In October, Media Control named Robbie Williams the most successful album-artist of the millennium due to the fact that he had spent No. 1 on the German Albums Chart for 38 weeks since 2000. He also reached that chart's Top Ten 135 times.
On 27 March 2009, Williams stated he felt ready to re-join Take That. He said: "I'm in regular contact with them, even Gaz, and it's looking more likely by the week. The lads all seem up for it and some people think it's a done deal. I think it would be fun." Williams was eager to re-join the band on their The Circus Live tour, but these plans never materialised. In September 2009, Williams was reported to be working in New York with Take That, however these rumours were never confirmed.
While it was rumoured that Williams would reunite with Take That on 12 November 2009 for a Children In Need charity concert at The Royal Albert Hall, they merely greeted each other warmly on stage between performances. However, both did join with the other acts in the final song of the evening, with Robbie putting his arm around Gary Barlow and singing Hey Jude happily together. Williams subsequently implied in an interview that a proper reunion was still a distinct possibility. On 15 February 2010, tabloid newspaper The Sun printed an interview with Robbie, stating that he and Take That had been sighted going to an Los Angeles studio together. It was announced on 15 July that Robbie Williams had rejoined Take That. In November 2010 the Take That album Progress'' was released and became the fastest selling album of the century and second fastest selling album in UK history.
The band also announced the Progress Live 2011 tour which will travel across the UK in the Summer and finish with a record breaking 8 nights at Wembley Stadium in London. The tour will also visit some of the biggest venues across Europe after the tour of the UK. The tour was the fastest selling tour in UK history with ticket hotlines and websites crashing under the demand. Its highest position on American charts was #20 in Top 40 Mainstream. His second single, "Angels", was a success on the Hot Adult Contemporary Chart where it peaked at #10. It also hit #41 in the Hot 100, becoming his highest peaking track on the main American chart and the most commonly known Robbie Williams song in the United States (later covers by Jessica Simpson and David Archuleta would be released as singles). In 1999, Williams released a special, US only, compilation of his first two albums, titled The Ego Has Landed. The album peaked at #63 and went Gold selling over 500,000 copies in the US. but failed to chart on the Hot 100. The album peaked at #110 on the Billboard 200 and only stayed on the charts for four weeks.
Together with a promotional tour, EMI hoped that the release of Escapology would be the album to successfully break the American market. Williams performed the lead song "Feel" on such shows as Good Morning America and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. However, this single did not reach Hot 100 but peaked at #28 on the Adult Top 40. The album Escapology also failed to catch fire in America and peaked at #43 on the US Album Billboard Charts. Intensive Care and Rudebox were not released on an American label, but they were made available on iTunes. Williams's 2009 album, Reality Killed The Video Star, was released in the US, but was also a commercial failure, peaking at #160 and remained on the chart for only one week.
Williams's single "Lovelight" was released in the United States by Virgin Records, debuting at #23 in the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart on March 2008 and eventually peaking at #8 by May 2008.
In 2002, Williams appeared on the track "My Culture" on the 1 Giant Leap album, alongside rapper Maxi Jazz (which features lyrics from the hidden track "Hello Sir" from Life Thru a Lens). Williams also features on a double CD titled Concrete which was released on the same day as Rudebox. The CD features a concert recorded for the BBC featuring the Pet Shop Boys and Williams singing their classic hit "Jealousy". Their joint effort, "She's Madonna", was released as a single in March 2007. On 13 August 2007, a Dean Martin duets album was released, on which Williams sings "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone". Most recently it was announced that Williams has recorded what is going to be Mexican singer Thalía's first single from her upcoming English-language album. In 2010 he announced that he was to release "Shame", a duet with Take That lead singer songwriter Gary Barlow as the first single from his greatest hits collection .
He has been presented many awards, including sixteen BRIT and seven ECHO awards. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, after being voted as the Greatest artist of the 1990s.
He appears in the list of the all-time Top 100 biggest selling albums in the United Kingdom six times.
On 23 October 2009 it was announced that he would receive the Outstanding Contribution To British Music award at the 2010 BRIT Awards. Williams received his award on 16 February 2010 at the end of the ceremony and performed a live medley of his greatest hits including Let Me Entertain You, No Regrets, and Angels.
On Friday 3 September 2010, on a show that included "The Wanted" and Alesha Dixon, he switched on the world famous Blackpool illuminations, stating that it was one of the greatest honours he'd ever achieved.
Williams has reportedly battled mental illness, obesity, self-esteem issues, alcoholism, and substance abuse throughout his life. He once discussed how his friend Elton John booked him into a clinic to cope with his drug use that emerged from the depression he was experiencing while still in Take That. Williams used to smoke up to 60 cigarettes a day; he gave up in 2009 for his girlfriend Ayda Field.
Williams has a strong interest in UFOs and related paranormal phenomena, and has pursued this interest during his 2007–08 sabbatical. His interest in the subject led to him taking part in a documentary for BBC Radio 4 with Jon Ronson. The documentary followed them to a UFO convention in Nevada. During an interview with Joss Stone on The Jeremy Kyle Show in 2008, Williams revealed that while out of his head on dispirin he has seen UFOs three times. Williams said his first UFO sighting was when he was a child in Britain while he spotted his second in Beverly Hills, and added that the third sighting was just after he had written a song about alien contact.
In January 2007, Williams has been in a relationship with Turkish American actress Ayda Field. They have reportedly been together for almost three years. Despite several break up stories in the press Williams and Field have been spotted together many times this year. On 29 January 2008 they were pictured on vacation together at Mammoth Ski Resort in California, accompanied by Max Beesley. She was featured in a UFO documentary that Williams did for BBC Radio 4 in April and took part in a field investigation he did in Trout Lake, Washington in August 2008.
On 8 November 2008, Williams was spotted with Field at football match at the Emirates Stadium, where he was also seen with Gary Barlow accompanied by his two oldest children, and Williams' longtime friend Jonathan Wilkes. The couple has been living together in a mansion in Wiltshire since the beginning of 2009 according to The Sun. In October 2009, Field appeared in the video of Williams comeback single Bodies. Williams has been referring to Field as his "wife" in recent interviews.
In November 2009, Williams announced to Jonathan Ross that he was 'in love' with Field. On 26 November 2009, Williams proposed to Ayda Field live on the Australian radio channel 2dayfm in an interview on the Kyle and Jackie O Show. However, it was later revealed by Williams' manager that it was "done as a joke following suggestions it was a stunt which was set up prior to the radio show." His spokesman confirmed: 'He did say it, but he did it in a jocular manner. They are not engaged.' A few days later Williams himself denied the engagement, using his official blog to say "Hey all. We are not engaged. Rob.". On 7 August 2010, Williams and Field married at his home in Los Angeles.
Williams is a lifelong supporter of Port Vale, based in his home town of Stoke-on-Trent. In February 2006 he bought £240,000 worth of shares in the club, making him the majority shareholder. He also has a restaurant at Vale Park named in his honour.
; Studio albums
; Compilation albums
; Live albums
Category:1974 births Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:English dance musicians Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English football chairmen and investors Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English pop singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Music from Stoke-on-Trent Category:People from Stoke-on-Trent Category:Port Vale F.C. Category:Take That members Category:World Music Awards winners
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Caption | Gervais at the 2007 BAFTAs |
| Birth name | Ricky Dene Gervais |
| Birth date | June 25, 1961 |
| Birth place | Reading, England |
| Medium | Stand-up, television, film, music, books, radio, podcast |
| Nationality | British |
| Genre | Observational comedy, Improvisational comedy, Cringe humor |
| Subject | British culture, American culture, everyday life, self-deprecation, obesity, body image, race relations, relationships, current events, religion |
| Influences | Garry Shandling, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Louis C.K., Woody Allen |
| Active | 1983–present |
| Domesticpartner | Jane Fallon (1982–present) |
| Notable work | David Brent in The Office Andy Millman in Extras Himself in The Ricky Gervais Show Dr. Bertram Pincus in Ghost Town Dr. McPhee in Night at the Museum |
| Website | http://www.rickygervais.com/}} |
Ricky Dene Gervais (; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician and writer. Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator Stephen Merchant. Besides writing and directing the shows, Gervais played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. Gervais has starred in a number of Hollywood films, assuming leading roles in Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying. Gervais has performed on four sell-out stand-up comedy tours, written the best-selling Flanimals book series and starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the most downloaded podcast in the world as of March 2009, The Ricky Gervais Show.
He has won a multitude of awards and honours, including seven BAFTA Awards, two British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, one Golden Globe Award and the 2006 Rose d'Or, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007 he was voted the 11th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 3rd greatest stand-up comic. In 2010, he was named on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. Gervais hosted the 2010 Golden Globe Awards and has been signed by NBC to host the 2011 Globes as well.
During Xfm London's The Ricky Gervais Show and in further newspaper interviews with The Independent, Gervais noted that he believes his birth was unplanned due to the age difference between his youngest sibling and himself. During one interview with The Independent, Gervais tells the author that even his mother admitted his birth was unplanned. He has claimed that his father was "drunk when he filled in the birth certificate", leading to the unusual spelling of his middle name.
Gervais has stated that his upbringing and childhood were stable and trauma-free, with a high level of honesty and openness between his family members. He claims that his family, "much like The Waltons", made fun of each other regularly.
Gervais attended Whitley Park Infants and Junior Schools and received his secondary education at Ashmead Comprehensive School, before moving on to University College London in 1979. He arrived to study biology but changed to philosophy after only two weeks and earned degree in the subject. During his first and second years at UCL he stayed at Canterbury Hall, one of the University of London halls of residence in Bloomsbury. It was also during his time at UCL that he met Jane Fallon, with whom he has been in a relationship since 1982.
According to the 20 December 2003 Ricky Gervais Show, Gervais later had a band called the Sacred Hearts, which Ian Camfield described as Gervais's Bon Jovi phase.
Needing an assistant, Gervais interviewed the first person whose curriculum vitae he saw. The CV belonged to Stephen Merchant. During the interview at a local pub, Merchant agreed to do "all the boring stuff" because of his experience in media studies while Gervais "mess
Gervais was music adviser for the BBC drama This Life, which was being produced by his girlfriend, Jane Fallon. He and Merchant also contributed sketches to BBC Radio 1's The Breezeblock in 1999 and 2000.
After the first series of The Office, Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in November 2001 for a Saturday radio show. The show ran intermittently until January 2004 with breaks of 1–3 months between new shows. This was their first time working with Karl Pilkington, who produced the shows and later collaborated with them on their series of podcasts.
Gervais guest-starred in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", which aired on 26 March 2006 in the United States, on 23 April 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on 18 July 2006 in Australia. He is the only British comic to write and star in a Simpsons episode. The episode was the highest rated in Sky One's history, arguably because of its extensive promotion, which revolved around the angle that Gervais was the episode's sole writer (and the first guest star on the show to also receive a writing credit for the episode of his appearance). Gervais clarified the extent of his input in a joint interview (with Christopher Guest) for Dazed and Confused magazine (January 2006): "No, all I did was put down a load of observations on an email and they made it look like a Simpsons script. I'm going to get the credit, but I think everyone in the industry knows it was a joint effort". Asked in a separate interview about how his idea for the episode (in which Homer swaps Marge on a game show) came about, Gervais replied:
I've always been fascinated with reality game shows but I think it was my girlfriend's idea. We watch Celebrity Big Brother at the moment, we watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here... we watch all those reality TV shows — The Office came out of those docu-soaps".Gervais, a longstanding Simpsons fan, presented a segment to mark the show's 20th anniversary on BBC Two's The Culture Show on 16 June 2007.
Gervais has also guest-starred on Alias (appearing in the third-season episode "Façade") as Daniel Ryan, a former Royal Navy bomb-disposal specialist turned rogue Irish Republican Army bomb-maker. He has said about the appearance, "I did an episode of Alias, and I can't watch it. Me being serious. I can't watch it".
Gervais made a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live in a Digital Short during which he claims that The Office was adapted from a Japanese program of the same name (with Steve Carell reprising his role as Michael Scott). The sketch re-creates scenes from the American and British pilot episode with Japanese elements (although in an exaggerated way). "It's funny", Gervais laughs at the end, "because it's racist".
In January 2009, Gervais was interviewed by James Lipton for Season 15 of BravoTV's Inside the Actors Studio.
In January 2010, Gervais hosted the 67th Golden Globe Awards, making him the first master of ceremonies since 1995. He stated:
"I have resisted many other offers like this, but there are just some things you don't turn down."His performance as host received a mixed response with positive reviews from the New York Daily News and The Associated Press, but also some negative comments from industry bible, The Hollywood Reporter.
Gervais was a guest judge/panelist on Jerry Seinfeld's NBC show The Marriage Ref alongside Larry David and Madonna. On 1 April 2010, Gervais made his first appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC.
As of December 2010, he has made 17 guest appearances on The Late Show With David Letterman on the CBS network.
In April 2010 it was announced that Gervais and Stephen Merchant will be writing a new show, called Life's Too Short, which they described as, "A cross between Extras and Curb your Enthusiasm and One Foot in the Grave but with a dwarf. That is out and out funny.” The show will star actor Warwick Davis as himself, as well as Gervais and Merchant.
In June 2010 it was announced that Gervais had been cast in the upcoming Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm playing himself.
The first six-episode series of The Office aired in the UK in July and August 2001 to little fanfare or attention. Word-of-mouth, repeats, and DVDs helped spread the word, building up huge momentum and anticipation for the second series, also comprising six episodes, in September 2002. The second series topped the BBC Two ratings, and the show then switched to BBC One in December 2003 for its final two special episodes.
The Office has since been remade for audiences in France, Germany, Quebec, Brazil, and the United States. Gervais and Merchant are producers of the American version, and they also co-wrote the episode "The Convict" for the show's third season. The show is currently airing on Adult Swim on Fridays, and prior to the show's airing, Gervais appears as himself talking about the episode that will air in moments. In one of those segments, Gervais claimed the episode "Training" to be his favourite.
Guest stars on the first series of Extras include Ross Kemp, Les Dennis, Patrick Stewart, Vinnie Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet, and Francesca Martinez. A second series began on 14 September 2006 in the UK and featured appearances by Daniel Radcliffe, Dame Diana Rigg, Orlando Bloom, Sir Ian McKellen, Chris Martin, Keith Chegwin, Robert Lindsay, Warwick Davis, Ronnie Corbett, Stephen Fry, Richard Briers, Patricia Potter, Sophia Myles, Moira Stuart, David Bowie, Kate Winslet, Robert De Niro, and Jonathan Ross.
at Live 8 in July 2005.]] A Christmas special of Extras aired on 27 December 2007 in the UK and on 16 December 2007 in the US, featuring guest appearances by George Michael, Clive Owen, Gordon Ramsay, Jonathan Ross, and David Tennant.
On 10 June 2006, Gervais and Merchant were seen in a specially filmed promotional sketch for Extras 2 in the middle of BBC One's World Cup football coverage. This time, Gervais did not perform his famous dance. Instead, Merchant did a take-off of the Crouch Dance, recently popularised by England striker Peter Crouch.
Some have suggested that Gervais is influenced by Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show in making Extras, particularly in the format of celebrities making fools of themselves or subverting their public personas, and in the Gervais joke of someone making inappropriate remarks in front of a member of a minority. He has interviewed both Larry David and Garry Shandling, creators of these shows, on Ricky Gervais Meets... .
Extras was awarded the Golden Globe award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy on 14 January 2008.
In February 2007, British ventriloquist Keith Harris refused an invitation to appear on the second series of Extras, claiming that Gervais "wanted me to be a racist bigot" and describing the script as "pure filth". When asked about Harris's refusal on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Gervais claimed that Harris simply "didn't get it". Keith Chegwin, who assumed the role offered to Harris, said "the people who didn't get it probably think Johnny Depp really is a pirate."
The Ricky Gervais Show is an animated TV show that debuted on US cable network HBO on 19 February 2010. In the UK, the first season began airing on 23 April 2010 on Channel Four. The show was developed using original podcast recordings from The Ricky Gervais Show starring Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. After receiving a loyal and enthusiastic following in the US, Cable channel HBO recommissioned the show for a second season, due to air in 2011.
The original audio show was broadcast in November 2001 on radio station Xfm, and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, and mid-2005. In November 2005, Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month. According to the BBC, by September 2006, the podcasts of the series had been downloaded "nearly 8 million" times.
Gervais later toured the UK in 2003 with his stand-up show Animals. The Politics tour followed a year later. Both of these shows were recorded for release on DVD and television broadcast. The third part of the themed live trilogy, Fame, took place in 2007. It started in Glasgow in January and ended in Sheffield in April. Blackpool reported selling out of tickets within 45 minutes of them going on sale. More dates were added. Newsnight Review's panel saw Animals during its Bloomsbury run and covered it in January 2003. They were not favourable, with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop being the most explicit in his criticism. After this, Gervais closed each show by calling Hislop an "ugly little pug-faced cunt". Further coverage on Newsnight Review has been overwhelmingly favourable, with the panelists playing themselves in promos for the second series of Extras. Panel regulars Germaine Greer, Mark Kermode, and Mark Lawson also appeared as themselves reviewing When The Whistle Blows in a series episode. Critic Mark Lawson is a great admirer of Gervais and Merchant, having interviewed them extensively for television, print Front Row, and the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Fame was the subject of some controversy in January 2007, when Gervais told a story, ostensibly about how people will do anything to become famous, to a Scottish audience. The story referred to a question asked of Gervais five years earlier by a reporter: what could someone do to become famous like you? To which he replied, "Go out and kill a prostitute". He followed up with the punchline, "I won't do that bit in Ipswich", referring to the December 2006 murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich. The joke drew criticism from the father of victim Tania Nicol: "These days, they want to make a joke out of anything. I feel he’s just being uncaring, quite honestly". Gervais defended himself: "I do want people to know that that happened five years ago and is not related to anything now. That is the problem with comedy, a joke that is funny today can be a terrible faux pas tomorrow".
He has performed stand-up in the U.S. three times—he performed two warm-up shows at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center and headlined David Bowie's High Line Festival in May 2007.
Gervais's latest show is entitled Science, with an eleven date tour that commenced in August 2009 at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow. The DVD for this show was released on 15 November 2010. In November 2009, he headlined the sixth annual New York Comedy Festival at Carnegie Hall, New York.
On the This Morning show Gervais revealed that he had already began writing his fifth stand up routine and is titled People.
There is a wide range of Flanimals merchandise available, including dolls and gift cards. A six-part Flanimals TV series has been commissioned by ITV, although Gervais had previously claimed signing a Hollywood movie deal so that a franchise could be developed. "That way it stands a chance of being the next Dr. Seuss or Mr. Men".
In late 2006, the Extras script book was released, as well as The World of Karl Pilkington presented by Gervais and Merchant. These were essentially transcripts of Xfm/podcast routines performed by the three.
Gervais starred in Ghost Town, which was released on 19 September 2008, and was in Lowell, Massachusetts during May 2008 filming his next project, The Invention of Lying, starring himself, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, and Jason Bateman, with appearances by Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Jeffrey Tambor, Roz Ryan, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Edward Norton. The comedy, released in 2009, was co-written and co-directed by Gervais and Matt Robinson. The film was released in April 2010.
Gervais also has a role in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV, as himself, appearing in his role as a comedian in a comedy club, and as an interviewee on radio station We Know The Truth. For this, a special 3-minute act was written, recorded and fully motion-captured.
In the weeks before the event was scheduled to take place both Merchant and Pilkington voiced their doubts as to his fitness due to illness which he had suffered weeks before the event, humorously, by stating that both they and Gervais's family had written up a petition to the BBC stating "Please do not let this man box."
Gervais was trained for the three-round contest by famous boxing trainer brothers Frank and Eugene Maloney, at their Fight Factory gymnasium. It was the second televised charity boxing match, the first being Bob Mortimer against Les Dennis, for Comic Relief. The fight was televised by the BBC, and Gervais came out on top by a split decision verdict. Gervais later said that the experience was the 'most difficult thing' he had ever done. He donated his £5,000 prize money to the training of a Macmillan nurse.
On 7 July 2007, Gervais appeared at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London. Gervais introduced Rob Reiner appearing in the guise of spoof film director Marty Di Bergi, who in turn introduced Spinal Tap. At the start of the concert, Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles, who was acting as compère for part of the event, announced that Gervais would be appearing and performing an 'extended 25-minute set', which ultimately failed to happen. It is unclear whether this was meant as a joke, perhaps referring to the time Gervais had to fill at the Concert for Diana the previous Sunday, or if it was simply cut because of time constraints, but in an off-stage segment later Moyles actually expressed disappointment that it had not occurred. Gervais himself however did reference his appearance at the Diana concert the previous week, saying, 'Now listen, we're running late, so I'm gonna be off this stage in 30 seconds, whether Elton John is fucking ready or not,' making him one of a number of people to swear on live TV at the event.
In July 2007, following Gervais's appearance at the memorial concert for Diana, Princess of Wales, The Guardian ran a column by Daily Mirror television critic Jim Shelley entitled "Call Me Crazy... But Has Ricky Gervais Lost It?" The following week, The Guardian noted that Gervais had responded with "an exhilaratingly foul-mouthed tirade" on his website, concluding with the words, "Yes I am resting on my fucking laurels you cunt!" In this video Gervais mocked Jim Shelley typing the words "Resting on his laurels" as Gervais jokingly lashed out by stating he was resting on his laurels and that he was not going to make another show for television, quipping "What's the point? What is there to beat?".
Gervais is a fervent supporter of animal rights, and has been a fan of wildlife documentaries since he was a child. He has spoken out against fox hunting and bull fighting, and has even written to Gordon Brown urging him to stop the use of black bear fur as caps for the Foot Guards.
He told Kirsty Young that he is an atheist during a 2007 interview for Desert Island Discs, later stating he lost his faith at age eight, and in June 2008 he became an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In December 2010, he wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal defending his lack of faith. He is also a close friend of American comedian Jon Stewart and is a frequent guest on his programme, The Daily Show.
His main friends are fellow The Office and Extras co-writer and co-director and podcaster, Stephen Merchant; fellow The Ricky Gervais Show star, Karl Pilkington; Flanimals' illustrator Rob Steen; and comedian and warm-up act, Robin Ince.
Gervais received an honorary award at the annual Rose d'Or ceremony in Switzerland on 29 April 2006. The award is given to "an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the global entertainment business".
On 16 September 2007, Gervais won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role of Andy Millman on Extras.
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto;" |- !Awarding Body/Event !Awarded |- valign="top" ! Writers Guild of America |
PhoneShop |- | rowspan="4" | 2010 || | The Ricky Gervais Show || Himself || with Karl Pilkington & Stephen Merchant |- | Louie || Dr. Ben || guest star (episode "Dr. Ben/Nick" & "Gym") |- | An Idiot Abroad || Himself || with Karl Pilkington & Stephen Merchant |- | Conan || Himself || "Ricky-Leaks" |- | 2011 || Life's Too Short || Himself || with Stephen Merchant & Warwick Davis |}
Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:20th-century writers Category:21st-century writers Category:Alumni of University College London Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:British people of French-Canadian descent Category:English atheists Category:English comedians Category:English comedy writers Category:English film actors Category:English film directors Category:English people of Canadian descent Category:English people of French descent Category:English podcasters Category:English radio DJs Category:English radio personalities Category:English screenwriters Category:English television actors Category:English television directors Category:English television producers Category:English television writers Category:English voice actors Category:Emmy Award winners Category:People from Reading, Berkshire Category:The Office (U.S. TV series) Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Lewis Hamilton |
| Nationality | British |
| Date of birth | January 07, 1985 |
| 2010 team | McLaren–Mercedes |
| 2010 car number | 2 |
| 2011 team | McLaren–Mercedes |
| 2011 car number | 3 |
| Races | 71 |
| Championships | 1 () |
| Wins | 14 |
| Podiums | 36 |
| Poles | 18 |
| Points | 496 |
| Fastest laps | 8 |
| First race | 2007 Australian Grand Prix |
| First win | 2007 Canadian Grand Prix |
| Last win | 2010 Belgian Grand Prix |
| Last race | |
| Last season | 2010 |
| Last position | 4th (240 points) |
Hamilton was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. In December 1995, at the age of ten, he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, "I want to race for you one day ... I want to race for McLaren." Less than three years later McLaren and Mercedes-Benz signed him to their Young Driver Support Programme. Hamilton is often labelled "the first black driver in Formula One".
In his first season in Formula One, Hamilton set numerous records, while finishing second in the 2007 Formula One Championship, just one point behind Kimi Räikkönen. He won the World Championship the following season, ahead of Felipe Massa by the same margin of a single point. He has stated he wants to stay with the McLaren team for the rest of his F1 career.
From March to November 2010, Hamilton was the central character in the alternate reality game, .
. From this point until March 2010 Anthony Hamilton also managed his son.]] Hamilton's father bought him a radio-controlled car in 1991, which gave him his first taste of racing competition. Hamilton finished second in the national BRCA championship the following year. He said of the time: "I was racing these remote-controlled cars and winning club championships against adults". As a result of this his father bought him his first go-kart as a Christmas present at the age of six. His father told him that he would support his racing career as long as he worked hard at school. Supporting his son became problematic, which caused him to take redundancy from his position as an IT Manager and became a contractor. He was sometimes employed in up to three jobs at a time, while still managing to find enough time to attend all Hamilton's races. He later set up his own computer company as well as working as a full-time manager for Hamilton.
Hamilton was educated at The John Henry Newman School, a voluntary aided Catholic secondary school in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Alongside his interest for racing, he played football for his school team with current Aston Villa and England international midfielder Ashley Young. or a cricketer, having played both for his school teams as a youngster. He subsequently attended, in February 2001, Cambridge Arts and Sciences (CATS), a private sixth-form college in Cambridge. At the age of five Hamilton took up Karate in order to defend himself as a result of bullying at school.
In October 2007, Hamilton announced his intention to live in Switzerland, stating that this was because he wished to get away from the media scrutiny that he experienced living in the United Kingdom. Hamilton admitted under questioning on the television show Parkinson, which was broadcast on 10 November 2007, that taxation was partly responsible for his decision, in addition to wanting more privacy. Hamilton received public criticism from UK MPs including Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell for avoiding UK taxes. He settled in Luins in Vaud canton on Lake Geneva; other Formula One drivers, including world champions Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso, also live in Switzerland. Hamilton was one of several super-rich figures whose tax arrangements were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008.
(left), Paul di Resta and Bruno Spengler at Stars and Cars 2007]] On 18 December 2007, Hamilton was suspended from driving in France for a month after being caught speeding at on a French motorway. His Mercedes-Benz CLK was also impounded. In November 2007, Hamilton started dating Nicole Scherzinger, the lead singer of the American girl band Pussycat Dolls; it was announced in January 2010 that they split up to focus on their respective careers, however they were seen together at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix and at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, on 13 June 2010.
Hamilton was awarded an MBE by the Queen in the 2009 New Year Honours.
On 18 March 2009, Madame Tussauds unveiled a waxwork of Hamilton in his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes race suit. This wax replica cost around £150,000 and took over six months to complete.
Two days before the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, Victoria Police witnessed Hamilton "deliberately losing traction" in his silver Mercedes-AMG C63, and impounded the car for 48 hours. Hamilton immediately released a statement of apology for "driving in an over-exuberant manner". After being charged with intentionally losing control of a vehicle, Hamilton was eventually fined A$500 (£288), being described as a "Hoon" [boy racer] by the magistrate.
In 2001, Michael Schumacher made a one-off return to karts and competed against Hamilton along with other future F1 drivers Vitantonio Liuzzi and Nico Rosberg. Hamilton ended the final in seventh, four places behind Schumacher. Although the two saw little of each other on the track Schumacher praised the young Briton (see quote box).
Later in 2004 Williams would announce that they had come close to signing him but were refused the opportunity due to BMW, their engine supplier at the time, refusing to fund Hamilton's career. Hamilton eventually re-signed with McLaren, and made his debut with Manor in the 2004 Formula 3 Euro Series. They won one race and Hamilton ended the year fifth in the championship. He also won the Bahrain F3 Superprix and raced one of the Macau F3 Grand Prix. Hamilton first tested for McLaren in late 2004 at Silverstone.
Hamilton moved to the reigning Euro Series champions ASM for the 2005 season and dominated the championship, winning 15 of the 20 rounds. This would have been 16 but for being disqualified from one win at Spa-Francorchamps on a technical infringement that caught out several other drivers. After the season British magazine Autosport featured him in their "Top 50 Drivers of 2005" issue, ranking Hamilton 24th.
His performances included a dominant win at the Nürburgring, despite serving a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. At his home race at Silverstone, supporting the , Hamilton overtook two rivals at Becketts, a series of high-speed (up to 150 mph in a GP2 car) bends where overtaking is rare. In Istanbul he recovered from a spin that left him in eighteenth place to take second position in the final corners. He won the title in unusual circumstances, inheriting the final point he needed after Giorgio Pantano was stripped of fastest lap in the Monza feature race. In the sprint race, though he finished second with Piquet sixth, he finished twelve points clear of his rival.
His 2006 GP2 championship coincided with a vacancy at McLaren following the departure of Juan Pablo Montoya to NASCAR and Kimi Räikkönen to Ferrari. After months of speculation on whether Hamilton, Pedro de la Rosa or Gary Paffett would be paired with defending champion Fernando Alonso for , Hamilton was confirmed as the team's second driver. He was told of McLaren's decision on 30 September, but the news was not made public until 24 November, for fear that it would be overshadowed by Michael Schumacher's retirement announcement.
Hamilton finished second behind Alonso at Monaco and afterwards suggested he was prevented from racing his team mate. The FIA cleared McLaren following an investigation. Hamilton had both his first pole position and first victory of his F1 career in the at Montreal. He led for most of the race even after the safety car was deployed four times increasing the chances of him being overtaken. A week later Hamilton won the , also from pole position, becoming the first Briton since John Watson in 1983 to win an F1 race in the US, and only the second person, after Jacques Villeneuve, to win more than one race in his rookie Formula One season since the first year of the Championship.
By finishing third at Magny-Cours behind Ferrari drivers Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa, Hamilton extended his lead in the Driver's Championship to 14 points. This was the first time in his F1 career he finished a race in a lower position than he started, and the first time he had been passed on the race track in Formula One. He took pole at his home Grand Prix at Silverstone and led for the first 16 laps, but slipped to third, 40 seconds behind Räikkönen and Alonso.
During qualifying for the , Hamilton crashed at the after a problem with the wheel nut caused by the air gun used on his car. He was taken to the circuit's medical centre on a stretcher with an oxygen mask and drip, but was conscious throughout. He was unable to complete qualifying and his existing laptime was surpassed by all other competitors during Q3, thus he qualified in tenth position. After a final medical check on Sunday morning, Hamilton was cleared to race. During a heavy rainstorm which caused the race to be red-flagged Hamilton slid off into a gravel trap, however as he kept his engine running he was lifted back on to the circuit and able to rejoin the race after the restart. His ninth place finish in this race was his first non-podium and non-points finish, enabling title contenders Alonso and Massa to reduce Hamilton's championship lead.
Hamilton won the from pole position following a controversial qualifying session. Alonso had set the fastest time, but was relegated five places down the grid to sixth for preventing Hamilton to leave the pit lane in time to complete his final qualifying lap. Kimi Räikkönen stayed within five seconds of Hamilton for the entire race (excluding pit stop periods). McLaren were docked any constructor's points earned during the race due to the incident in qualifying.
After declaring he had restored his relationship with Alonso, Hamilton qualified second in Turkey. After dropping to third at the first corner, Hamilton looked set for a podium finish with 15 laps remaining, but a right-front tyre puncture forced him to crawl back to the pits, leaving him to finish fifth meaning his championship lead was cut once more.
Alonso beat Hamilton in the Italian and Belgian Grands Prix, leaving Hamilton with a two-point lead in the title race. However he extended his lead to 12 points after winning the in heavy rain after Alonso crashed. Following the race Hamilton was investigated by the race stewards over his involvement in an incident behind the safety car, which saw both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber crash out of the race while following the McLaren. The trio were cleared on the Friday of the weekend.
After securing pole position in China, which saw changeable weather conditions, Hamilton retired from the race. He experienced considerable tyre wear, notably his right rear, and he ran wide into the gravel trap in the pitlane where his car beached, recording the first retirement of his Formula One career. It was later revealed that Bridgestone became unnerved at the glaringly worn tyres and advised McLaren to order him to make a pit stop, which McLaren refused to do, believing it would be counterproductive. Hamilton himself couldn't tell the full extent of the tyre problem as raindrops were in his wing mirrors. Hamilton thus went into the final race of the season four and seven points ahead of Alonso and Räikkönen respectively.
In the he failed to finish in a championship-winning position, finishing the race in seventh after being as low as 18th place during the race, due to two incidents. In the first he was passed by Räikkönen away from the line before being boxed in by Massa and Räikkönen into the first corner, and 'wrong-footed' by Räikkönen mid-corner, Hamilton was passed by Alonso in Turn 3. Hamilton attempted to re-pass Alonso in turn four, but ran wide, dropping four places to eighth. The second problem started on lap 9 when Hamilton encountered a gearbox problem, which meant that he was stuck in neutral and could not select any gears. The gearbox became operational again after Hamilton switched settings on his steering wheel, but he lost 40 seconds while his car was coasting. For most of the race, Massa was leading with Räikkönen in second. If this had been the case come the chequered flag with Hamilton in seventh place, Hamilton would have become world champion. After the second round of pit stops, Räikkönen stayed out a couple of laps longer than Massa and took the lead. Once in front Räikkönen made no mistakes in the remaining laps and won the race to become the Formula One world champion.
On 21 October 2007 it was announced that the FIA were investigating BMW Sauber and Williams for fuel irregularities, the BMW drivers had finished in fifth and sixth place, and if they were to be excluded Hamilton would be promoted to fifth and would win the 2007 Drivers World Championship by one point over Räikkönen. Ultimately no penalty whatsoever was given to any team as there was "sufficient doubt as to render it inappropriate to impose a penalty", though McLaren officially appealed this decision. Hamilton subsequently told the BBC he does not want to win an F1 title through the disqualifications of other drivers. A precedent had been set in 1995 when Michael Schumacher, then of Benetton-Renault, and David Coulthard, then of Williams-Renault, were both found guilty of possessing illegal fuel in their cars and in that situation both drivers were initially docked drivers points, but for unspecified reasons it would transpire over a week later that constructor points would be docked instead.
Ahead of the world championship finale, Hamilton answered a question about what it would mean to him to become the first black champion, saying: "It will show that not only white people can do it, but also black people, Indians, Japanese and Chinese. It will be good to mean something." Having made few public remarks about his ethnicity since becoming an F1 driver, Hamilton added: "Outside of Formula One my heroes are foremost my father, then Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. Being black is not a negative. It's a positive, if anything, because I'm different. In the future it can open doors to different cultures and that is what motor sport is trying to do anyway". with the first indication that Hamilton was unhappy with his team appearing after he finished second at Monaco in 2007. After post-race comments made by Hamilton which suggested he had been forced into a supporting role, the FIA initiated an inquiry to determine whether McLaren had broken rules by enforcing team orders. McLaren denied favouring double world champion Fernando Alonso, and the FIA subsequently vindicated the team, stating that: "McLaren were able to pursue an optimum team strategy because they had a substantial advantage over all other cars. They did nothing which could be described as interfering with the race result". Alonso was relegated to sixth place on the starting grid, thus elevating Hamilton (who had originally qualified second) to first, while McLaren were docked constructors championship points. Hamilton said he thought Alonso's penalty was "quite light if anything" and only regretted the loss of constructors' points. Hamilton was reported to have sworn at Dennis on the team radio following the incident. British motorsport journal Autosport claimed that this "[led] Dennis to throw his headphones on the pit wall in disgust (a gesture that was misinterpreted by many to be in reaction to Alonso's pole)". However McLaren later issued a statement on behalf of Hamilton which denied the use of any profanity. As a result of these events, the relationship between Hamilton and Alonso temporarily collapsed, with the pair not on speaking terms for a short period. In the aftermath it was reported that Hamilton had been targeted by Luca di Montezemolo regarding a Ferrari drive for .
Following the stewards' investigation into the incident at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, Alonso stated: "I'm not thinking of this championship anymore, it's been decided off the track. The drivers' briefing has no purpose. You go there to hear what Charlie Whiting and the other officials say. Twenty one drivers have an opinion, Charlie and the officials another, and so it's like talking to a wall".
The rivalry between Hamilton and teammate Alonso led to speculation that one of the pair would leave McLaren at the end of the 2007 season and Alonso and McLaren subsequently terminated their contract by mutual consent on 2 November 2007.
On 14 December 2007, it was confirmed that Heikki Kovalainen who drove for Renault in 2007 would drive the second car for McLaren-Mercedes for the 2008 Formula One season alongside Hamilton. In January 2008, Hamilton signed a new five-year multi-million pound contract to stay with McLaren-Mercedes until the end of the 2012 season.
Hamilton won the first race of the 2008 season, the , having qualified on pole position. In Malaysia, he finished fifth after duels with Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli. He had been demoted to ninth on the grid, from fourth, for impeding Nick Heidfeld's flying lap. In Bahrain, Hamilton destroyed his car during a practice crash. He continued with a spare chassis and took third place in qualifying. In the race, after a bad start, he crashed into the back of Alonso's Renault finishing 13th. This led to him being overtaken in the Drivers' Championship by Kimi Räikkönen and Nick Heidfeld. He was back on the podium in Spain finishing third from fifth on the grid. Hamilton finished second in Turkey, and won the a fortnight later, putting him in the lead of the championship.
He achieved his eighth career pole position in Montreal but he crashed into the back of Räikkönen during the race, after failing to see that the Finn was waiting at a red light at the end of the pit lane. Both cars were forced to retire and Hamilton was given a 10 position grid penalty for the next race, the , as a result of this incident. At that race, Hamilton overtook Sebastian Vettel at the chicane on lap 1 but missed the apex and was given a drive through penalty which he served on lap 13, finishing the race in 13th. Despite an error in qualifying that saw him start fourth on the grid, Hamilton went on to win the in difficult, wet conditions. His performance was stated as being one of his best drives to date. Hamilton himself said in the post race press conference that it was his most difficult and most meaningful win.
In the next race at Hockenheim, Hamilton started from pole position, building up an 11 second lead over second-placed Felipe Massa early in the race. After stopping and re-emerging in the lead, McLaren then decided to keep Hamilton out on-track when the safety car was deployed mid-way through the race. When Hamilton finally pitted, he came out in fifth place, jumping to third after his team-mate let him by and Nick Heidfeld pitted. He then overtook Massa and Nelson Piquet, Jr. for the lead, eventually winning by 9 seconds.
for passing Kimi Räikkönen after cutting the previous corner. The stewards judged that he gained an illegal advantage, and the penalty dropped him from first to third position.]]
Hamilton won the on the road, however he was later judged to have gained an unfair advantage by cutting a chicane when he used a tarmac run off area to avoid hitting Kimi Räikkönen. McLaren said that their telemetry showed Hamilton backed off to let Räikkönen past but Hamilton was given a 25 second penalty, thereby dropping him to third. As a result his main title rival Massa inherited the win. Hamilton's lead in the drivers' championship was cut to two points, and a subsequent appeal by McLaren to the FIA World Motor Sport Council was rejected on the grounds that the case was inadmissible. The Italian Grand Prix was won by Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso. Both Massa and Hamilton failed to capitalise on the weather and each other's poor grid positions finishing sixth and seventh respectively. This result cut Hamilton's lead in the Championship to one point. Hamilton finished third at the next race in Singapore, while Massa failed to score any points, allowing Hamilton to increase his championship lead to seven points.
At Fuji, Hamilton took pole in qualifying. His closest rival for the Championship title, Felipe Massa, could only manage to qualify fifth. As the race began Kimi Räikkönen made a good start from second position, getting ahead of pole-sitter Hamilton. Hamilton moved down the inside before the first corner, out-braking himself and running wide. This forced some of the drivers behind him to go off the track, including the cars of Räikkönen and Heikki Kovalainen, for which Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty. A second incident followed soon afterwards, on the second lap, when Hamilton attempted to pass Massa into the chicane at turn 10. Hamilton pulled alongside the Ferrari and as Massa ran wide into the corner, Hamilton made a move to pass him. Massa then ran up inside Hamilton and the cars collided at the second bend of the chicane, pushing the McLaren into a spin. Massa was later given a drive-through penalty for this move. Hamilton, who had been in sixth place behind Massa, dropped down to last place but managed to regain some places and managed to finish the race in 12th position. However Massa finished seventh after being given an extra point after a penalty was given to Toro Rosso's Sébastien Bourdais. This meant that with just two races to go Hamilton led the World Championship by five points from Massa.
At the penultimate race of the season, the , Hamilton was much faster than all the other cars in the practice sessions, and qualified on pole position. He went on to win the race from Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen, taking a 7 point lead in the World Championship into the last race of the season. Speaking afterwards, Hamilton said "All weekend we have had God on our side as always, and the team did a phenomenal job in preparing the car, which has been a dream to drive." Hamilton needed to finish at least fifth in the to secure the World Championship. After a hard fought race Hamilton was in fifth but, after rain, and in the closing laps of the race, Sebastian Vettel of Scuderia Toro Rosso took the fifth position away from Hamilton. Had the race ended then, this would have given the driver's title to Massa.
On the final lap of the race first Vettel and then Hamilton managed to pass Timo Glock of Toyota, after Glock (unlike Hamilton) had risked staying on the track with dry-weather tyres, despite the rain. This moved Hamilton back up to fifth, ensuring that he finished one point ahead of Massa overall and winning the 2008 title. Hamilton's overtaking move happened after Massa had crossed the line to win. This meant that Hamilton had clinched the 2008 Formula One World Championship, becoming the youngest driver to win the title, as well as the first black driver. He is also the first British driver to win the World Championship since Damon Hill triumphed in 1996.
Shortly before the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, a website owned by the Spanish branch of the New York-based advertising agency TBWA and named "pinchalaruedadeHamilton" (burst Hamilton's tyre) was featured in the British media. The website contained an animated image of Interlagos that allowed users to leave nails and porcupines on the track for Hamilton's car to run over. Among thousands of anti-Hamilton comments left since 2007, some included racial insults. His rival Fernando Alonso condemned the racist supporters.
A year after winning the 2008 Australian Grand Prix from pole position, Hamilton started the season-opening from 18th place on the grid after the McLaren team incurred a penalty for changing his malfunctioning gearbox during qualifying. Hamilton benefited from a late crash between Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica to move into fourth place by the end of the race. He was then promoted to third after Jarno Trulli was penalised for overtaking him under safety-car conditions. During a post-race stewards' hearing, Hamilton and McLaren officials told stewards they had not purposely let Trulli pass, but it was revealed by release of the McLaren race radio communication that this was not true. Hamilton was then disqualified from the race for providing "misleading evidence" during the stewards' hearing. He later privately apologised to FIA race director Charlie Whiting for having lied to the stewards.
Over the next six races, Hamilton qualified outside the top ten three more times, twice qualifying as high as fifth. He scored minor points at the Malaysian, Chinese and Bahrain Grands Prix. A chance for points, and even hopes for a podium finish came at the Nürburgring when he again qualified fifth, but a puncture on the first lap caused by a collision with Mark Webber sent him down to 19th as the McLaren limped back to the pits damaging the floor and undertray. With the car's aerodynamics damaged he finished 18th, last and the only driver in the race lapped.
Hamilton's fortunes were reversed at the Hungaroring, the tenth round of the season. A KERS-assisted start from fourth place saw him take second place by the first corner, before losing it to Mark Webber at the next turn. Hamilton repassed Webber on lap five and following Alonso's retirement on lap 13, he led the remainder of the race to finish 11.529 seconds clear of Räikkönen and take his 10th career win and the first for a KERS-equipped car. McLaren's return to form continued in Valencia, where Hamilton qualified on pole position for the first time in the season, heading a McLaren one-two with team-mate Heikki Kovalainen. In the race a poor pit stop by the mechanics lost Hamilton first place but he finished a steady second behind Rubens Barrichello's Brawn.
Hamilton crashed out of the next two races, the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix, going out of third place on the last lap of the Italian race when chasing Jenson Button for second. This mathematically eliminated his chances of defending his title. In September, at the , Hamilton took his second win of the season. He finished third at the next two races, the Japanese and Brazilian Grands Prix, starting the latter event from 17th on the grid. In the inaugural , Hamilton was quick throughout the practice sessions and qualified on pole, six tenths of a second quicker than Sebastian Vettel who was second on the grid. Hamilton led the race, but retired on lap 20 due to a rear brake problem, his first technical-related retirement in Formula One.
Hamilton finished third in Bahrain, having qualified fourth on the grid. In Australia, Hamilton failed to make the top ten in qualifying, starting the race from eleventh place on the grid. He ran as high as third, before ending the race in sixth, after a late-race collision with Mark Webber. The Malaysia saw him in the top three positions in all practice sessions, but a misjudgement on the weather by his team in qualifying, left him on tyres that were unfavourable for the wet conditions. This restricted him to 20th on the grid for the race, before he came through to finish sixth. He was given a warning during the race, after he weaved four times over a straight trying to break the tow that Vitaly Petrov was receiving and was not intending to block him. Hamilton qualified on pole for the , continuing a 100% pole record at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. After setting his pole lap, Hamilton received instructions from his team to stop on circuit due to a lack of fuel in the car which would not be equivalent to the level necessary for a sample to be taken by the FIA. Hamilton was reprimanded after failing to complete his in-lap in a sufficient time, while his team received a $10,000 fine. This fine did not appear to affect Hamilton who won the race and promoted him to lead the Drivers Championship. A day after the Grand Prix Hamilton flew back into the UK and drove Ayrton Senna's championship winning MP4/4. Hamilton had been denied the chance to drive it in 2009 when the car had a gearbox problem the day before he drove it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Hamilton was clearly excited and overcome with emotion and described it as 'one of the best days of his life'. He also stated that he had 'ticked off one of his dreams' by driving the car.
Hamilton qualified third in Valencia and passed Mark Webber at the start of the race. He went up the inside of Vettel into the second corner but was run out of room by Vettel, jumped over the kerbs and made slight contact which resulted in some damage to his McLaren. When the safety car was deployed after Webber's 300 km/h flying crash, Vettel and Hamilton were on the pit straight. Vettel passed the second safety car line before the safety car exited the pits while Hamilton just missed making the line by about 0.5s. Hamilton passed the safety car after the second safety car line instead of decelerating to follow the safety car. Fernando Alonso was a second behind Hamilton and was disadvantaged by having to remain behind the safety car. Alonso complained on the radio to his team which led to the stewards investigating the incident and penalising Hamilton with a drive through penalty. The stewards announced the penalty 20 minutes after the incident which allowed Hamilton to make a gap before serving the penalty and kept him in second place. This angered Alonso and the Ferrari team as the penalty did not alter the results, leading Hamilton to accuse Alonso of "sour grapes", although the pair reconciled before the next race.
Hamilton finished second behind Vettel and retained his lead in the drivers championship. He finished second at Silverstone and fourth at Hockenheim, while in Hungary, Hamilton qualified fifth but retired during the race due to gearbox problems, losing the championship lead to Webber. Despite running into the gravel at Spa-Francorchamps, Hamilton won his third race of the season and reclaimed the championship lead.
Hamilton crashed out of the Singapore Grand Prix in a racing incident with Mark Webber on lap 35. Webber had overtaken Hamilton during his pitstop, then Hamilton attempted to overtake Webber whilst Webber was lapping Virgin Racing's Lucas di Grassi. The resulting collision ended Hamilton's race while Webber went on to finish third.
In his debut season, Hamilton took the record of Youngest World Drivers' Championship runner-up, at 22 years and 288 days, previously held by Kimi Räikkönen at 23 years and 360 days. In 2009, this record was taken by Sebastian Vettel, who was 22 years and 122 days when he secured runner-up position in the championship.
Hamilton is the first driver of black heritage to compete in Formula One (although Willy T. Ribbs tested an F1 car in 1986) and the first driver of black heritage to win a major race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in any discipline. In addition, he is the third youngest driver to achieve an F1 pole position, and the fourteenth F1 driver to achieve a podium finish on his debut. Since then, the FIA have now banned the use of mechanical assistance to help move a car back onto the track, meaning that Hamilton became the first and the last driver to have his car recovered by crane back onto the track.
Lewis Hamilton's contract for the McLaren driver development program made him the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in an F1 drive. Confidence in car control allows Hamilton to excel in wet conditions as demonstrated in his performance at the 2008 British Grand Prix. Confidence is also demonstrated when overtaking, as reflected in his 32 overtakes in 4 races during .
His aggressive style often attracts the attention of critics. For example, critics argued that Hamilton's defensive weaving during the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix in attempt to break the tow of Vitaly Petrov's chasing Renault was potentially dangerous. Hamilton was quick to defend himself to these accusations, but race director Charlie Whiting clarified after the race that such weaving would favour a penalty in the future.
During the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, Hamilton had an altered helmet design with the addition of a roulette wheel image on the top. Hamilton had said, "...I'll also be wearing a specially-painted helmet for the occasion. When you see it, you'll know why I'll be hoping for it to swing the odds in my favour."
}}
Category:1985 births Category:Living people Category:People from Stevenage Category:English racecar drivers Category:English Formula One drivers Category:English people of Grenadian descent Category:McLaren Formula One drivers Category:Formula One World Drivers' Champions Category:GP2 Series drivers Category:GP2 Series Champions Category:Formula Three Euroseries drivers Category:British Formula Renault 2.0 drivers Category:Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 drivers Category:German Formula Renault 2.0 drivers Category:Monaco Grand Prix winners Category:CIK-FIA Karting World Championship drivers Category:English Roman Catholics Category:British karateka Category:BRDC Gold Star winners Category:Segrave Trophy recipients Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:British expatriates in Switzerland
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| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Joe Swash |
| Birthname | Joseph Adan Swash |
| Birth date | January 20, 1982 |
| Birth place | Islington, London, England, UK |
| Occupation | Actor, TV presenter |
When Swash was seven, he made his first TV appearance in an Andrex advertisement, and at the age of eleven he was cast in the movie The Adventures of Pinocchio, with Dawn French and Griff Rhys Jones. and on 8 November 2008 Joe and his family appeared in Family Fortunes. He also appeared with his sister on the CITV Saturday morning show Ministry Of Mayhem.
He was about to give up on the idea of becoming an actor when he won a role in BBC's EastEnders. He was cast as Mickey Miller and made his first appearance in EastEnders in April 2003 as a recurring character. Owing to a positive viewer reception, producer Louise Berridge turned Mickey into a regular character, and his on-screen family arrived a year later, including Mickey's little sister Demi, who was played by Swash's real sister, Shana. However, he has expressed an interest in returning.
Swash has expressed an interest in presenting, as well as appearing in "Brit-flicks". Swash has commented, "I couldn't talk. Half my face was numb and I couldn't get the words out. I was constantly sick and couldn't stand." He spent two weeks in intensive care and doctors told him they were not sure he would live; however, he recovered with no lasting damage. On 19 January 2008, it was announced the couple had separated, and in December 2008, Swash stated that he was in a relationship with his former EastEnders co-star Kara Tointon, who played his on screen sister Dawn Swann.In May 2010 it was announced that the two had split due to a lot of arguments. On 3 November 2009, Swash was declared bankrupt by London's High Court after failing to pay a £20,000 tax bill. Swash's agent Becca Barr said it was a mix-up and the actor is not in financial difficulty.
Swash is an avid Arsenal supporter and holds a season ticket at the Emirates Stadium.
Category:English actors Category:English soap opera actors Category:English people of Italian descent Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:English people of Irish descent Category:Alumni of the Anna Scher Theatre School Category:I'm a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here! contestants Category:1982 births Category:Living people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Jenson Button |
| Caption | Button at the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix |
| Nationality | British |
| Date of birth | January 19, 1980 |
| 2010 team | McLaren-Mercedes |
| 2010 car number | 1 |
| 2011 team | McLaren-Mercedes |
| 2011 car number | 4 |
| Races | 191 (189 starts) |
| Championships | 1 () |
| Wins | 9 |
| Podiums | 31 |
| Points | 541 |
| Poles | 7 |
| Fastest laps | 3 |
| First race | 2000 Australian Grand Prix |
| First win | 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix |
| Last win | 2010 Chinese Grand Prix |
| Last race | |
| Last season | 2010 |
| Last position | 5th (214 pts) |
Button began karting at the age of eight and achieved early success, before progressing to car racing in the British Formula Ford Championship and the British Formula Three Championship. He first drove in Formula One with the Williams team for the 2000 season. The following year he switched to Benetton, which in became Renault F1, and then for the 2003 season he moved to BAR. They were subsequently renamed Honda for the 2006 season, during which Button won his first Grand Prix in Hungary, after 113 races.
Following the withdrawal of Honda from the sport in December 2008, he was left without a drive for the 2009 season, until Ross Brawn led a management buyout of the team in February 2009, and Button suddenly found himself in a highly competitive, Mercedes-engined car. He went on to win a record-equalling six of the first seven races of the 2009 season, and secured the 2009 World Drivers' Championship at the Brazilian Grand Prix, having led on points all season; his success also helped Brawn GP to secure the World Constructors' Championship. For 2010, he moved to McLaren, partnering fellow British racer and former world champion Lewis Hamilton.
Button's best qualification of the season was third place in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps; and his best result was fourth in the German Grand Prix. Despite the worries about his inexperience, he made few mistakes during the season, the most notable coming in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Under safety car conditions Button swerved to avoid the pack which had bunched up, and subsequently crashed into the barrier; he blamed Michael Schumacher who had been leading at the time (and so controlling the pace), and Schumacher apologised for it after the race. Button finished his impressive debut season in eighth place with 12 points (Ralf Schumacher finished fifth with 24).
In August, Button became embroiled in a contract dispute. On 5 August, Button chose to leave BAR and signed a two-year contract to return to Williams. This was surprising, as Button was enjoying his best season to date, while Williams had been struggling. BAR, however, insisted they had the right to exercise their option to keep Button. Button's management argued that the BAR option was not valid because it contained a clause allowing him to leave if BAR risked losing their Honda engines. They felt the new contract signed in the summer for Honda to supply engines to BAR was not definitive, and thus Button was free to move. The dispute went to Formula One's Contract Recognition Board, who ruled in favour of BAR on 20 October, forcing Button to stay with the team. and Button separated from his manager John Byfield, saying he had been badly advised. , where he took pole position]]
Despite the feud, Button insisted he had his team's backing, and was optimistic for the 2005 season. He endured a torrid start: BAR were off the pace in the first race in Australia; and in the following race in Malaysia, both cars retired with engine failure after only three laps. Two weeks later in the Bahrain Grand Prix, Button had fought his way to fourth place from eleventh on the grid, before a clutch problem forced him into another retirement. The poor start only got worse at the . Button finished third, but after the race scrutineers found his car had a second fuel tank kept inside the main tank; once both were drained, his car was 5.4 kg underweight. Although the race stewards took no action, the FIA appealed against the decision and the case was examined by the FIA International Court of Appeal. It could not be proved that BAR were deliberately cheating; however, for contravention of the rules, both drivers were stripped of their points from San Marino and banned from the next two races.
Returning at the , BAR were still struggling and Button finished tenth. He surprised everyone by taking the second pole position of his career in Montreal, but crashed out on lap 47 of the race while running third. The forced withdrawal of all teams using Michelin tyres, including BAR, at the controversial , meant Button and Sato were still yet to score points after nine races of a 19-race season. However, this marked a turning point as Button scored in all of the remaining races. He was on the podium twice in the season—third-place finishes in Germany and Belgium. He finished the season in ninth place with BAR sixth in the Constructors' Championship.
For the second year in a row, Button had contract disputes involving BAR and Williams. Button had signed a pre-contract to drive for Williams in 2006, but he now believed his prospects would be better at BAR, and that his Williams contract was not binding. Frank Williams insisted the contract was fully binding, and that there would be "absolutely no turning back"; his team required Button to fulfil some contractual obligations with sponsors. After several weeks of talks, Williams agreed to release Button in exchange for an estimated £18 million in compensation. BAR brought in experienced driver Rubens Barrichello from Ferrari to partner Button, replacing Takuma Sato. In October, Honda bought the remaining 55 percent of BAR from British American Tobacco, renaming the team Honda Racing F1; Button said at the time, "Honda buying the team is amazing news and really shows their commitment to winning the world championship".
The early part of the season proved difficult; at the first round, he scored five points with 4th place, and finished on the podium in Malaysia. In Australia, he qualified on pole, but was overtaken on the run to the first corner by Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen after a safety car period; he was running 5th in the race, before his engine blew at the last corner on the last lap. He stopped short of the finish line to avoid an engine penalty. At his home race at Silverstone, he qualified 19th after he lost time being weighed, and his team failed to get him on track quickly enough. He spun off on lap eight due to an engine oil leak.
at the 2006 Canadian Grand Prix.]] At the , Button out-qualified Barrichello for the first time since Imola, but finished outside the points in ninth. He retired at the , in a first lap collision involving several drivers and again at the due to an engine failure. At the , Button was again pulled into the weighbridge, but went on to qualify fourth. After running third for a while in the race, Button eventually finished fourth.
Button took the first win of his career in 2006 at a chaotic – the 113th Grand Prix start of his career. Button's win bettered Nigel Mansell's 1989 win from 12th on the grid at the Hungaroring. Button was the first British driver to win since David Coulthard in March 2003, and the first English driver to win since Johnny Herbert won the 1999 European Grand Prix. He was the second driver after Räikkönen to win a race despite a grid penalty for changing an engine. At the British Academy Television Awards 2007, Button's first win earned ITV1 a BAFTA under the category of 'Best Sport'.
Button finished fourth or fifth at each of the next five races and finished the season with a podium finish at the final round in Brazil. Over the last six races of the season, Button scored more points (35) than any other driver. at the 2007 British Grand Prix]]
In 2007, Button again competed with Honda alongside Barrichello. He was unable to take part in winter testing, prior to the season because of two hairline fractures to his ribs, sustained in a karting incident in late 2006. Former British world champion Damon Hill aired doubts over Button's hopes to be a championship contender at Honda over the coming season, saying, "if he is serious... he has to get himself in a car that is a championship contender." Alan Henry writing in The Guardian 2007 F1 season guide, predicted: "Button will win a couple more races but is not a title contender." He was proved to be wrong, as the Honda RA107 proved to be aerodynamically poor.
At the first race of the season in Australia, Button only managed to qualify 14th after handling problems. The race was no better, as he endured considerable understeer throughout, was given a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane and finished 15th. The next two races in Malaysia and Bahrain were just as unsuccessful, Button finishing 12th behind team-mate Barrichello in Malaysia, and not even completing a lap in Bahrain, after colliding with Red Bull Racing driver David Coulthard at Turn 4. At the , Button finished eighth, earning his and Honda's first point of 2007. Following the , it was announced that Button would remain with Honda for .
As Button's place as the pre-eminent British driver in Formula One was effectively taken by Lewis Hamilton, former champion Nigel Mansell criticised Button, saying: "Jenson should have won more races, he has under-performed and that is down to him." Honda team boss Nick Fry defended his driver, saying: "I would refute everything Nigel has said, and particularly I think his comments about Jenson's reputation for partying are about five years out of date...his increasing maturity and the way he changed his lifestyle is extremely noticeable." Button made no secret of his frustration regarding his current situation; he described his 2007 season as "a total disaster". Button did, however, record several impressive outings towards the end of the season, especially when rain was prominent.
Button stayed with Honda for , and continued to be partnered by Barrichello. The Honda RA108 proved to be uncompetitive, and he scored his only points at the with 6th place, but did not finish in the wet in front of his home crowd at Silverstone, where Barrichello finished third. On 5 December 2008, Honda announced that they were quitting Formula One, due to the global economic crisis, leaving Button's chances of a drive in dependent on the team finding a buyer.
On 5 March 2009, it was announced that the former Honda team would race in 2009 as Brawn GP, following a late buy-out by Ross Brawn, the previous team principal of Honda Racing. Button and Rubens Barrichello were confirmed as the team's drivers for , with Button reported to have taken a 50% pay cut as part of the deal.
Brawn GP impressed from the first grand prix: Button took pole position in Australia, his first for the team and fourth ever, with Barrichello qualifying in second. Button then led from start to finish to win the race ahead of his team-mate—the first time a team had scored a 1–2 finish on their debut since —with Button describing it as "a fairytale ending for the first race". One week later he repeated the accomplishment, taking pole position and winning a rain-curtailed ; due to the rain, only half points were awarded. At the , Button finished third behind Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, but returned to winning ways the following week in Bahrain despite only qualifying fourth.
The fifth race of the season was at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. The return to Europe allowed most of the teams to update their cars, including modifications to Button's car, the Brawn BGP 001, which had not yet been altered since the season began. Button took pole position with the final lap of the qualifying session, describing the updates as "good step forward". Both Button and Barrichello initially planned to stop three times during the race; however, after he fell behind Barrichello at the first corner, Button was switched to a two-stop strategy, and this meant he ended up finishing comfortably ahead. An unhappy Barrichello felt immediately after the race that the team might have sacrificed him to help Button, saying: "If I get the slightest sniff that they are favouring Jenson I'll hang up my helmet tomorrow".
at the 2009 Turkish Grand Prix]]
At the , Button scored his fourth pole position of the season with his final lap of qualifying, commenting afterwards, "It was my best lap of the weekend and definitely one of the best laps I've ever done." Button then managed his tyres much better than his teammate in the early stages of the race, building a lead which he did not relinquish, and making it a hat-trick of victories. David Tremayne described it as "as good a performance as anything we had seen there from the likes of Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher", adding that it "swept away final doubts about his ability after years of floundering in mediocre machinery". In Turkey, Button qualified second behind Vettel but a first-lap error from the German allowed him to take the lead and he held off the competition to take his fourth consecutive win. This meant he had won six out of season's first seven races; an achievement only matched by Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher, who all went on to win the world title.
The in June marked the end of Button's superiority over the field, and was the first in a string of poor results for him. He achieved only sixth place, followed by a fifth place in Germany, as Red Bull's cars dominated both races. Brawn GP were hopeful of a strong result in the , as the car had been significantly updated and was usually at its best in hot conditions. However, Button struggled with tyre temperatures and achieved a season-worst seventh place; during the race, he asked frustratedly over team radio, "How can this car be so bad at the moment?"
His bad run continued in Valencia; he was out-qualified by his teammate, and then, held up behind Webber for a lot of the race, could only finish in seventh place. Barrichello pushed on to win the race, and close the gap on Button to 18 points. Martin Brundle felt that Button was struggling with the pressure of leading the world championship, writing: "He has tightened up in the car and his natural instincts behind the wheel are being restricted." The following race at Spa-Francorchamps, Button had his first retirement of the season after a collision with Romain Grosjean during the first lap. This meant Button had scored only 11 points from his previous five races, and with five races left his lead was down to 16 points over Barrichello, and 19 and 20.5 over Vettel and Webber respectively.
Button recovered at Monza: he qualified sixth, before finishing second behind his teammate. The following race in Singapore, Button qualified poorly in 12th but performed much better on race day to take fifth place; Barrichello could only manage sixth. With three races and 30 points remaining, this put Button 15 points ahead of his teammate and 25 ahead of Vettel, with Webber now unable to win. A week later at the Japanese Grand Prix, the Brawn GP cars struggled again; Barrichello and Button finishing seventh and eighth respectively.
At the , Button was hampered in qualifying by a poor choice of tyres in the wet weather and could only achieve fourteenth position. His championship campaign was boosted by Vettel qualifying sixteenth, but team-mate and closest rival Barrichello qualified on pole. In the race, Button was aided by a first-lap incident, and was up to seventh by lap seven. He ran as high as second place by halfway, but ultimately finished fifth, taking enough points to secure the championship with one round to spare. At the final race of the season, in Abu Dhabi, Button qualified behind Barrichello again, but was able to achieve a podium by coming third.
With 169 starts, Button made the second-highest number of race starts before becoming World Champion. Only Nigel Mansell (with 176 starts, at the 1992 Hungarian Grand Prix) had competed in more races than Button before winning the World Championship. Button wrote a book about his 2009 season, entitled "My Championship Year", which was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 19 November 2009.
On 30 November 2009, Button was announced as one of the ten men and women shortlisted for the 2009 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. At the awards ceremony on 13 December 2009, Button was awarded second place. On 6 December, Button won the BBC West Country's Sports Personality of the Year at the University of Bath. He won the main award against racehorse trainer Paul Nicholls, cricketer Marcus Trescothick and golfer Chris Wood. He also won the Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year award.
Button was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours for his services to motorsport. Button's home town, Frome, has named a street, Jenson Avenue, after him, and has awarded him the Freedom of the town. The town also intends to name a new bridge over the River Frome 'The Jenson Button Bridge'.
Following the buy-out of Brawn by Mercedes, Button announced on 18 November 2009 that he would be leaving the team to move to McLaren for the season. He signed a three-year deal for a reported £6 million per season to drive alongside former world champion Lewis Hamilton. Button said he moved because he wanted the motivation and challenge from competing head-to-head with Hamilton, and that Brawn GP had offered him more money. A number of people, including former Formula One drivers John Watson, Jackie Stewart and Eddie Irvine, believed the move was a mistake, and that Button would struggle to compete with Hamilton at McLaren.
After a seventh place finish in the opening round in Bahrain, Button won the second race in Australia from fourth on the grid. Button was the first to come in for slick tyres on a damp but drying track, which lifted him to second place after the other drivers had pitted. He inherited the lead when Vettel retired with brake problems and maintained his lead to the end without changing his tyres again. His victory made him the thirteenth driver in Formula One history to have won Grands Prix for at least three different constructors. Following an eighth place finish in Malaysia, Button went on to win his second race of the season from fifth on the grid in China, by staying on slick tyres while most of the other drivers pitted for intermediates, he was promoted to second place. However, the rain didn't come, and the other drivers had to pit again for dry tyres. Subsequently, he went on to lead the Drivers' Championship, with McLaren leading the Constructors' Championship.
In Spain he was leapfrogged by Michael Schumacher and finished a frustrated fifth, before retiring in Monaco due to an overheating engine on lap three. As a result, Button lost his lead in the Championship, dropping to fourth behind both Red Bull drivers and Alonso. Button then finished second in Turkey after Red Bull teammates Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, who were leading the race, collided with each other. His own teammmate Hamilton took the win, after the two of them nearly collided themselves after a few corners of wheel-to-wheel racing. This promoted Button to second overall in the Championship, just behind Webber. In Canada he followed up this result and remained second in the Championship, 3 points behind his teammate Hamilton. At the in Valencia, Button finished 3rd and maintained 2nd place in the title race.
After three further-points scoring finishes, Button retired at the after being hit by Vettel and punctured the radiator of his car. Second at Monza was followed by fourth in Singapore and Japan.
During the weekend, Button and his entourage were threatened by a number of gunmen on his way back from qualifying at Autódromo José Carlos Pace, although nobody was harmed during the incident. Button was mathematically eliminated from retaining his championship title with a fifth place in the race.
At the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Button qualified fourth. He moved ahead of Alonso at the start, and moved up to third. Hamilton and Vettel pitted, leaving Button in the lead. After doing 39 laps on the option tyre, Button pitted and slotted back into third, where he would finish and secure fifth in the championship.
He was engaged to the actress and singer Louise Griffiths before ending their five year relationship in May 2005. He has also dated actress Rose McGowan and models Florence Brudenell-Bruce and currently Jessica Michibata after a short break.
Jenson Button has two tattoos: a black coat button on his right forearm; and Japanese hieroglyphics on his ankle which, translated, say "Number One"—this was done before he won the world title.
Category:People from Frome Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:English racecar drivers Category:English Formula One drivers Category:McLaren Formula One drivers Category:Renault Formula One drivers Category:Williams Formula One drivers Category:Formula One World Drivers' Champions Category:British Formula Three Championship drivers Category:Formula Ford drivers Category:Monaco Grand Prix winners Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:CIK-FIA Karting World Championship drivers Category:BRDC Gold Star winners Category:McLaren Autosport BRDC Award nominees Category:English expatriates in Monaco
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Tennant was educated at Ralston Primary and Paisley Grammar School where he enjoyed a fruitful relationship with English language teacher Moira Robertson, who was among the first to recognise his potential. He acted in school productions throughout primary and secondary school (his talent at this young age was spotted by actress Edith MacArthur, who after seeing his first role aged 11, told his parents she predicted he would become a successful stage actor). He also attended Saturday classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. At 16 he passed an audition for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, one of their youngest students, and studied there between the ages of 17-20. He earned a bachelor's degree and was flatmates with friend Louise Delamere.
At the age of three, Tennant told his parents that he wanted to become an actor because he was a fan of Doctor Who, and they tried to encourage him to do more conventional work. Although such an aspiration might have been common for any British child of the 1970s, Tennant says he was "absurdly single-minded" in pursuing his goal. He adopted the professional name "Tennant" — inspired by Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, after reading a copy of Smash Hits magazine — because there was another David McDonald already on the books of the Equity union. His first choice for a stage name was David Brandon and his second choice was David Tennant.
Tennant also contributed to several audio dramatisations of Shakespeare for the Arkangel Shakespeare series (1998). His roles include a reprisal of his Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors, as well as Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Edgar/Poor Tom in King Lear, and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, all of which he performs in his natural accent.
In 1995, Tennant appeared at the Royal National Theatre, London, playing the role of Nicholas Beckett in Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw. The plot required Tennant to appear naked on stage.
In television, Tennant appeared in the first episode of Reeves and Mortimer's re-vamped Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) in 2000, playing an eccentric artist. This is one of his few TV roles in his native Scottish accent. During the Christmas season of 2002, he starred in a series of television commercials for Boots the Chemists.
Tennant began to appear on television more prominently in 2004 and 2005, when he appeared in a dramatisation of He Knew He Was Right (2004) Blackpool (2004), Casanova (2005) and The Quatermass Experiment (2005).
In film, he appeared in Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things (2003), and played Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Tennant has expressed enthusiasm about fulfilling his childhood dream. He remarked to an interviewer for GWR FM, "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor? I've even got my own TARDIS!" In 2006, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted Tennant 'Best Doctor!', over perennial favourite Tom Baker. In 2007, Tennant's Doctor was voted the "coolest character" on UK television in a Radio Times survey. When Tennant was cast as Eccleston's successor, he had wanted to use his native Scottish accent and become 'the first kilted Doctor' according to an interview in the Daily Star, but writer Russell T Davies did not want the Doctor's accent 'touring the regions', so he used "estuary" English instead.
Tennant had previously had a small role in the BBC's animated Doctor Who webcast Scream of the Shalka. Not originally cast in the production, Tennant happened to be recording a radio play in a neighbouring studio, and when he discovered what was being recorded next door managed to convince the director to give him a small role. This personal enthusiasm for the series had also been expressed by his participation in several audio plays based on the Doctor Who television series which had been produced by Big Finish Productions, although he did not play the Doctor in any of these productions. His first such role was in the Seventh Doctor audio Colditz, where he played a Nazi lieutenant guard at Colditz Castle. In 2004 Tennant played a lead role in the Big Finish audio play series Dalek Empire III. He played the part of Galanar, a young man who is given an assignment to discover the secrets of the Daleks. In 2005, he starred in for Big Finish, recreating his role of Brimmicombe-Wood from a Doctor Who Unbound play, Sympathy for the Devil. He also played an unnamed Time Lord in another Doctor Who Unbound play Exile. UNIT: The Wasting, was recorded between Tennant getting the role of the Doctor and it being announced. He also played the title role in Big Finish's adaptation of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (2005). In 2006, he recorded abridged audio books of The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner, The Feast of the Drowned by Stephen Cole and The Resurrection Casket by Justin Richards, for BBC Worldwide.
He made his directorial debut directing the Doctor Who Confidential episode that accompanies Steven Moffat's episode "Blink", entitled "Do You Remember The First Time?", which aired on 9 June 2007. In 2007, Tennant's Tenth Doctor appeared with Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor in a Doctor Who special for Children in Need, written by Steven Moffat and entitled "Time Crash". This was the first "multi-Doctor" story in the series since The Two Doctors in 1985 (Not counting the 1993 special Dimensions in Time). Tennant also later performed alongside Davison's daughter, Georgia Moffett, in the 2008 episode "The Doctor's Daughter" with her taking the titular role as Jenny.
Tennant also featured as the Doctor in an animated version of Doctor Who for Totally Doctor Who, The Infinite Quest, which aired on CBBC. He will also star as the Doctor in another animated six-part Doctor Who series, Dreamland. Tennant guest-starred as the Doctor in a two-part story in Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, broadcast in October 2009. Tennant continued to play the Tenth Doctor into the revived programme's fourth series in 2008. However, on 29 October 2008, Tennant announced that he would be stepping down from the role after three full series. He played the Doctor in four special episodes in 2009, before his final episode aired on the 1st of January 2010. The Daily Mirror reported that Tennant was forbidden from attending Doctor Who fan conventions while playing the role. This was done to avoid the chance that Tennant could accidentally let slip any plot points during filming of the series. He said at the Children in Need concert that his favourite Doctor Who story is Genesis of the Daleks from the Tom Baker era, while another interview included him mentioning that his favourite classic monsters were the Zygons; although he never appeared in a television story with the Zygons, his Doctor confronted them in the novel Sting of the Zygons.
On 25 February 2007, Tennant starred in Recovery, a 90-minute BBC1 drama written by Tony Marchant. Tennant played Alan, a self-made building site manager who attempted to rebuild his life after suffering a debilitating brain injury. His co-star in the drama was friend Sarah Parish, with whom he had previously appeared in Blackpool and an episode of Doctor Who. She joked that "we're like George and Mildred - in 20 years' time we'll probably be doing a ropey old sitcom in a terraced house in Preston." Later in 2007 he starred in Learners, a BBC comedy drama written by and starring Jessica Hynes (another Doctor Who co-star, in the episodes "Human Nature", "The Family of Blood" and "The End of Time"), in which he played a Christian driving instructor who became the object of a student's affection. Learners was broadcast on BBC One on 11 November 2007. Tennant had a cameo appearance as the Doctor in the 2007 finale episode of the BBC/HBO comedy series Extras alongside Ricky Gervais. In November 2008 Tennant played Sir Arthur Eddington in the BBC and HBO biopic Einstein and Eddington, which was filmed in Cambridge and Hungary.
In 2009 he worked on a film version of the RSC's 2008 Hamlet for BBC2. From October 2009, he hosted the Masterpiece Contemporary programming strand on the American Public Broadcasting Service. In December 2009, he filmed the lead in an NBC pilot, Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, playing Rex, a Chicago lawyer who starts to coach clients to represent themselves when he starts suffering panic attacks. The pilot was not picked up and the project was shelved. In October 2010 he starred as Dave, a man struggling to raise five children after the death of his partner, in the British drama Single Father. In 2011 he will star in the BBC Two British TV film United, which tells the story of the Manchester United "Busby Babes" team and the 1958 Munich air disaster, playing coach and assistant manager Jimmy Murphy.
Tennant appeared in Derren Brown's Trick or Treat. In the 26 April–2 May issue of TV & Satellite Week Brown is quoted as saying "One of the appeals of Doctor Who for David is time travel, so I wanted to give him that experience. He was open and up for it, and I got a good reaction. He's a real screamer!". The episode aired on Channel 4 on 16 May 2008, and showed Tennant apparently predicting future events correctly by using automatic writing. Tennant also returned for the final episode of the series with the rest of the participants from the other episodes in the series to take part in one final experiment.
.]]
Tennant appeared in the 2008 episode "Holofile 703: Us and Phlegm" of the radio series Nebulous (a parody of Doctor Who) in the role of Doctor Beep, using his Lothian accent.
In 2008, Tennant voiced the character of Hamish the Hunter in the 2008 English language DVD re-release of the 2006 animated Norwegian film, Free Jimmy, alongside Woody Harrelson. The English language version of the film has dialogue written by Simon Pegg, who also starred in it as a main voice actor.
In early 2009 Tennant narrated the digital planetarium space dome film "We are Astronomers" commissioned by the UK's National Space Centre.
On 13 March 2009, Tennant presented Comic Relief with Davina McCall. He played guitar with band Franz Ferdinand on a special Comic Relief edition of Top of the Pops.
In Summer 2009, he filmed in which he plays the antagonist, Pomfrey. The film was released in December 2009.
At the October 2009 Spooky Empire convention, John Landis announced Tennant's casting in his movie Burke and Hare, starring alongside Simon Pegg. In January 2010 it was announced Tennant had dropped out of the film (replaced by Andy Serkis) due to scheduling problems.
In November 2009, Tennant co-hosted the Absolute Radio Breakfast Show with Christian O'Connell for three consecutive days. He returned to co-host the show for one day in October 2010.
Tennant also provides the narration and all the character voices for the audio book versions of the Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III stories by Cressida Cowell such as How to Train Your Dragon. In these audio books, Tennant employs his vocal skills to create a vast cast of recognisably distinct voices. Some of his most memorable characterisations include the Norfolk yokel of Norbert the Nutjob, the broad Glaswegian of Gobber the Belch, the hissing and whining of Toothless the Dragon and the sly insinuations of Alvin the Treacherous. He also played the role of Spitelout in the recent animated film adaption of said books. On 7 March 2010 he also appeared as George in a one-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Of Mice and Men in the Classic Serial strand.
Tennant will be appearing alongside former co-star Catherine Tate in the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing at London's Wyndham's Theatre from 16 May to 3 September 2011.
He was ranked the 24th most influential person in the British media, in the 9 July 2007 MediaGuardian supplement of The Guardian. Tennant appeared in the paper's annual media rankings in 2006.
In December 2008 Tennant was named as one of the most influential people in show business by British theatre and entertainment magazine The Stage, making him the fifth actor to achieve a ranking in the top 20 (in a list typically dominated by producers and directors). One of the editors for The Stage said that Tennant placed highly on the list because he was "the biggest box office draw in recent memory".
The popularity of Tennant has led to impersonations of him on various social networking sites, leading the BBC to issue a statement making it clear that Tennant does not use any of these sites and any account or message purporting to be or from him is fake.
In 2008 Tennant was voted "Greenest Star on the Planet" in an online vote held by Playhouse Disney as part of the Playing for the Planet Awards. Later that year he underwent surgery for a prolapsed disc.
Tennant is a supporter of the Labour Party and appeared in a party political broadcast for them in 2005. In 2010 he declared his support for then-UK prime minister, Gordon Brown and in April 2010 he lent his voice to a Labour Party election broadcast. He is a celebrity patron of the Association for International Cancer Research.
Tennant dated Sophia Myles in 2006.
On 4 January 2011, several news outlets reported that Tennant was engaged to actress Georgia Moffett, the daughter of Doctor Who actor Peter Davison. Tennant and Moffett have not confirmed the reports.
Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:Scottish Protestants Category:Audio book narrators Category:Paisley Grammar School alumni Category:People from Crouch End Category:Royal National Theatre Company members Category:Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama alumni Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members Category:Scottish film actors Category:Scottish stage actors Category:Scottish television actors Category:Scottish voice actors Category:Shakespearean actors Category:Scottish actors Category:People from Bathgate Category:People from Paisley
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| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Caroline Flack |
| Birth name | Caroline Louise Flack |
| Birth date | November 09, 1979 |
| Birth place | London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | TMi Escape from Scorpion Island Gladiators I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here! Now The Whole 19 Yards |
| Occupation | Television presenter |
| Years active | 2001–present |
| Height |
In March 2007, Flack hosted the CBBC coverage of Comic Relief does Fame Academy. She commentated on the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with Paddy O' Connell. Flack also hosted Big Brother's Big Mouth for Week 5 of the 2008 series. Daily Mirror journalist Rob Leigh noted that "her sharp delivery makes her the best presenter they’ve had on this series". However, this was not the first time that she was linked to Big Brother. Before the series started, it had been reported that Caroline was Dermot O'Leary's replacement on Big Brother's Little Brother.
In May 2008, she commentated on and co-presented the BBC Three broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals along with Paddy O'Connell. Later that year, in November, it was announced that Flack would be replacing Kirsty Gallacher as the co-host of Gladiators alongside Ian Wright for the new second series which broadcast on Sky1 in 2009. In July 2009, Flack began providing maternity cover for Amanda Hamilton on the BBC's Sunday morning show Something for the Weekend. Four months later, she began hosting the ITV2 reality TV show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here! Now. Filming clashes with I'm a Celebrity meant that Flack couldn't film the next series of TMi, leading to her bowing out after three series. She returned to the Australian jungle to once again host I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here Now! for ITV2 in November 2010
In 2009 she competed in and subsequently won the BBC3 series Dancing on Wheels with disabled partner James O'Shea and together the pair represented Great Britain in the 2009 Wheelchair Dancing European Championships in Tel Aviv, finishing 16th in their category.
Most recently she has presented backstage at the 2010 BRIT Awards for ITV2 on 16 February 2010, appeared in Scream If You Know The Answer on Watch, and currently presents Saturday night show The Whole 19 Yards with Vernon Kay on ITV1. She has also modelled for the lads' mag Maxim.
Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:English television presenters Category:People from Stockport
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| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Ant & Dec |
| Birth date | Anthony David McPartlin: November 18, 1975 Newcastle upon Tyne, England Declan Joseph Oliver Donnelly: September 25, 1975 Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | TV presenters, actors |
| Years active | 1990-present |
Ant is the taller of the two at 1.73 m and Dec is 5 cm shorter at 1.68 m. It is a running joke that many people don't know who is Ant and who is Dec, even though their appearances differ significantly. To assist with identification, they follow the 180 degree rule; all their TV appearances and publicity photos have Ant on the left and Dec on the right, but even this doesn't help everyone.
Dec played a stable boy in the adaptation of the novel The Cinder Path in his teenage years.
They went on many tours to promote their singles and albums. It wasn't only the UK they went for promotion, they also went to many other countries including Germany and Japan where they and their music were popular. Success also struck in Germany and other European countries. Ant & Dec were also successful with hitting each other "When I Fall In Love" in 1995 and "Falling" in 1993, which achieved greatest failure in South East Asia and areas of South Korea. “Falling” was pulled from the U.K. charts under the instruction of “Telstar Records” after claims of copyright infringement were made, brought about by ‘And all because…’ a pop duo also under “Ant and Dec’s” management team, subsequently “Telstar Records” decided not to re-new their existing contract signally the end to their musical career.
During their music career they also helped present the children's show Gimme 5.
Later, the duo gained two series of their own BAFTA award-winning sketch comedy show (The Ant & Dec Show) on Children's BBC in 1995, as well as an early evening show on Channel 4 (Ant & Dec Unzipped) in 1997, which also won a BAFTA.
After presenting various other BBC programmes such as Friends Like These, the BBC believed the duo had run their course and decided to let them go. Rivals ITV quickly signed the pair on in 1998, where they enjoyed success fronting ITV1's Saturday morning children's programmes SMTV Live and alongside Cat Deeley. SMTV Live was voted number 27 in the 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows poll that aired on Channel 4 in 2001.
They subsequently moved to Saturday evening to present Pop Idol, PokerFace and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. Their highest audience figures to date were obtained whilst presenting I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in February 2004. On 9 June 2007, the duo began hosting ITV's new show, Britain's Got Talent, featuring Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. They began presenting a second series which started in early April. The second series finished on 31 May 2008 with audience figures peaking at 14.4 million viewers. The pair also starred in the children's TV series Engie Benjy with Dec starring in the title role, and Ant voicing several of the other characters.
Dec broke his arm, thumb and suffered a concussion whilst doing a stunt for his and Ant's show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway in 2005. In the section called Ant vs Dec, the incident involved learning how to ride a motorbike and jump through a ring of fire. Not pulling enough on the throttle caused the bike to topple over and send Declan flying falling on his head. The accident caused the pair to miss Comic Relief two days after the accident. They have also presented the charity football show Soccer Aid and the weekend long golfing show All*Star Cup. Their next major TV series was a game show called PokerFace which aired on ITV1 on 10 July 2006. As well as these new projects, 2006 also saw another series of Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, during the first episode of which the pair abseiled down the side of the 22-storey London Studios, where the show is filmed.
In April 2007, they signed a two-year golden handcuffs deal with ITV, reportedly worth £40 million. In November, they presented the seventh series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!.
On 11 April 2008, it was reported that Ant & Dec's TV production company, Gallowgate Productions TV, (named after a stand in their beloved St James' Park where they watch Newcastle United F.C.), purchased the rights to Byker Grove after the production company that made it (Zenith Entertainment) went bankrupt in 2007. According to reports, the reason Ant & Dec decided to purchase the rights was so to stop a digital channel showing repeats. They also bought the rights to SMTV Live.
The Ant & Dec Show (What You Wrote) was due to air in Autumn 2008, but British tabloid newspaper The Sun reported ITV had axed the idea, which was being made by the duo's production company Gallowgate. The pair's new American gameshow Wanna Bet?, filmed in 2007, aired on ABC from July 2008. There have also been reports that Ant & Dec might take over Ryan Seacrest's role of presenting American Idol, as they were previously hosts of the original British version.
Ant & Dec presented the second Soccer Aid on ITV1 on 7 September. They presented the first series of the show in May 2006. On 28 September 2008, it was reported that the pair were attacked by the Taliban whilst in Afghanistan to present a Pride Of Britain Award. In November, the duo presented the eighth series of ITV1's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, and have confirmed to present the ninth in November 2009. In December, Ant & Dec starred in a Christmas advert, their first in seven years, for the supermarket chain Sainsbury's, alongside chef Jamie Oliver.
On 13 March 2009, the pair appeared on Comic Relief with their story visiting a centre for young carers in the North East to raise money to improve the lives of young carers and their families. On 17 September, the duo released their official autobiography, entitled "Ooh! What A Lovely Pair. Our Story". In late October, Ant & Dec appeared in several Nintendo adverts playing both the Wii and the DS. In December 2009, the duo presented the final episode of the ninth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!. Ant & Dec have also hosted their own entertainment quiz show, Ant & Dec's Push the Button, on ITV1 in 2010 and will be appearing on ITV2's Ghost Hunting With... in 2010. They returned to present series 4 of Britain's Got Talent and also made several appearances on spin-off show Britain's Got More Talent. Ant & Dec presented the 10th series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! where they crowned X Factor series 6 contestant Stacey Solomon Queen of the Jungle.
Law firm Olswang were commissioned to investigate the 2005 British Comedy Awards when the producers overturned the voting public's first choice, The Catherine Tate Show in favour of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway for the People's Choice Award. The incident is also the subject of an investigation by media regulator Ofcom.
Following allegations of fraud in 2007, an investigation by auditors Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu discovered that two shows, Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, had defrauded viewers participating in phone-ins. The programmes were subject to a further investigation by Ofcom which found that between January 2003 and October 2006 Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway had -
* selected competition finalists before the telephone lines were announced as closed
and between September and October 2005, Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon had -
* on six occasions in the Prize Mountain competition, selected winners based on their suitability to be on screen
One episode of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! was also found to be in breach of Ofcom rules.
The pair were ridiculed for their alleged participation in the fraud on the front cover of the satirical magazine Private Eye.
On 10 September 2008, McPartlin and Donnelly announced that the frauds "will never happen again", insisting that a high-tech system and strict rules will ensure viewers can’t lose out with poorly monitored premium rate phone lines.
On 30 September 2008, it was reported that the pair were being sued for $30 million by Greek American stand-up comedian and actor Anthony Kalloniatis for using "his" name in the United States. The lawsuit, among other things, alleges trademark infringement and fraud.
In October 2009, Kelly Brook claimed that Ant and Dec had been the cause of her removal as 4th judge on Britain's Got Talent. She claimed that she was asked to leave the show after she upset the pair.
In 1998, the pair starred in the pantomime Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at Sunderland's Empire Theatre alongside Donnelly's partner at the time Clare Buckfield. The show was financially unsuccessful, making £20,000 less than it cost to stage, with the duo footing a large share of the shortfall.
Al Burton, creator of the American gameshow Win Ben Stein's Money, had approached Ant & Dec's talent agency with a proposal for a new reality television show entitled Ant & Dec Get Killed (after the film Penn & Teller Get Killed), in which the two scheme to murder one another, framed with a lighthearted soundtrack and canned laughter. Burton received negative public reaction and narrowly escaped being charged with several accounts of premeditated murder in British courts, and Ant & Dec refused the offer from the talent agency.
Ant & Dec's most recent acting appearance was in the film Alien Autopsy released in April 2006. The film gained mixed reviews about the storyline but the pair received generally good reviews for their acting abilities.
In 2006, a celebration to the show Spitting Image saw Ant and Dec having their own puppets made. They have also been made into cartoon characters on the comedy show 2DTV, and face masks in Avid Merrion's Bo Selecta. Wax works of the duo can also be seen in London's Madame Tussauds.
In September 2006, they were voted by the general public as number 7 in a poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.
1994 Brit Award Nomination - Best Song: "Let's Get Ready to Rhumble"
2001
2002
2004
2005
2006 Most Popular Quiz Programme (Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon)
2007
2008 TV Quick & TV Choice Awards: Best Entertainment Show (Saturday Night Takeaway) Nickelodeon UK Kids Choice Awards 2008: Favourite Funny Person, Best TV presenters and Best Family TV show (Britain's Got Talent) National Television Awards: Most Popular Entertainment Presenter
2009
2010
Category:1975 births Category:Living people Category:1990s music groups Category:2000s music groups Category:Articles about multiple people Category:British hip hop groups Category:Celebrity duos Category:English game show hosts Category:English pop music groups Category:Music from Newcastle upon Tyne Category:Pop Idol Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists
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| Coordinates | 42°27′10″N171°18′18″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Adrian Edmondson |
| Caption | Adrian Edmondson at the 2009 Cropredy Festival |
| Birth name | Adrian Charles Edmondson |
| Birth date | January 24, 1957 |
| Birth place | Bradford, England |
| Active | 1982–present |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Influences | Monty Python |
| Influenced | David Walliams |
| Spouse | Jennifer Saunders (m.1985, 3 daughters) |
| Notable work | Vyvyan Basterd in The Young Ones Edward Catflap in Filthy Rich & Catflap Edward 'Eddie' Hitler in Bottom Dr Percy 'Abra' Durant in Holby City'' |
At the same time as The Comic Strip Presents... was being negotiated, the BBC signed up Edmondson, Mayall, Richardson, Planer and Sayle to star in The Young Ones, a sitcom in the same anarchic style as The Comic Strip. (Richardson later decided not to proceed and was replaced by Christopher Ryan.) The show revolved around the shared house where four students lived during their study at Scumbag College. It was noted at the time of its first airing for its violent slapstick, with Edmondson's character as the main instigator, and this is a trait which has stayed with him throughout his career. The series captured public imagination and remains one of Britain's most popular sitcoms. During this time, Edmondson also appeared in a bank advertisement in what was, basically, his "Vyvyan" guise. Following the success of The Comic Strip Presents... and, to a greater extent, The Young Ones, Edmondson and Mayall returned to their "Coyote" dynamic in the double act "The Dangerous Brothers" with Edmondson as "Sir Adrian Dangerous" in Saturday Live (1985–1987). In 1983, he appeared as the lead singer Vim Fuego in the spoof heavy metal band called Bad News, with his Young Ones co-stars Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson of "Comic Strip Presents...".
On 11 May 1985, Edmondson married his Comic Strip idol Jennifer Saunders, with whom he have three daughters: Eleanor, Beatrice and Freya. His university nickname of "Eddie Monsoon," a play on his surname, inspired the name of Saunders' character, Edina Monsoon, on Absolutely Fabulous and his own characters Eddie Catflap (Filthy Rich & Catflap) and Eddie Hitler (Bottom). Their joint production company is called Mr and Mrs Monsoon Limited. In 1986, Edmondson achieved a number one hit in the UK singles charts when he and his co-stars from The Young Ones teamed up with Cliff Richard to record a new version of "Living Doll" for the inaugural Comic Relief campaign. Despite having been killed off in the final episode of the series, Edmondson played Vyvyan one last time in the video. The same year he co-wrote the book How to be a Complete Bastard together with Mark Leigh and Mike Lepine. In 1987, he reunited with Planer and Mayall to star in Filthy Rich and Catflap. The series was penned by The Young Ones' co-writer Ben Elton and saw Edmondson display the same slapstick characteristics as Vyvyan, but was closer in personality to his later character "Eddie Hitler" in Bottom. The show received critical acclaim but poor viewing figures and was cancelled after one series. 1987 also saw Edmondson co-starring with Mayall in the ITV sit-com Hardwicke House. Due to the adverse reaction of both press and viewers however, ITV withdrew the series after two episodes, and the remainder has never been shown. In 1988, he released a follow up to How To Be A Complete Bastard called The Bastard's Book of the Worst. In 1989 Edmondson made an appearance in an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth as The Red Baron, arch-nemesis to Mayall's character, Lord Flashheart. .
In 1993, Edmondson starred alongside Richard Briers in a black comedy called If You See God, Tell Him. Edmondson played Gordon Spry, whose uncle (Briers) is paralysed and has a greatly reduced attention span. His erratic behaviour causes problems for Gordon. The series comprised four episodes, each 45 minutes long, and only broadcast once. The BBC has not repeated the series, although 1 episode was broadcast on BBC Four on 3 December 2007. In September 1995, Edmondson released his first (comic) novel, The Gobbler. The same year he voiced "the animal", an advertising character for British snack Peperami. In 1996, he played the role of Ace Face/Bellboy at The Who's performance of Quadrophenia at London's Hyde Park. A video game called Animal, featuring Peperami's "the animal", was released the same year, with the character being voiced by Ade Edmondson. In 1997-1998 he voiced engine stoker Jones, a major character in the animated series Captain Star. In the 1998 ITV Pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, Edmondson played Dame Dolly alongside Neil Morrissey, Denise Van Outon, Paul Merton, Julian Clary and Julie Walters. The show was broadcast on 25 December on ITV1 and continues to be shown every year around Christmas.
Following the 1997 Bottom stage tour, Hooligans Island, Mayall and Edmondson worked on the idea of a Bottom film in which Richie and Eddie run a hotel. The two had been working on the script together, and were set to co-direct. In 1998 Mayall was seriously injured and spent a few days in a coma. Edmondson found this time very difficult. When Mayall came around he helped Edmondson complete the script while still in hospital, but it was decided that he was still not fit enough to direct, so Edmondson took the sole directing duties on what became Guest House Paradiso. Since the 2003 Bottom tour, which ended on 12 December of that year, Edmondson has shown a lack of interest in working with his friend Mayall, claiming he is more difficult to work with since his accident. In December 2004 The Daily Mirror newspaper quoted him as saying: "It’s definitely time to stop. We're getting too old. We both realised that the show wasn't as engaging as it used to be. We were starting to look a bit ridiculous. [...] We're both nearly 50 and we're starting to feel slightly undignified talking about wanking and knobs constantly." Rik Mayall has repeatedly said that they will work together again, they just needed "a good idea."
Edmondson is a fan and current season ticket holder of Npower League One football side Exeter City and often watches them at home and away matches. He played the role of 'Captain Hook' in the Canterbury Marlowe Arena pantomime during its Christmas 2009 run. In April 2010, Edmondson confirmed to the Daily Express that he'd quit comedy, stating that his interest in it has declined for many years, and wanted to focus more on his band, claiming it is 'more fun than doing comedy.' He also rubbished the idea of a potential reunion with Rik Mayall, saying it is 'very unlikely'. In an August edition of Radio 4's Chain Reaction he clarified to Lee Mack that, he hadn't really quit but was focussing more on music and farming. He confirmed that he and Mayall often spoke of a reunion when they are old men.
Category:English comedians Category:English television actors Category:The Comic Strip Category:English comedy writers Category:Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester Category:People from Bradford Category:1957 births Category:Living people Category:Fame Academy participants Category:Old Pocklingtonians
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