| Name | Paul O'GradyMBE |
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| Pseudonym | |
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| Birth name | Paul James Michael O'Grady |
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| Birth date | June 14, 1955 |
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| Birth place | Birkenhead, Cheshire, England |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Active | 1988–present |
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| Medium | Broadcaster, actor, entrepreneur, author, comedian |
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| Domesticpartner | |
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| Spouse | (divorced)}} |
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|notable_work =
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Paul James Michael O'Grady MBE (born 14 June 1955) is a British comedian, television presenter, actor, writer and radio DJ. He is best known for presenting the daytime chat television series, ''
The Paul O'Grady Show'' and, more recently, ''
Paul O'Grady Live'', as well as his
drag queen comedic alter ego, Lily Savage, as whom he performed in various television series including ''
Blankety Blank'' (1997–1999) and ''
Lily Live!'' (2000–2001). He also appeared in the comedy sitcom ''
Eyes Down'' (2003–2004) and presented several travel documentaries. In 2003, O'Grady was listed in ''
The Observer'' as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2006 he was listed by ''
The Independent'' at number 32 in their 101 most influential
gay men and women in Britain. In October 2008, he was appointed
MBE in the 2008
Birthday Honours list for services to entertainment. On 23 July 2010, O'Grady received an Honorary Doctor of Arts from
De Montfort University, Leicester, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to television, radio and the stage.
Life and career
Early life: 1955–71
Paul O'Grady's father, Patrick "Paddy" Grady (died 1973), had grown up on a farm in Ballincurry,
County Roscommon,
Ireland, but moved to England in 1936 in search for work, and settled down in the working class area of
Birkenhead. His name was accidentally changed from Grady to O'Grady in a paperwork mistake when he joined the
Royal Air Force and he subsequently decided to keep this altered name. Patrick married Mary Savage (1916–1988), who was born in England but whose parents had also been Irish immigrants, from
County Louth. Patrick and Mary were devout
Catholics and brought up their children in the faith. Paul was their third child, born at 7:30am on 14 June 1955 at St. Catherine's Hospital,
Tranmere. His birth, over a decade after that of his siblings Brendan and Sheila, was not planned; his mother was 39 and she only discovered the pregnancy when she visited the doctor complaining of indigestion. Paul O'Grady spent his early life at the family's rented home of 23 Holly Grove, Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, a house that had been built in a former quarry during the early 1930s, and O'Grady would later remark that the house was always damp and cold and that it also suffered from "ominous cracks" which "would appear in the walls and ceilings overnight".
He initially attended St. Joseph's, a Catholic primary school, where he excelled in all subjects but mathematics, and so his parents, hoping that he had a good future ahead of him, budgeted so that they could afford to send him to a private school, Redcourt, which was the Roman Catholic primary school attached to St Anselm's College. He subsequently failed the Eleven Plus exam, meaning that he was unable to gain entry to a grammar school, much to his mother's dismay, and went instead to the Blessed Edward Campion R.C. Secondary Modern and the Corpus Christi High School. It was here that he had his first homosexual experience, having a brief romance aged twelve with another boy, although in keeping with societal attitudes at the time he still assumed that he was heterosexual.
At the time he was also a huge fan of the popular television series ''The Avengers'' and ''Batman'', and was enrolled in the cub scouts by his mother, which he hated and left after a month. He later became an altar boy at a local Catholic church, though was dismissed from this position after laughing during a funeral service. Following on from this he joined the Marine cadets, later commenting that he was following in the footsteps of his childhood hero, the cartoon Popeye. He enjoyed the cadets, and at the advice of his captain joined the Boys' Amateur Boxing Club, where he gained his lifelong love of the sport. Meanwhile, he began playing truant from school, getting him into trouble with his parents, and then got into trouble with the police after he led three other boys into stealing several antiques from a house that they had broken into. O'Grady's first job was a paper round that he managed to keep for a week, being employed by a woman, Mrs Henshaw, whom his mother despised, and through this and other jobs he saved up to afford Mod clothes, for a time becoming a suedehead.
Early adulthood: 1972–76
After leaving school aged sixteen, O'Grady's mother got him a job in the civil service, working as a clerical assistant for the DHSS, who had offices in Liverpool that he could commute to from his parents' home every morning. To supplement this income, he also got a job working part-time at the bar of the Royal Air Force Association club in Oxton. Meanwhile he also joined an amateur dramatic society, the Carlton Players, at the time claiming that he did so because he wanted to be an actor, but later admitting that in fact it was because he believed that there would be many homosexuals in the group, although at this time he considered himself to be bisexual and was therefore also sexually and romantically interested in women. He was later called for a disciplinary hearing at the DHSS, who accused him of being incompetent and often late, and at which he decided to resign. Hoping for a better and more exciting life, he got a job at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Virginia Water, Surrey, and aged seventeen moved away from his parents' home in Birkenhead and travelled south. He subsequently found the work and accommodation to be appalling, although he noted that it was here that he lost his virginity to a woman whom he had met smoking cannabis at a party. He did not remain in Surrey long however, as soon after he was arrested, accused of stealing from the hotel and was subsequently fired despite protesting his innocence.
Promptly returning home to Birkenhead, he soon got his old job at the RAFA club back, and also began to increasingly socialise within the Liverpudlian gay scene, attending local meetings of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and getting a job at a gay bar, the Bear's Paw, all of which he kept a secret from his parents, to whom he was still not "out of the closet". Nonetheless, he continued to consider himself to be bisexual, and began having casual sex with a friend of his named Diane, who refused to believe that he was homosexual. Meanwhile, he had befriended Tony, a man whom he had met on the gay scene, and they had "hit it off after a prolonged bitching session one night, though we were like chalk and cheese." Becoming best friends, the two of them would regularly travel down to London to socialise with Tony's friend, the classical music conductor John Pritchard, whom O'Grady became very fond of.
When O'Grady was eighteen, his mother suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital, the stress of which caused his father to also suffer one within a matter of hours; whilst his mother recovered, his father soon died. Only a few days later, O'Grady's life was further complicated when he learned that Diane was pregnant with his child, a daughter named Sharon. Following her birth on 16 May 1974, O'Grady agreed to pay £3 every week towards the upkeep of his daughter, but refused to marry Diane as he had begun to recognise that he was homosexual and did not want to enter a marriage that he would hate. Although he initially decided not to tell his mother - who was preoccupied with the birth of his sister's fifth child - about his daughter, she eventually found out, and blamed Diane for the pregnancy due to the fact that she was nine years older than her son, and therefore, in her eyes, a "predatory middle-aged woman".
London, Manila and Lily Savage: 1976–78
Briefly working as an assistant clerk at
Liverpool Magistrates' Court, which he soon resigned from, O'Grady subsequently got a job working as a barman at
Yates's Wine Lodge, whilst also working the occasional night at the Bear's Paw. Realising that the wage from these jobs was not enough to support both himself and his daughter, he decided to travel to
London in search for work. Moving in as the lodger of a gay couple, Billy and Chris, at their flat in Formosa Street, he once again only found poorly-paid work; he took up a job as a barman in
Covent Garden, but resigned after only a day, following which he was employed by the Brook Street Bureau employment agency, but he again quit from this soon after. His third London-based job was working once more as a barman, this time at the
Samuel Pepys pub in Globe Wharf. Meanwhile, it was in London that he first began to associate with
drag queens, particularly a man named Alistair and his stage partner, Phil, the former of whom was the neighbour of Billy and Chris, and accompanied the duo, who went under the stage name of The Harlequeens, to some of their performances. Nonetheless, O'Grady was homesick for Birkenhead and Liverpool, and feeling that he had few prospects in London, returned home.
He got a job working as an accountant in a Merseyside abattoir belonging to FMC Meats, whilst meanwhile getting involved once more in amateur theatre, joining the Unity Youth Theatre. Quitting the abattoir work which disgusted him within a few months, O'Grady gained employment at Conny Home in West Kirby, a home for disabled and abused children, something he would continue for three years. Subsequently entering into a relationship with an older man named Norman, O'Grady moved into his house in Littlehampton, although their relationship did not go well, with both cheating on one another. Moving once more to London, he befriended and moved in with a woman named Angela, and the two started busking in Camden Town. Eventually getting a job as a physiotherapist's assistant at the Royal Northern Hospital, he was unable to rent a room in Camden Town, and so he and Angela finally got hold of a flat in Crouch End that they could rent. Being made redundant from the hospital due to public sector cuts, O'Grady took up a job at a gay club called the Showplace, where he befriended a Portuguese lesbian named Theresa Fernandes, and in May 1977 they legally married in order to prevent her deportation back to Portugal, although after he ceased working there he would never see her again, and only gained a divorce in 2005.
He subsequently took up a job as a cleaner and a waiter at private functions, working for a series of wealthy clients in London, including an elite escort service. Following this, he began working for Camden Council as a peripatetic care officer who would live in with elderly people or dyfunctional families. It was around this time that O'Grady made his first attempt at putting together a drag act, creating the character of Lily Savage in the process. Commenting on this, he would later relate that "I wanted to get up there but be larger than life, a creature that was more cartoon than human. I wasn't sure yet." His debut was on the afternoon of Saturday 7 October 1978, at a pub called the Black Cap, where he mimed the words to the Barbra Streisand song "Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" from the show ''Pins and Needles''. Coming offstage to a round of applause, another, more experienced drag act in the changing room remarked to him that "Well done, dahling [sic], You weren't bad, no, not bad at all… You've got something you know, de-ah, raw of course but with a little polish… who knows? A word of advice though. If you're considering getting an act together I'd drop the name. Lily Savage is all right for a bit of camp but no one is going to take an act that sounds like an old scrubber seriously, dahling." Nonetheless, the name, which was based upon his mother's maiden name, was one thing that he would maintain, and he would later recollect that:
:I've frequently been asked over the years who Lily Savage was based on and I've always answered that it was no one in particular and she was just a figment of my imagination. The truth, I realize now, is that Lily owes a lot to the women I encountered in my childhood. Characteristics and attitudes were observed and absorbed, Aunty Chris's in particular, and they provided the roots and compost for the Lily that would germinate and grow later on.
Following a holiday to Poland with his friends Barbara and Beryl soon after, and discovering that he was owed several more weeks off of work, he agreed to go and visit an ex-boyfriend, Ryan, who was living in Manila, The Philippines, where he worked for an oil company. Managing to afford the fare due to a "sizeable tax rebate" from the Inland Revenue, O'Grady found Manila to be a "culture shock", having difficulty with the climate, the food and the child sex industry, something which deeply disgusted him. He nonetheless learned to like many things about the city, briefly getting a job as a barman and waiter at a brothel known as Gussie's Bar.
Fame with Lily Savage: 1978–2004
He returned to London in the early 1980s and subsequently achieved fame with his creation of Lily, initially playing to gay clubs and pubs up and down the country. He performed many times at the Goldsmith's Tavern, New Cross where he'd often precede Vic Reeves' three-hour show ''Vic Reeves Big Night Out'' before promptly leaving to do a show elsewhere. O'Grady's Lily was best known at the time for an eight-year residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in south London. As Lily Savage, O'Grady was also in several acts which toured Europe. After appearing at The Edinburgh Festival and gaining a Perrier Award nomination, O'Grady's Lily Savage act became more mainstream and the character became popular on television, making appearances on the ITV daytime programme ''This Morning'' and as the 'On the Bed Presenter' on ''The Big Breakfast''. For a few years O'Grady hosted the game show ''Blankety Blank'' as Lily Savage, for the BBC and later for ITV. There was also a comedy show built around the character, ''Lily Live!'', appearing on ITV in 2000. Performing as Lily, O'Grady also co-hosted the 1996 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party with Ant & Dec. O'Grady also appeared along side Cilla Black and Barbara Windsor (as Savage) in the 2001 Royal Variety Performance where the trio performed a rendition of "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" from the musical ''Gypsy''.
O'Grady retired the Lily Savage character around 2004. He claimed she had "seen the light, taken the veil and packed herself off to a convent in France" but on his TV show, he said, "she's escaped the convent and she's heading towards these shores!". On 23 May 2008 on the 500th edition of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', guest star Julie Goodyear told O'Grady that Bet Lynch, the character she played in television soap opera ''Coronation Street'', had joined Savage in the French convent. On the 7 October 2009 episode of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', after being prompted by actor Martin Clunes to "bring Lily back", O'Grady said he could not because she had been "bricked up in a chimney" by the Mother Superior of the convent.
Return of Lily Savage: 2010–11
However, in March 2010 it was announced that Lily Savage would be resurrected for one last time in the Christmas pantomime ''Aladdin – A Wish Come True'' at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, from December 2010 till January 2011.
Television career: 1988–present
Following the success of Lily Savage, O'Grady played a prostitute informant, Roxanne, in several episodes of ''
The Bill'' between 1988 and 1990; in 1990 he appeared in the ITV miniseries ''
Chimera'' as Tony Donaldson, a social worker skilled in signing for the deaf.
Abandoning drag, to portray himself, in 2000 he appeared in a six-part travelogue series entitled ''Paul O'Grady's Orient'', filmed in Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Bangkok, Bali and Singapore. This was followed in 2001 by ''Paul O'Grady's America''.
From 2002 onwards, he appeared less as Savage and more often as himself. In 2002 he presented ''Outtake TV'', a bloopers show, and in 2003 starred as the lead character in the BBC sitcom ''Eyes Down'' for two series, as the manager of a northern Bingo hall. He also appeared in ''Celebrity Driving School'' for the BBC.
Richard and Judy are close friends of O'Grady, and gave him one of his first TV breaks on ''This Morning'' on ITV in the early 90s.
In July 2010 ''The Sun'' tipped that Paul O'Grady may judge acts in next year's series of ''Britain's Got Talent at the audition stages.
In December 2010, O'Grady hosted Coronation Street: The Big 50, to mark the end of Coronation Street's 50th anniversary week. The show featured 9 Corrie stars and 3 "superfans" in the bid to be crowned champions. The "Rovers Regulars" team which consisted of Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster), Barbara Knox (Rita Sullivan) and William Roache (Ken Barlow) won overall. The show also featured popular ITV show The X Factor as Kirk Sutherland went on it, singing Sex on Fire and judges such as Simon Cowell praised him. It also featured boy band Boyzone (Keith Duffy starred on Corrie), singer Kym Marsh (who played Michelle Connor), Rachel Leskovac (who played Natasha Blakeman) as well as Norris Cole and Mary Taylor who went head to head on Countdown.
The Paul O'Grady Show: 2004–09
O'Grady stood in for
Des O'Connor on an episode of the lunchtime celebrity chat show ''
Today with Des and Mel'', something that impressed
ITV enough that they asked him to stand in for O'Connor on other occasions as well. Eventually they decided that O'Grady would be a success if he presented his own daytime television show, and so commissioned a series, ''
The Paul O'Grady Show'', which first aired on October 2004 in the 5 to 6pm slot. The show, which involved O'Grady interviewing celebrity guests, aired at the same time at
Channel 4's similar series ''
Richard and Judy'', creating a friendly rivalry between the two programs for ratings. Despite the competition, O'Grady's was a success, and won a number of awards in 2005, including a
BAFTA and the award for Best TV Comedy Entertainment Personality at the
British Comedy Awards. The show ran on ITV for three series, before O'Grady fell out with the broadcasting company and decided to switch to Channel 4.
The fourth series of the show appeared on Channel 4 under the title of ''The New Paul O'Grady Show'' and began broadcasting in March 2006. On 24 August 2007 the ''Daily Mirror'' revealed that O'Grady had rejected a £5 million deal to return to ITV as the "New Parkinson." Instead he signed a £4 million deal to remain with Channel 4 until the end of 2009.
On 28 June 2008, O'Grady appeared in the ''Doctor Who'' episode ''The Stolen Earth''. On 6 June 2009, the ''Daily Mirror'' confirmed that O'Grady will sign a new two year contract with Channel 4 in autumn 2009 to keep his show on air until the end of 2011. However Channel 4 have told O'Grady that his show will face huge budget cuts, and his salary will most likely be halved. On Monday 21 September 2009, O'Grady returned to present the 11th (including ITV series) and final series of ''The Paul O'Grady Show''. On 14 October 2009, O'Grady agreed to an £8 million deal with ITV to host a Friday prime-time chat-show, to rival that of BBC One's ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'' from 2010, after budget talks broke-down with Channel 4.
On 30 November 2009, O'Grady was a guest presenter on ITV's ''GMTV with Lorraine'', in celebration of Lorraine Kelly's 50th birthday. He has guest starred on ''Living'''s paranormal show, ''Most Haunted Live!'', after presenter Yvette Fielding was a guest on his show and invited him on. Also in November 2009, O'Grady reunited with Yvette Fielding to take part in a 2 part paranormal investigation series called ''Death In Venice'' where he and Fielding investigated haunted locations in Venice. The episodes were called "Vampire Island" and "Demonic Doctor".
On 18 December 2009, Channel 4 broadcast the final ever episode of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', after 11 series which started in 2004. Guests included in the final line up were, JLS, Beverley Callard, Catherine Tate, William Roache, Linda Thorson, Honor Blackman, Joe McFadden, Natalie Cassidy, Scott Maslen, Kate Thornton and Melanie Sykes.
Paul O'Grady Live: 2010–present
Paul O'Grady spoke to ''
The People'' in March 2010 about his new
ITV show, saying "I have no idea what format it will take yet because we have not sat down with the producers ... The show will still have dogs and children but I want it to be a bit more adult too."
The programme began on ITV on Friday 10 September 2010 and ran for 10 episodes, ending on Friday 12 November 2010.
In October 2010, O'Grady attracted media attention when, on an episode of ''Paul O'Grady Live'', he openly criticised the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government for their implementation of mass cuts to government spending on social services, calling them "bastards" and remarking that "Do you know what got my back up? Those Tories hooping and hollering when they heard about the cuts. Gonna scrap the pensions – yeah! – no more wheelchairs – yeah!… I bet when they were children they laughed in ''Bambi'' when his mother got shot." His ''Bambi'' quote was soon after quoted by Peter Taffe at the Socialism 2010 conference. Meanwhile, O'Grady also used the show to voice his support for those student protesters who had occupied and vandalised the headquarters of the Conservative Party at Millbank Tower on Wednesday 10 November 2010.
Theatre
As well as numerous national tours, O'Grady has appeared on stage in ''
Prisoner Cell Block H - The Musical'', the musical ''
Annie'' as "Miss Hannigan" (as Lily Savage), ''
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'' as "the
Childcatcher" and in the
pantomime ''
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves'' as the "Wicked Queen". He has been quoted as saying "I seem to be making a living frightening children". O'Grady announced on 18 October 2009 that he would be doing pantomime again in 2009-10 in
Wimbledon. He appeared at the Mayflower Southampton as Lily Savage in Aladdin in 2010.
Radio work
O'Grady made his radio debut on 12 April 2003, when he stood in for
Jonathan Ross to present the Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2. Then, later in December 2003, O'Grady presented a two-part documentary about
Cilla Black's illustrious career, with contributions from Black's other celebrity friends. O'Grady then presented his own radio show for the first time on Christmas Day afternoon of that year.
On 28 December 2003, O'Grady chose the tracks on ''Desert Island Discs'' on BBC Radio 4.
Throughout 2004 and 2005, O'Grady voiced many adverts for other local radio stations.
O'Grady returned to Radio 2 on Easter Saturday 2006, with his very own live 3-hour special radio show. The show featured special guests and celebrity chat, the best music and a whole host of games and competitions. O'Grady also taste-tested a selection of the finest Easter Eggs in a search for Britain's Best.
O'Grady then stood in for Elaine Paige on her Sunday radio show ''Elaine Paige on Sunday'' for two weeks, on 28 January and 4 February 2007. John Barrowman then took over from O'Grady for the following two weeks, before Paige returned.
O'Grady returned with his own show on Easter Monday 2007. The show featured special guests and celebrity chat, the best music and a whole host of games and competitions.
In January 2008, O'Grady once again presented Elaine Paige on Sunday, on 13, 20 and 27 January. He sat in for her once again on 31 August, and again on 9 November.
On Christmas 2008, O'Grady returned to Radio 2 with his own show ''The Paul O'Grady Christmas Show'', featuring a seasonal mix of Christmas music and some of the biggest hits of the year, including music from McFly and Girls Aloud.
O'Grady presented a two-part documentary on New Year's Eve and New Years Day 2008 on Radio 2, which was a tribute to Bill Cotton.
From 22 February 2009, O'Grady returned to Elaine Paige on Sunday to present the show for a month, whilst Paige was on tour.
After 6 years, O'Grady was given his own show on BBC Radio 2 entitled ''Paul O'Grady On The Wireless'', each Sunday.
O'Grady once again presented a Christmas Day show in 2009, from 11am until 1pm. Like ''The Paul O'Grady Christmas Show'' that he presented last year, the show featured a round-up of the nation's favourite pantos. There was also a Christmas Motown Triple, a Carpenters Christmas Triple, and Christmas Thank Yous.
On 7 September 2010, O'Grady presented 'Come To The Cabaret', a documentary celebrating the boozy, glitzy and subversive delights of the cabaret.
For the third year running, O'Grady once again presented a special show on Christmas Day. This year, the show was three hours long, running on Christmas morning from 10.00am until 1.00pm. There were Christmas phone messages from celebrity callers, and Christmas triples from Bette Middler, Sir Cliff Richard and Dolly Parton.
Personal life
O'Grady is
openly gay. However, he has previously had
relationships with women as well as men, and married a
Portuguese lesbian, Teresa Fernandes, who was from a
Catholic family, at
Harrow Road register office, London, on 1 April 1977 in a
marriage of convenience. They separated in 1980, before eventually divorcing in 2005. He is very close to his daughter Sharyn, who married her childhood friend Philip Mousley at Liverpool Town Hall on 30 July 2005. O'Grady's long-term lover and business partner of 20 years was Irish
television producer Brendan Frank Murphy (4 March 1956 – 9 June 2005), who was
HIV+ and died of
brain cancer at
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, five days before O'Grady's fiftieth birthday. After the first show of series three of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', there was a tribute to him.
O'Grady owns a flat in London, and a farm in Aldington near Ashford, Kent where his neighbour is Julian Clary. The farm is stocked with 32 animals, including a flock of geese which O'Grady refers to as the "Geese-stapo" (a pun on the ''Gestapo''). O'Grady had a grey Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise crossbreed dog named Buster Elvis Savage, who was euthanised on 19 November 2009, after he was diagnosed with cancer. A spokeswoman said "Buster had been suffering and in a lot of pain. Putting him down was the kind thing to do." O'Grady would later devote the second volume of his autobiography to his canine companion, describing him as "The greatest canine star since Lassie."
This came a few days after O'Grady announced on his show that Buster was 'in retirement' after viewers had asked if Buster had been given away, as Buster frequently appeared on his TV show with him, but has recently been replaced by one of O'Grady's other dogs, Olga, a Cairn Terrier after whom O'Grady named his recently formed production company, 'Olga TV'. He also has another dog called Louie, who only appeared a few times in the first ITV series (mainly due to his bad behaviour), before he adopted Olga live on air. On 29 September 2009, O'Grady adopted a puppy called Bullseye, who appeared on his show after much nagging from the crowd.
O'Grady became a grandfather on 26 December 2006, when his daughter Sharyn gave birth to a son, Abel. He revealed on his show on 2 December 2009 that he had become a grandfather again as Sharyn had given birth to a girl in the early hours of that morning.
Health
In April 2002, O'Grady suffered a heart attack after weeks of complaining that he felt unwell; after an emergency operation and weeks of rest, his health recovered and he gave up
smoking for two years. O'Grady went back to his 40-a-day habit after his lover and business partner Brendan Murphy died; he had continued to work on the show at the same time as nursing Murphy. He suffered a second heart attack on 30 June 2006; again he was taken to the
William Harvey Hospital and into intensive care. He was given an
angioplasty operation before being moved to a cardiac unit. He was released on 4 July and again promised to give up smoking. He therefore postponed the new series of his show from 4 September to the end of the month. The delayed second series started on 25 September 2006, and ran over three weeks into January (for the only time in the show's history), due to its 3 week delay start.
Books
On 18 September 2008, O'Grady released his first autobiography entitled, ''At My Mother's Knee... And Other Low Joints'', which was given a positive review by ''
Private Eye'' who noted that the book did not fall into the most common celebrity biography traps of being ghost written, settling scores or not sounding like it had been written by its subject. His second book entitled ''The Devil Rides Out: The Second Coming'' was released on the 16 September 2010. He confirmed on 14 October 2010, during an interview on ''
Loose Women'', that he will write a third and final chapter.
TV credits
Paul O'Grady Live (2011)
''An Audience with Michael Buble'' (2010)
''Paul O'Grady Live'' (2010)
''Alan Carr: Chatty Man'' (2010)
''GMTV With Lorraine'' (2009)
''Let's Dance For Comic Relief'' (2009)
''Loose Women'' (2009)
''Most Haunted Live!'' (2009)
''This Morning'' (2009)
''A Taste Of My Life'' (2008)
''Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong'' (2008)
''Doctor Who'' (2008)
''Friday Night With Jonathan Ross'' (2008)
''Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live'' (2008)
''National Television Awards'' (2008)
''The Bill Made Me Famous'' (2008)
''The Girls Aloud Party'' (2008)
''The Graham Norton Show'' (2007)
''Parkinson'' (2006)
''The Paul O'Grady Show'' (2004–2009)
''Brainiac: Science Abuse'' (2005)
''British Comedy Awards'' (2005)
''The British Soap Awards'' (2005)
''Comic Aid'' (2005)
''Adopted'' (2004)
''Ambition'' (2004)
''Christmas'' (2004)
''Cilla Live'' (2004)
''Thief'' (2004)
''Wedding'' (2004)
''Celebrity Driving School'' (2003)
''Blankety Blank'' (2002)
''Outtake TV'' (2002)
''A Great Deliverance'' (2001)
''Paul O'Grady's America'' (2001)
''The Inspector Lynley Mysteries'' (2001)
''Lily Live!'' (2000)
''Creche Landing '' (1998)
''Closed For Business'' (1997)
''Camp Christmas'' (1993)
''In The Name Of The Father'' (1993)
''Lily Savage Live: Paying The Rent'' (1993)
''Heil And Farewell'' (1992)
''The New Statesman'' (1992)
''Chimera'' (1990)
''Information Received'' (1990)
''No Strings'' (1989)
''Personal Imports'' (1988)
''The Bill'' (1988)
References
;Notes
;Footnotes
;Bibliography
External links
Category:1955 births
Category:Living people
Category:20th-century actors
Category:21st-century actors
Category:21st-century writers
Category:BAFTA winners (people)
Category:English radio DJs
Category:BBC Radio 2 presenters
Category:Drag queens
Category:English comedians
Category:English businesspeople
Category:English game show hosts
Category:English people of Irish descent
Category:English television actors
Category:English television personalities
Category:English television presenters
Category:English television producers
Category:Gay actors
Category:Gay writers
Category:LGBT comedians
Category:LGBT parents
Category:LGBT businesspeople
Category:LGBT people from England
Category:LGBT television personalities
Category:LGBT writers from the United Kingdom
Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire
Category:People from Birkenhead
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