Pete Waterman

A&R;
Artists and repertoire (A&R) is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label; every activity involving artists to the point of album release is generally considered under the purview of, and responsibility of, A&R.
The A&R division is responsible for discovering new recording artists and bringing them to the record company. They are expected to understand the current tastes of the market and to be able to find artists that will be commercially successful. For this reason, A&R people are often young and many are musicians, music journalists or record producers.
An A&R executive is authorized to offer a record contract, often in the form of a "deal memo": a short informal document that establishes a business relationship between the recording artist and the record company. The actual contract negotiations will typically be carried out by rival entertainment lawyers hired by the musician's manager and the record company.

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Aeone
Aeone Victoria Watson (born Liss, Hampshire), best known as her mononym Aeone (pronounced ay-own) is a British artiste and composer, who now lives in Los Angeles, California. Her music has been classified as new age, folk or world music. She has released four albums, one of which was an internet only release. She now works extensively in film and tv and has over 60 movie trailers to her credit. Early in her career, as Vikki, she represented the United Kingdom in the 1985 Eurovision Song Contest.

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Alesha Dixon
Alesha Anjanette Dixon (born 7 October 1978) is a British rapper, singer-songwriter, dancer, model and television personality. She first found fame in the all-female R&B/garage trio Mis-Teeq, however, the trio separated in 2005 and Dixon continued pursuing her music career as a solo artist, signing to Polydor Records. Dixon began recording her debut solo album, Fired Up, in 2006, but due to poor record sales of her first two singles, "Lipstick" and "Knockdown", she was dropped from Polydor.
In 2007 Dixon became a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing and eventually won. Her television exposure led to a successful comeback, which included her signing to Asylum Records, an offshoot of Warner Music Group. Dixon then released a second album, entitled The Alesha Show, in 2008, which received platinum certification from BPI in the UK and spawned four singles including "The Boy Does Nothing" and "Breathe Slow", the latter of which became her highest charting single and earned her a Brit Award nomination.

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Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber Kt. (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre.
Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. He has also gained a number of honours, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from the British Government for services to Music, seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, fourteen Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006.
Several of his songs have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals, notably "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" and "You Must Love Me" from Evita, "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and "Memory" from Cats.

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Andy Abraham
Andrew Abraham (born 16 July 1964 in North London, England)^{[citation needed]} is an English singer. He was the runner-up in the second UK series of TV talent show The X Factor in 2005 to Shayne Ward, and also represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.
Before applying for The X Factor, Abraham was a refuse collector. Prior to this he worked as a bus driver for Arriva London North based at Palmers Green bus garage. Abraham has two children by his wife Denise, a daughter called Tara and a son called Jacob. He is of Grenadian descent.
Abraham was narrowly beaten to the top spot on The X Factor by Shayne Ward by 1.2% of the national public vote. Abraham was mentored throughout the competition by Sharon Osbourne although fellow judges Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh also praised the singer highly throughout the competition. Other performers who came to prominence in the same series of The X Factor were finalists Journey South and quarter-finalist Chico Slimani.
On 26 March 2006, Abraham's debut album entered the UK album chart at number two, selling 176,000 copies in its first week and being beaten to the top spot by Journey South.

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Andy Peebles
Andy Peebles (born 13 December 1948 in Hampstead, London) is a radio DJ.
The son of a head postmaster, Peebles attended Bishop's Stortford College, Hertfordshire before training in hotel management at Bournemouth College Of Technology. After DJing at a college dance he was offered a job at Samantha's in Bournemouth. He worked at Chelsea Village,The Scotch of St James in London and at the Hardrock in Manchester.
He began his broadcasting career in 1973, presenting a Saturday morning show for BBC Radio Manchester. In 1974, Peebles helped launch Manchester's Piccadilly Radio where he first broadcast Andy Peebles' Soul Train, before joining BBC Radio 1 in 1978, where he presented the Monday-Thursday 8-10pm evening show.
In September 1979, Peebles briefly presented weekday afternoons, taking over from Tony Blackburn, before moving to a 10.30am-12.30pm weekday show.
Peebles' name was thrust into the media spotlight in December 1980 when John Lennon was murdered in New York. He had conducted the last British media interview with Lennon at the Hit Factory recording studio, two days before Lennon's death. The Lennon interview was later published in print as The Lennon Tapes, now in print as The Last Lennon Tapes.

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Ant & Dec
Anthony McPartlin (born 18 November 1975) and Declan Donnelly (born 25 September 1975), known collectively as Ant & Dec, are an English comedy and TV presenting duo from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The duo first rose to fame as actors on the children's television show Byker Grove, during which and in their subsequent pop career they were respectively known as PJ & Duncan – the names of the characters they played on the show. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting shows such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, PokerFace, Push the Button, Britain's Got Talent, Red or Black? and Text Santa. They have also returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy.
Ant is the taller of the two at 5'8" (1.73 m) and Dec is two inches shorter at 5'6" (1.68 m). It is a running joke that many people do not 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 does not help everyone.

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Arlene Phillips
Arlene Phillips OBE (born 22 May 1943) is an English choreographer, theatre director, talent scout, TV presenter, TV judge and former dancer, who has worked in many fields of entertainment. For many years she was most noted as the choreographer of numerous West End and Broadway musicals, films and television shows, but she has since achieved mainstream fame as a judge on television talent shows including Strictly Come Dancing and So You Think You Can Dance. On 15 April 2010, she made her first appearance as a panellist for the ITV1 television series Loose Women.
Phillips was born in 1943 and grew up in Prestwich, Lancashire, England. She is Jewish and has a brother, Ian and a sister, Karen. When Phillips was 15, her mother, who had been suffering from leukaemia, died aged 43. Her father died of Alzheimer's at age 89.
Phillips originally wanted to be a ballet dancer and began dance classes at the age of three, studying ballet and tap dance at the Muriel Tweedy School in Manchester. Her mother had always expressed a desire to dance, which inspired Phillips into pursuing dance professionally.

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Brian Harvey
Brian Lee Harvey (born 8 August 1974) is an English musician and former lead singer of pop band East 17.
Harvey was born in Walthamstow, London, and attended Sir George Monoux School from 1988-90.
Harvey was initially slated to be a backup singer and dancer for East 17, but during the initial recording session he was heard singing along by the recording staff and was promptly instated as the lead singer of the band.
Harvey's vocal style emulated R&B and new jack swing vocalists from the U.S. His vocals put him into a position of the band's frontman, or main member, which was shared with the band's creator, songwriter, instrumentalist, rapper and singer Tony Mortimer.
Throughout the course of the band's career the two leads had many disagreements, from how to vocalise songs to their behaviour in public. This tore the band between spiritual pop/hip-hop (Mortimer's writing influence) and R&B (the other band members) which would eventually lead to Mortimer leaving the band and Harvey becoming the only lead singer.

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Bruno Tonioli
Bruno Tonioli (born 25 November 1955) is an Italian choreographer and TV personality who appears as a judge on the television dance competition Strictly Come Dancing for BBC TV in the UK, and its American adaptation Dancing with the Stars on ABC TV in the US, Tonioli co-created and appeared on the BBC talent show DanceX and its American adaptation, Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann.
In the early 1970s, Tonioli was a member of the Paris-based company La Grande Eugène and later joined the Lindsay Kemp Company. He worked extensively as a freelance dancer, including an appearance in Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" video.
Tonioli has worked in the music business as a choreographer for music videos, stage shows, and tours for artists such as Tina Turner, Sting, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Sinitta, Boy George, and Duran Duran. His close association with Bananarama produced many videos, from "Venus" to "Movin' On". Tonioli choreographed the band Arcadia's music video for their song "Election Day" as documented in a 1980s documentary entitled The Making of Election Day.

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Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE (born October 28, 1936, New York City, United States) is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht.
Carl is a conductor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and regularly conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He has written music for more than 100 television programs, but is best known for creating music to accompany silent films. Davis has assisted in the orchestration of the symphonic works of Paul McCartney.
Davis achieved early prominence with the title music for the BBC anthology play series The Wednesday Play and later for Play for Today. Additional television scores include Up Pompeii! (1971), The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Man Friday (1975), The Kiss of Death (1977), Langrishe, Go Down (1978), Private Schulz (1980), Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981), The Far Pavilions (1984), The Day the Universe Changed (1985), Pride and Prejudice (1995), and Coming Home (1998).

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Carlos (DJ)
Carl Emms (born 31 December 1966), known as Carlos, is a long established British disc jockey. He can currently be heard presenting the weekday afternoon show on Smooth Radio.
His broadcasting career began at 15 on Wiltshire Radio whilst still at school, presenting an early morning show but still managing to achieve good results in his O Levels. During this time he was a guest on Russell Harty's TV chat show as the youngest radio presenter in the country. In October 1985, when WR merged with Bristol's Radio West to form GWR, Carl presented the first day of test transmissions.
In 1987 he joined Signal Radio in Stoke-on-Trent, where he presented the Drivetime show, still under his real name. He went on to appear on Cardiff's Red Dragon FM, followed by a stint at the Chiltern Radio Network where he presented the late night 10pm-2am show. After this he moved to their breakfast show. When this programme was split from being networked over all three Chiltern Radio Network stations, to local shows, he continued with the Northants 96 Breakfast show, then the drive time.

wn.com/Carlos_(DJ)

Carol Smillie
Carol Patricia Smillie (born 23 December 1961) is a Scottish television personality, model and actress. Smillie is well known for presenting the award winning BBC series Changing Rooms, which won her a National Television Award for Most Popular Factual Programme in 1998.
She became the hostess of the British version of the international television game show Wheel of Fortune in 1989. Smillie achieved further recognition a few years later when she appeared on the BBC television channel, firstly as a reporter on The Travel Show, and then Holiday, often as the programme's presenter. However, it was the DIY programme Changing Rooms that really established her name, and led to her presenting other primetime shows for the BBC, such as the National Lottery and her own morning chat show Smillie's People.
Smillie continues to present television shows, mainly on the STV channel, but in recent years has moved into other areas of entertainment. Smillie has appeared on the stage in theatre productions of The Vagina Monologues, (2006 and 2007), and Hormonal Housewives (2010 and 2012), touring both plays around Scotland.

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Carrie Grant
Carrie Grant (born Caroline Vanessa Gray, 17 August 1965) is a British vocal coach and session singer. She is best known for her work on the television talent contests Fame Academy,Comic Relief does Fame Academy and Pop Idol, together with her husband and colleague David Grant. She is also personal voice coach to many successful pop stars. She first came to fame as a singer in her own right with the pop group Sweet Dreams in 1983, when they represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest that year with the song I'm Never Giving Up.
Since 2010 she has been a regular reporter on BBC One's magazine programme The One Show.
She and husband David have three daughters: Olivia, Talia and Imogen. Olivia played Alice in the fifth series of The Story of Tracy Beaker and went on to a small role in EastEnders. She then went on to play the part of Mia Stone in the CBBC show Half Moon Investigations.
Grant has suffered from Crohn's disease since the age of 18 and has been praised by science education charity Sense About Science for her efforts in raising the profile of the disease without making any scientifically unsound claims about available therapies.

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Cathy McGowan
Cathy McGowan (born 1943) is a British broadcaster and journalist, presenter from 1964-6 of Rediffusion television’s rock music show, Ready Steady Go!
Ready Steady Go! (RSG) was first broadcast in August 1963, coinciding with the rise of The Beatles in Britain and internationally. As one historian of television reflected in the 1970s, "the revolution had the greatest possible effect on television ... and hindsight commentators were to see the year [1963] as a line of demarcation drawn between one kind of Britain and another".
With its slogan ,"the weekend starts here",RSG was shown on Fridays from 6-7pm. Its original presenter Keith Fordyce (1928-2011), a stalwart of the BBC Light Programme and Radio Luxembourg, was joined in 1964 by Cathy McGowan. McGowan, recruited as an advisor from 600 applicants, had been in the fashion department of Woman’s Own. She is said to have secured the role in a "run off" with journalist Anne Nightingale, later a disc jockey on Radio 1, by answering "fashion" to a question from Elkan Allan (1922–2006), RSG's executive producer and head of entertainment at Rediffusion, as to whether sex, music or fashion were more important to teenagers.

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Cheryl Baker
Cheryl Baker (born Rita Maria Crudgington, 8 March 1954, Bethnal Green, London) is an English television presenter and singer. She is most famous for being a member of 1980s pop group Bucks Fizz, and has performed for the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest twice, winning it the second time.
After leaving school and a series of secretarial jobs, Cheryl Baker began her professional singing career with the band Co-Co. The group entered A Song for Europe in 1976 with the song "Wake Up". They came second, being beaten by (eventual Eurovision winners) Brotherhood of Man by two points.
The group continued to perform together and in 1978, they entered A Song for Europe again with "The Bad Old Days". This time they won and went on to perform for the UK in Paris. The song managed 11th place - the lowest placing by a UK entry up to that point. The song became a hit single, reaching 13 in the UK Singles Chart. On the back of this, the group released their first (and only) album as well as further singles. None of these found any success.

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Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Ann Cole (née Tweedy; born 30 June 1983), often known professionally as Cheryl, is an English pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter, dancer and model. She rose to fame in late 2002 when she auditioned for the reality television show Popstars: The Rivals on ITV. The programme announced that Cole had won a place as a member of the girl group, Girls Aloud. Cole has been part of the group's twenty consecutive top-ten singles (including four number one singles) in the UK and five platinum albums (two of which went to number one) and earned five BRIT Award nominations from 2005 to 2010. In 2009, Girls Aloud won "Best Single" with their song "The Promise". In 2009, Girls Aloud announced their musical hiatus and Cole went on to release two solo albums, which both went to number one in the UK: 3 Words (2009) and Messy Little Raindrops (2010). She achieved a number of hits, including two number one singles: "Fight for This Love" and "Promise This". Cole is set to release her third solo album A Million Lights on the 18 June 2012, with lead single "Call My Name" being released on the 10 June 2012.

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Claire Sweeney
Claire Jane Sweeney (born 17 April 1971) is an English actress, singer and television personality, best known for playing the role of Lindsey Corkhill in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside and her appearance on the first series of the reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother.
Born in Walton, Liverpool, she is the daughter of a butcher who had a shop in Toxteth. She trained at the Elliott-Clarke Theatre School in Liverpool, and worked on the weekends in her fathers shop.
Her first singing gig, at the age of 14, was in the Montrose Club in Liverpool. She was then educated fulltime at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. In 1987, she was a member of the Southport Summer Youth Theatre Workshop's production of the musical Hair. Following this production, she auditioned for a part in the Southport Arts Centre's Centre Stage Company production of Chicago but was turned down because she was considered too young; she later went on to star in a West End version of the same show.
After leaving stage school, Sweeney had many singing engagements before landing the role of Lindsey Corkhill in Brookside in 1991. She entertained cruise ships for P&O as a singer for four years before returning to England. On her return, Sweeney reprised her role of Lindsey and remained on the show as a leading character until its demise in 2003.

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Claudia Winkleman
Claudia Anne I. Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English television presenter, film critic, radio personality and journalist.
Winkleman was born in Westminster, London, to a Jewish family, the daughter of Eve Pollard, former editor of the Sunday Express, and Barry Winkleman (born 1939), former publisher of The Times Atlas of the World. Her parents divorced when she was three; both remarried in 1979. Her stepfather is Sir Nicholas Lloyd, former editor of the Daily Express, and her half-sister, from her father's second marriage, to children's author Cindy Black, is actress Sophie Winkleman, wife of Lord Frederick Windsor. She has a younger half-brother, Oliver Lloyd, from her mother's second marriage, to Nicholas Lloyd.
Brought up in the London suburb of Hampstead, Winkleman was educated at the City of London School for Girls and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, obtaining an MA Hons degree in History of Art.
Winkleman's first major television job was in 1991, on the regional discussion programme.Central Weekend. In 1992, she began frequently to appear in the long-running BBC series Holiday, and this continued throughout the mid-1990s. This culminated in a special documentary in which she travelled around the world for 34 days reporting from Japan, India, Costa Rica and Dubai.

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Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist. With his backing group The Shadows, Richard, originally positioned as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard and Elvis Presley, dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song, and John Lennon once claimed that "before Cliff and the Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music." A conversion to Christianity and subsequent softening of his music later led to a more middle of the road pop image, sometimes venturing into gospel music.
Over a 53-year career, Richard has become a fixture of the British entertainment world, amassing many gold and platinum discs and awards, including three Brit awards and two Ivor Novello awards. He has had more than 130 singles, albums and EPs make the UK Top 20, more than any other artist and holds the record (with Elvis Presley) as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (1950s–2000s). He has achieved 14 UK No. 1 singles (or 18, depending on the counting methodology) and is the only singer to have had a No. 1 single in the UK in six consecutive decades: the 1950s through to the 2000s (discounting digital downloads and counting only CDs, he had a UK No. 1 single in the 2000s). Richard is the biggest selling singles artist of all time in the UK, with total sales of over 21 million and has reportedly sold an estimated 250 million records worldwide.

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Clodagh Rodgers
Clodagh Rodgers (English pronunciation: Clo-da) (born 5 March 1947) is a singer and actress from Northern Ireland, best known for her hit singles including, "Come Back and Shake Me" and "Jack in the Box".
Born in Ballymena, Rodgers began her professional singing career when she opened for Michael Holliday at 13. Her father, a dancehall tour promoter helped her to sign with Decca in 1962. She made four singles before moving to EMI's Columbia label in 1965, where she was known as 'Cloda Rogers', the name under which she made the 1966 single "Stormy Weather"/"Lonely Room". Although none of the singles she released for Decca or Columbia made the UK Singles Chart, Rodgers did succeed in becoming a regular face on British television and appeared in the musical films Just for Fun and It's All Over Town. She also appeared in various song festivals, finishing third in the European Song Cup competition in Greece, singing "Powder Your Face With Sunshine". In November 1963 Rodgers flew to Nashville, Tennessee, at the invitation of the American singer Jim Reeves, and performed at the Grand Ole Opry. She had been one of the acts Reeves had known from his Irish tour earlier that year. Reeves had spotted that Rodgers was a promising artist, who had a bright future in front of her.

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Dale Winton

Dale Winton (born 22 May 1955) is an English radio DJ and television presenter.
Winton's father, Gary, died when Winton was 13, on the day of Winton's bar mitzvah.^{[citation needed]} Winton was brought up by his mother, actress Sheree Winton. Sheree was often referred to as 'the English Jayne Mansfield'. She committed suicide by drug overdose in 1976, after a lifelong battle with clinical depression.
Winton started DJ'ing in clubs in Richmond in 1972, where he met Steve Allen. The two have remained best friends since. From there he had a selection of menial jobs including selling time shares abroad. In 1982, Winton moved to London and began his entertainment career on the London club circuit, where he DJ'd at weekends. This led him to United Biscuits Industrial Radio where he did a variety of jobs, before getting his own morning show. From here he joined Radio Trent in Nottingham, where he presented a weekend show, moving to the weekday mid-morning show, before leaving in 1985, and going on to work at a number of other local radio stations.

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Daniel Pearce
Daniel Pearce (born 29 May 1978) is an English musician who was a finalist on the reality TV show Popstars: The Rivals. He won a place in the boyband One True Voice, which subsequently released two top ten singles, "Sacred Trust"/"After You're Gone" and "Shakespeare's (Way With) Words. Pearce, an arranger and co-writer of some of their songs, left the group in summer 2003, shortly before the band split up.
In September 2009, he auditioned for the 2009 series of The X Factor, but failed to progress as far as the live finals.
In 2010, he returned with a hit entitled "Dirtee Disco", a UK No. 1 single by Dizzee Rascal featuring Pearce.
Daniel Pearce took part in 2002 in Popstars The Rivals
Host Davina McCall announced the names of the five contestants who had qualified. Matthew Johnson was the first member to be announced followed by Keith Semple. Third was Pearce and fourth Anton Gordon. The last available place went to Jamie Shaw whereas Chris Park was eliminated from the boys competition.
Pearce and the four other contestant winners (Anton Gordon, Matthew Johnson, Keith Semple and Jamie Shaw) went on to form the group One True Voice.

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Darius Danesh
Darius Campbell (born Darius Campbell-Danesh, 19 August 1980), also known professionally either as Darius Danesh or simply Darius, is a Scottish platinum-selling singer-songwriter, a West End stage actor, an operatic baritone, a Sunday Times best-selling author, and an Ambassador for The Prince's Trust.
He performed the role of Billy Flynn in the West End production of Chicago, the youngest one ever to play that part, in two successful runs of that musical. He played both the lead role of Sky Masterson in the Olivier Award winning Guys and Dolls, and the originating role of Rhett Butler in Sir Trevor Nunn's theatrical adaptation of Gone with the Wind.
In 2010 he trained with tenor Rolando Villazón, won the hit ITV1 competition Popstar to Operastar, and performed a duet with Villazón on "The Impossible Dream." Early that year, he corrected the unauthorized deletion of Campbell from his surname. The United Kingdom's biggest operatic production ever was the occasion of his operatic debut, at The O₂ arena with the Royal Philharmonic, in Carmen. At 29, he became the youngest performer to assume the lead role of Carmen's lover, a role more often awarded to a baritone in his forties.

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David Jensen
David "Kid" Jensen (born July 4, 1950^{[citation needed]}) is a Danish Canadian-born British radio DJ.
Born into a Danish family residing in Victoria, British Columbia, Jensen began his career in his home country at the age of sixteen playing jazz and classical music. He then joined Radio Luxembourg at the age of eighteen in 1968. His late-night show, "Kid Jensen's Dimensions," concentrated on "progressive" music and attracted many fans, including former British prime minister Tony Blair. By 1974, Jensen was becoming a TV personality in Britain, hosting pop shows on ITV, and in the mid-1970s he worked for the then-new Radio Trent (now 96 Capital Radio East Midlands) in Nottingham, one of the first legal, land-based commercial radio stations in the UK. During the early part of his career he was billed as "Kid Jensen" and did not use his given name professionally until 1980.

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Davina McCall
Davina Lucy Pascale McCall (born 16 October 1967) is an English television presenter, currently hosting Channel 4's game show Million Pound Drop Live and Sky1's reality talent show Got to Dance. She is best known as the presenter of reality series Big Brother during its run on Channel 4 between 1999 and 2010. Having fronted the shows weekly live eviction shows every summer since the beginning, she decided not to return as host after it was dropped by Channel 4 and relaunched by Channel 5 the following year.
After a difficult childhood, by her early twenties McCall had pursued various jobs including solo singer. Having recovered from a drug problem, she embarked on a career in television with a first job presenting for satellite music channel MTV in 1992. After further work on terrestrial channels she became a household name thanks to Big Brother, while also continuing to work with other hosting vehicles on various channels, from game shows to talent shows. From 2005 she has also been a regular co-presenter for the Comic Relief annual telethons.

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Daz Sampson
Darren "Daz" Sampson (born 28 November 1974^{[citation needed]}) is a British dance music producer, musician and singer-songwriter.
Up until 2006, when he represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest, Sampson was best known for his commercial dance music, often reworkings of older songs as a solo act (Daz Sampson, DJ Daz) and as a member of various formations, Bus Stop, Rikki & Daz, Barndance Boys, Uniting Nations.
Sampson has been in various groups, he started his career as a front man with the top 20 rave act control in the early 90's before moving on to forming the BASS BOYS a rap duo alonside best friend lee bowers , this act was on the brink of success after being managed for a brief time by nigel martyn smith (take that) and later tom watkins the man behind east 17, bros, pet shop boys.
The Duo were very close to becoming a pop sensation and even had landed a deal to make a pilot kids tv show, watkins described the duo in the sun newspaper as "the musical vic & bob" however sampson had his first chart success with the group Bus Stop (with Graham Turner, Mark Hall,). Bus Stop had four UK hits, the most successful being "Kung Fu Fighting" featuring Carl Douglas that sold 250,000 copies in the uk and over 1 milion world wide

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Deke Arlon
Deke Arlon (born Anthony Howard Wilson) is a British music publisher and music manager whose clients included Kenny Young, Sheena Easton, Ron Grainer, Elaine Paige, Dennis Waterman, Helen Watson, and Marti Pellow.
Arlon began his own band Deke Arlon and the Tremors in 1959 where the band established itself in the south coast England rock scene. In 1964, Deke Arlon and his then group The Offbeats recorded a session with 1960s pop producer Joe Meek. This resulted in one single, "I'm Just A Boy/Can't Make Up Mind" released on Columbia. He went on to record another single for HMV in 1964, and three more singles for Columbia during 1965 and 1966, all solo recordings. Arlon eventually went on to do theatre and television shows, such as Dad You're a Square, Thank Your Lucky Stars and Crossroads where he met his future wife, Jill. It was the prospect of securing a mortgage, with its demand of a ‘proper’ job with proof of a regular income that forced Arlon into what was to have been a temporary career move from performing to music publishing.

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Denise Gyngell
Denise Gyngell (born 30 August 1961) is a British singer, actress and model. She is most famous as a member of the early 80s pop group, Tight Fit. She later married record producer Pete Waterman.
Denise Gyngell was born in Porth, Rhondda, South Wales. She is Welsh, as are her parents, Gerry and Madge. She went to the Barbara Speake Stage School and the Italia Conti Academy.
As a child, she was friends with Jay Aston of Bucks Fizz.
She appeared in The Darwin Adventure (1972), with her brothers Paul and Michael, where they were all cast as Darwin's children. In 1973 she appeared in a Play for Today episode called Song for Twilight written by Noël Coward, featuring Peter Sallis. Along with brother Paul, she also appeared in The Zoo Robbery.
Denise was one of Hill's Angels on The Benny Hill Show during the early 1980s. She appeared in an episode of Ronnie Corbett's Sorry! in 1987. She also made appearances with Kenny Everett and Morecambe and Wise.
Gyngell was also in several stage shows, including Aladdin in pantomime.

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Dolly Dots
Dolly Dots were a popular Dutch girl band in the 1980s. With their style of upbeat dance/pop, they scored many hits throughout Europe. The sextet consisted of Angela Groothuizen, Angéla Kramers, Anita Heilker, Esther Oosterbeek, Patty Zomer and Ria Brieffies.
The Dolly Dots had many hits between 1979 and 1988. They were most successful in the Netherlands, but they also scored hits in the rest of Europe. Their single "Radio" was a big hit in Japan. "P.S." was a Top 50 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play hit in 1981. They also enjoyed hits in Turkey, Lebanon, Iceland, and toured through Egypt.
At the peak of their success in 1984 the Dolly Dots had their own TV series, Barbie dolls, wallpaper and a number one hit, "Love Me Just a Little Bit More (Totally Hooked On You)". At the end of the following year, Anita Heilker left the group to have a daughter. She later became the Dutch voice of Donald Duck. The rest of the band continued as a five-piece. Heilker had already launched her own career. In 1986 she released four solo singles ("You've Got Me Keyed Up", "Into The Night", "Dancing On The Moon" and "Don't Treat Me Like This"), as well as a solo album (The Girl In Black).

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Donna Summer
LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by the stage name Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. She had a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and was a five-time Grammy Award winner. Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States Billboard chart, and she also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period.
Born into a devoutly Christian lower middle class African American family in Boston, Massachusetts, Summer first became involved with singing through church choir groups before joining a number of bands influenced by the Motown Sound. Influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, she became the front singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she spent several years living in West Germany, where she married Helmut Sommer, whose surname she adopted as her stage name.

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Donny Osmond
Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond (born December 9, 1957) is an American singer, musician, actor, dancer, radio personality, and former teen idol. Osmond has also been a talk and game show host, record producer and author. In the mid 1960s, he and four of his elder brothers gained fame as the Osmond Brothers on the long running variety program, The Andy Williams Show. Donny went solo in the early 1970s covering such hits as "Go Away Little Girl" and "Puppy Love".
For over thirty-five years, he and younger sister Marie have gained fame as Donny & Marie, partly due to the success of their 1976–79 self-titled variety series, which aired on ABC. The duo also did a 1998–2000 talk show and have been headlining in Las Vegas since 2008. Between a highly successful teen career in the 1970s, and his rebirth in the 1990s, Osmond's career was stymied during the 1980s by what some have perceived as his "boy scout" image. Osmond stated on the May 1, 2009 Larry King Live show that longtime friend Michael Jackson suggested he change his name to boost his image. Osmond's agent even suggested that spreading false rumors about drug arrest charges might recharge his career. Osmond felt such allegations would have familial ramifications, and couldn't reconcile how lying to create a nefarious drug image could be explained to his children, nieces and nephews. In 1989, Osmond had two big-selling recordings, the first of which, "Soldier of Love", was initially credited to a "mystery artist" by some radio stations.

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Duncan James
Duncan Matthew James Inglis (born 7 April 1978) is an English singer, actor and television presenter. He is best known as a member of the boyband Blue.
James grew up an only child in Devon and was raised primarily by his mother and grandparents after his father abandoned his mother before he was born. He was raised a "strict Catholic" and educated at Dumpton School (where his grandfather worked as a music teacher), the Milldown School in Blandford Forum and Corfe Hills School in Corfe Mullen and Sidmouth College in East Devon. At 15, he played Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He also played Dr Watson in Sherlock Holmes for Sidmouth Youth Theatre. James also worked for Haven Holidays as a Havenmate on the Isle Of Wight and at West Bay in Dorset.^{[citation needed]}
In early 2000, James, along with Antony Costa, convinced Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe to form the group Blue. Blue's R&B-influenced pop allowed the group to achieve commercial success in the United Kingdom and many other countries, including Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand. From May 2001, when the group released its first single, "All Rise", until 2004, when the band released its final chart-qualifying single, "Curtain Falls", Blue had achieved 11 Top 10 singles in the UK, three of which went to Number 1.

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Emma (singer)
Emma (born Emma Louise Booth, 2 August 1974, Bridgend, Wales) is a Welsh singer who sang the UK entry, "Give a Little Love Back to the World", in the Eurovision Song Contest 1990.
This was the third of four entries representing the UK composed by Paul Curtis. The song finished 6th and climbed to #33 in the UK charts. At fifteen, she is the youngest singer to have represented the UK in the contest and only narrowly made the newly implemented age rule in the competition, where all contestants must be 16 in the year they compete. As author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in his book The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, the song had an environmental theme. Many of the 1990 entries chose the momentous events taking place in Eastern Europe and European Unity as their theme. She released one more single in the UK on Big Wave Records. 1991's "Dance All Night" which failed to chart. She had a minor hit in the Netherlands in 1991 with a cover version of Liquid Gold's "Dance Yourself Dizzy".

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Emma B
Emma Boughton (born 27 November 1970 in Oxford), grew up in Canada and as a teenager in Birmingham, England. Better known as Emma B, she is a radio presenter in the UK. She became known as Emma B when she worked for Creation Records. Emma graduated from the University of Exeter with a BA in English and Drama, staying on as a sabbatical officer organising all the live events and skiing competitively for the university. She came 7th in the giant slalom in the British university championships.
Her first experience with radio was at the age of 7 as part of a drama on BBC Radio Oxford with Timmy Mallett. She worked at Radio Caroline (at Bristol dock) before writing articles for media magazines, which included Kerrang!. She also presented a daily children's show along with Timmy Mallet at Radio Oxford, where she was called Susan Zinc!
Emma joined BBC Radio 1 in April 1998, firstly presenting an Early Saturday morning show from 4–7am. In 1999, she took over the Saturday afternoon show from 1–3pm alongside Sara Cox and the Sunday night/Monday morning overnight slot from 1–4am. In addition to that, in January 2000, she co-presented the Sunday Surgery show, alongside Dr. Mark Hamilton every Sunday evening from 9–11pm. Sunday Surgery has dealt with social and health problems including sex, drugs, poverty and crime. She won 4 Sonys for the show and has been singled out as having saved lives through that show.

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Emma Bunton
Emma Lee Bunton (born 21 January 1976) is a British pop singer/songwriter and TV and radio presenter. She was a member of the 1990s girl group, the Spice Girls, in which she was known as Baby Spice as she was the youngest member. In 2010, she joined the judging panel on ITV's Dancing on Ice. She is also the host of Heart FM Saturday afternoon drive-time slot.
Her debut solo album A Girl Like Me was released in the United Kingdom on 16 April 2001 by Virgin Records. The album debuted and peaked at number four on the UK Albums Chart. On 7 September 2001, A Girl Like Me was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry for sales in excess of 100,000 copies, ultimately becoming the 147th best-selling album in the UK for 2001. The album brought the UK number-one "What Took You So Long?" as well as top five hits "What I Am" (a cover of a 1988 song by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians) and "Take My Breath Away" and the top 20 hit "We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight". The album sold 125,000 copies in the UK.

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English people
The English (from Old English: Englisc) are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens. Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, a Germanic people originally from Northern Germany who migrated to Britain.
Historically, the English population is descended from several genetically similar peoples—the earlier Britons (or Brythons), the Germanic tribes that settled in the area, including Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, who founded what was to become England (from the Old English Englaland), and the later Danes, Normans and other groups. Following the Act of Union in 1707, in which the Kingdom of England became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain, English customs and identity became closely aligned with British customs and identity.

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Frances Ruffelle
Frances Ruffelle (born 29 August 1965, London, England, UK) is an English musical theatre actress and recording artist. Her mother is Sylvia Young, the founder of the famous theatre school at which Frances trained, and her daughter is recording artist Eliza Doolittle. Her younger sister is actress Alison Ruffelle. Ruffelle originated the role of Éponine in the English language version of Les Misérables for which she won a Tony Award. She has appeared in Starlight Express, Children of Eden and Chicago.
Ruffelle's first West End appearance was as Louisa in Terence Rattigan's The Sleeping Prince. In 1984, she took on the principal role of Dinah in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express in the original London cast. A year later, she had left Starlight and joined the original London cast of Les Misérables as Éponine. Though virtually an unknown outside of the West End, she and Colm Wilkinson were invited to reprise their roles for the Broadway launch.^{[citation needed]} Ruffelle was nominated for and won multiple awards (including the Tony) for her role. She returned to the role she originated in 1997 in the West End of London. Her subsequent work on stage included the Ian Dury musical Apples in 1989 and Stephen Schwartz's Children of Eden in 1990, featuring on the cast albums of both. She has also starred as the female lead Roxie Hart in Chicago, as well as appearing in Lucky Stiff, and, more recently, in Schwartz Stories.^{[citation needed]}

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Gareth Gates
Gareth Paul Gates (born 12 July 1984, Bradford, England) is an English singer-songwriter. He was the runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol. Gates has sold over 3.5 million records in the UK. He is also known for having a stutter, and has talked about his speech impediment publicly. Gates used the McGuire Programme to manage the problem and is now a speech coach with the programme.
In 2009, Gates moved into musical theatre, playing the title role in the West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Adelphi Theatre. He has recently completed an eighteen month stint as Marius, initially in the touring production and then in the West End production of Les Misérables. and takes up the role of Eddie in the new musical Loserville at the west Yorkshire Playhouse in June 2012
Gates was born in West Bowling, Bradford to father Paul and mother Wendy Broadbent (née Farry). He has three sisters, Nicola (born 1985), Charlotte (born 1991), and Jessica (born 1993) and grew up with his cousin James (born 1986) who was fostered by the family. His parents regularly foster other children.

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Gary Davies
Gary Davies (born in Manchester on 13 December 1957) is a British broadcaster. During the 1980s and 1990s he was a BBC Radio 1 disc jockey and also a regular presenter of Top of the Pops.
After working in marketing for a mail order company and managing a Manchester disco, Davies began his broadcasting career at Manchester's Piccadilly Radio in 1979 before joining BBC Radio 1 in 1982 to present a Saturday late night show. Within weeks he was on the roster to present Top Of The Pops on BBC television alongside his Radio 1 colleagues. He initially spoke with strong hints of a Mancunian accent, but by the mid-1980s he had adopted an exaggerated mid-Atlantic twang, which would become the object of much parody by the early 1990s .
In 1984 Davies was given the slot for which he became one of radio's biggest stars when he took over the Radio 1 lunchtime show. He called it The Bit In The Middle and it consisted of humorous features, such as The Day-To-Day Challenge, in which the same person would go on air each weekday to answer quiz questions and try to upgrade their prize, and Willy On The Plonker, which involved a crazed piano-playing of a well-known hit for listeners to identify.

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George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE (born 3 January 1926) is an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"—a title that he has described as "nonsense"—in reference to his extensive involvement on each of The Beatles' original albums. He is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time, with 30 number one hit singles in the UK and 23 number one hits in the USA.
Influenced by a range of musical styles, encompassing Cole Porter and Johnny Dankworth, he attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1947 to 1950, studying piano and oboe. Following his graduation, he worked for the BBC's classical music department, then joined EMI in 1950. Martin produced comedy and novelty records in the early 1950s, working with the likes of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.
In a career spanning over six decades, Martin has worked in music, film, television and live performance. He has also held a number of senior executive roles at media companies and contributes to a wide range of charitable causes, including his work for the Prince's Trust and the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

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Geri Halliwell
Geraldine Estelle "Geri" Halliwell (born 6 August 1972) is a British pop singer-songwriter, clothes designer, author and actress. Halliwell came to international prominence in the late 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member of girl group the Spice Girls. She reportedly amassed a $30 million fortune during her last two years in the group. Halliwell launched her solo career in 1998, releasing her album Schizophonic. She has since released two more studio albums – Scream If You Wanna Go Faster and Passion – as well as four singles that reached number one on the UK Singles Chart: "Mi Chico Latino", "Lift Me Up", "Bag It Up" and "It's Raining Men". In 2008 Halliwell published a book series named Ugenia Lavender. As a solo artist, Halliwell has sold 12 million records worldwide, and been nominated for four Brit Awards (in 2000 and 2002). In 1999 she wrote her first autobiography If Only, in which she described her life as a Spice Girl. Her second autobiography was released in 2002. She is expected to release her fourth studio album "Putting On The Bling" in 2012.

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Gina G
Gina G (born Gina Mary Gardiner, 3 August 1970) is an Australian dance singer. She achieved a number-one hit in the UK, Slovenia, Israel, Japan and China with her 1996 single "Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit". Her 1997 single, "Ti Amo", peaked at number-one in Lebanon. Another 1997 single, "Fresh!", sold more than a million copies world-wide.
Gina G was a DJ in Melbourne and a singer in the Australian dance music group, Bass Culture. A track she co-wrote with the group, "Love the Life", was a Top 20 hit in Australia in 1992.
By 1995 she moved to UK, where she entered the A Song for Europe competition, which she won, thereby becoming the UK's entry in the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit". The song was eighth at Eurovision and peaked at number-one on the UK Singles Chart. The song was also successful in the US, reaching #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, #3 on the Hot Dance Club Play, #13 on the Rhythmic Top 40, #5 on the Mainstream Top 40, #25 on the Adult Top 40 and #11 on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart. The song was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Dance Recording category in 1998.

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Gloria Hunniford
Gloria Hunniford (born Mary Winifred Gloria Hunniford on 10 April 1940)^{[citation needed]} is a Northern Irish TV and radio presenter, and formerly a singer.
Hunniford was born in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, into a Protestant family; her father was a member of the Orange Order. Named after actress Gloria Swanson, Hunniford was originally a singer.^{[citation needed]} She was popular in her native Northern Ireland, worked in Canada and has made many records.^{[citation needed]} She returned to Northern Ireland as a BBC production assistant in Belfast, and a local radio broadcaster.^{[citation needed]} In the 1970s and 1980s she was the presenter of Good Evening Ulster and on network ITV Sunday Sunday and We Love TV.
Hunniford had her own daily radio show on BBC Radio 2, starting off with the lunchtime show before moving to the early afternoon slot in 1985 where she remained for 10 years. She also hosted Sounding Brass a music phone-in request programme with a live brass band, the idea devised by radio producer Owen Spencer-Thomas.

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Graham Norton
Graham William Walker, known by his stage name Graham Norton, (born 4 April 1963) is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist. He is the host of comedy chat programme The Graham Norton Show on BBC One in the UK and BBC America in the US. Hot Press has described him as "the 21st century's answer to Terry Wogan", with both men sharing an Irish background and the common link of being a BBC Radio 2 presenter and the BBC television commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest. Norton has won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance on five occassions.
Norton was born in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, but grew up in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland to a Protestant family. He was educated at Bandon Grammar School, in County Cork and then University College Cork but did not complete his studies.
In 1992 his stand-up comedy drag act in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a tea-towel clad Mother Teresa of Calcutta made the press when Scottish Television's religious affairs department mistakenly thought he represented the real Mother Teresa.

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Hayley Evetts
Hayley Evetts born 4 March 1976 in Birmingham, England is a singer, TV presenter and stage actor. She rose to fame on the hit British TV talent show Pop Idol. She first came to the attention of the public when she appeared on Popstars, the TV show that launched Hear'say and Liberty X. After failing to make either of the groups she returned and auditioned for Pop Idol. She made the final 10 along with Will Young, Gareth Gates and Darius Danesh, eventually coming 5th. The following year she presented Cruel Holiday for Sky TV. She also presented Pop Idol Extra on ITV2 alongside Dane Bowers. In 2003 she won the role of Sandy in Grease The Musical along with Jonathan Wilkes who played Danny. In 2011 she independently released a single, 'Waste My Time'.

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Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 – 27 March 2000) was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader, artist, and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music. He is best known as founder and lead singer of the British band Ian Dury and the Blockheads, who were one of the groups of the New Wave era in the UK.
Dury was born in north-west London at his parents' home at 43 Weald Rise, Harrow Weald, Harrow (although he often pretended that he had been born in Upminster, Havering and indeed all but one of his obituaries in the national press stated this). His father, William George Dury (born 23 September 1905, Southborough, Kent; died 25 February 1968), was a bus driver and former boxer, while his mother Margaret (known as "Peggy", born Margaret Cuthbertson Walker, 17 April 1910, Rochdale, Lancashire) was a health visitor, the daughter of a Cornish doctor, and granddaughter of an Irish landowner.
William Dury trained with Rolls-Royce to be a chauffeur, and was then absent for long periods, so Peggy Dury took Ian to stay with her parents in Cornwall. After the Second World War, the family moved to Switzerland, where his father chauffeured for a millionaire and the Western European Union. In 1946 Peggy brought Ian back to England and they stayed with her sister, Mary, a physician in Cranham, a small village bordering Upminster. Although he saw his father on visits, they never lived together again.

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James May
James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter, journalist and writer. He is best known for his role as co-presenter of the award-winning motoring program Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson , and Richard Hammond.
On Top Gear, May has the nickname "Captain Slow" for his careful driving style, a love of small underpowered cars and habit of getting lost and distracted while driving. However, in a July 2010 episode of Top Gear he drove a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, reaching a speed of 417.6 kilometres per hour (259.5 mph). After his attempt the Bugatti test driver Pierre-Henri Raphanel took the car to 430 kilometers per hour (267.5 mph).
May has presented a variety of other programs on themes including science and technology, toys, cars, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. In addition he has released a variety of DVDs and books with similar themes, and wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph's motoring section.
James May was born in Bristol, one of four children; he has two sisters and a brother. May attended Caerleon Endowed Junior School in Newport, then in Monmouthshire. He spent his teenage years in South Yorkshire where he attended Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham and was a choirboy at Whiston Parish Church. He was also at school with Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes star Dean Andrews. A keen flautist and pianist, he later studied music at Pendle College, Lancaster University. After graduating, May briefly worked at a hospital in Chelsea as a records officer, and had a short stint in Her Majesty's Civil Service.

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Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan (born 1 June 1968) is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 million records, and his début album Ten Good Reasons was one of the highest-selling albums of 1989 with UK sales of over 1.5 million copies. He has had four UK No. 1 singles, one of which was "Especially for You", his 1988 duet with Kylie Minogue. In more recent years, he has returned to acting on television and in stage musicals.
Jason Donovan was born in Malvern, Melbourne, is the son of actor Terence Donovan, who also appeared in Neighbours as Doug Willis, and Sue McIntosh. His half-sister is former Neighbours star Stephanie McIntosh. Donovan attended De La Salle College, Malvern. His partner since 1998 is Angela Malloch, a former stage manager, with whom he has three children; a daughter, Jemma (born 28 March 2000) a son, Zac (born 22 March 2001), and daughter, Molly (born 9 March 2011). Donovan and Malloch were married in Bali in 2008.

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Javine Hylton
Javine Dionne Hylton (born 27 December 1981,London), often known simply as Javine, is an English singer. She is most notable for representing the UK at Eurovision Song Contest 2005; beating competition favourite, model Katie Price, for the ticket to Kiev. Hylton has had a number of Top 20 single hits in the UK, Javine's cover version of "You've Got a Friend" was the theme music to Garfield: The Movie in 2004.
Hylton was born to a white mother and black father and grew up in Ladbroke Grove, London. For a spell of two years, Hylton played Nala in a production of The Lion King in London's West End. In a potentially risky move, she opted to channel this experience of live singing into an audition for ITV's Popstars: The Rivals, a reality television talent show in which young hopefuls sought to be picked for a place in a new manufactured group.
Her gamble paid off as she was one of the last six contenders for a place in the girlgroup, but she missed out on a spot in what later became the chart-topping group Girls Aloud, and instead embarked on a solo singing career.

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Jessica Garlick
Jessica Julie Anne Garlick (born 1981, Derby, Derbyshire, England) is a Welsh pop singer.
Garlick made her first steps into showbusiness when she was 16. At that age she won the Welsh final of the TV talent show Star For A Night. The same year she also featured in Michael Barrymore's My Kind of Music. She was the highest placed British entrant at the Eurovision Song Contest of the 2000s, coming joint third in the 2002 contest.
She was educated at Glan-y-Mor Comprehensive School.
In 2001, she was among the last ten contestants on the ITV talent show Pop Idol. The BBC later invited her to sing "Come Back", one of the competing songs in A Song for Europe, the British selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2002. The audience selected her to represent the United Kingdom at the event in Tallinn, where she took her country to its best result since Imaani's "Where Are You?" in 1998, finishing joint third alongside Estonia's representative, Sahlene.
Later in 2002 Garlick was involved in a campaign to help children stop smoking. She made a guest appearance in the 2003 Song for Europe, during which she was charged with announcing the results of the Welsh televote, which handed top marks to the ill-fated Jemini. Later in the year, she appeared in Eurovision preview and analysis programmes.

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Jimmy Savile
Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG (31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English disc jockey, television presenter and media personality, best known for his BBC television show Jim'll Fix It, and for being the first and last presenter of the long-running BBC music chart show Top of the Pops. He was also known for his fundraising and support of various charities, particularly Stoke Mandeville Hospital. He was widely described as a philanthropist and was honoured for his efforts.
Savile was born in Leeds, the youngest of seven children (Mary, Marjory, Vincent, John, Joan, Christina and James) born to Agnes Monica (née Kelly) and Vincent Joseph Marie Savile, a bookmaker's clerk and insurance agent. Savile almost died of pneumonia at the age of five months.
He was a Bevin Boy, conscripted during World War II to work as a coal miner at South Kirkby Colliery, West Yorkshire, England. He suffered serious spinal injuries in a mine explosion and spent a long period in recuperation. Having started playing records in dance halls in the early 1940s, Savile claimed to be the first ever disc jockey. According to his autobiography, he was the first person to use two turntables and a microphone, at the Grand Records Ball at the Guardbridge Hotel in 1947. Savile is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of twin turntables for continuous play of music, though his claim has been disputed. (Twin turntables had been illustrated in the BBC Handbook in 1929 and were advertised for sale in Gramophone magazine in 1931.)

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Jodie Connor
Jodie Melanie Connor (

/ˈdʒoʊdi/

/ˈmɛləni/

/ˈkɒnər/ JOH-dee MEL-ə-nee KON-ər) (born May 8, 1981) is an Barbadian British R&B and soul recording artist, lyricist, fashion model and goodwill ambassador for Charles, Prince of Wales's The Prince's Trust.
Connor rose to fame in 2010 after featuring as a guest vocalist on Roll Deep's number-one single "Good Times". She was later signed by Polydor Records and Takeover Entertainment Ltd and released her debut solo single "Now or Never" on 16 January 2011, which peaked at number 14. A second single, "Bring It" featuring Tinchy Stryder was released on 20 February 2011 following its first play on BBC Radio 1 and debuted at number 11 on the UK R&B Chart.
Early in Jodie Connor's career, she attended Saddleworth School for her high school education before attending The Oldham College where she studied Performing arts and graduated. Connor worked as receptionist in a sports club by day and gigged and performed in the evenings and on weekends. In 2003, Connor appeared as a contestant on the second series of the hit British television talent show Pop Idol. She was an early favourite of the judges, and made it to the final fifty of the competition, earning her the chance to perform live to the nation, but was eliminated after failing to finish in the top two in her group, instead placing fourth of ten. Connor was given a second chance by the judges, and was invited back for the Wildcard round, but again was unsuccessful in making it through to the next round, and was eliminated for good.

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Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Stephen Ross, OBE (born 17 November 1960) is an English television and radio presenter, best known for presenting the BBC One chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross from 2001 until he left the BBC in 2010. Ross began hosting a new chat show on ITV1 starting 3 September 2011. Ross also hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio 2, and acted as a film critic and presenter of the Film programme. Other regular roles have included being a regular panellist on the comedy sports quiz They Think It's All Over from 1999 to 2006, and presenting the annual British Comedy Awards from 1991 to 2007, and 2009 onwards.
Ross began his television career as a programme researcher, before débuting as a television presenter for The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross on Channel 4 in 1987. Over the next decade he had several radio and television roles, many through his own production company, Channel X. In 1995 he sold his stake in Channel X, and embarked on a career with the BBC. In 1999, Ross took over presenting the Film programme from Barry Norman, and also began presenting his own radio show, while two years later he began hosting Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. For the chat show, Ross won three British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards for Best Entertainment Performance, in 2004, 2006 and 2007. By 2006 Ross was believed to be the BBC's highest paid star. In 2005, Ross was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to broadcasting. Ross has been involved in controversies throughout his broadcasting career. As a result, in 2008 he wrote a semi-autobiographical work titled Why Do I Say These Things?, detailing some of his life experiences.

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Josh Dubovie
Josh James Dubovie (pronounced /dʊˈbəʊvi/; born 27 November 1990) is a British singer. Dubovie won all the heats of BBC1's 'Your Country Needs You' presented by Graham Norton. As a result of this Dubovie then represented the UK at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, held in Oslo, Norway in May 2010 with his performance of "That Sounds Good to Me", written by writers and producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman of Stock Aitken Waterman and Steve Crosby.
Dubovie, from Laindon, performed with StageAbility, an after-school stage club from age nine. At age 15 he played Enjolras in a school production of Les Misérables with the Essex Group. For this role he saw a vocal coach as he had no previous experience of singing. He attended The Billericay School and studied for A levels in Music Technology, Drama and English Literature. In 2008 he won the Blues Idol competition, and has also won Voice of St Lukes contest and Billericay's Got Talent. Prior to auditioning for Your Country Needs You, he applied for a part on E4 TV series Skins 3rd series and was short-listed for the role of Freddie Mclair.

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Kate Thornton
Kate Thornton (born 7 February 1973) is an English journalist and television presenter. Early in her career, she was notable for her articles at the Daily Mirror and for her role as editor of Smash Hits magazine. She is most famous for her role as a TV presenter, being the first host of The X Factor and the anchor of Loose Women from 2009-2011.

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Kathy Kirby
Kathy Kirby (born Kathleen O'Rourke; 20 October 1938 – 19 May 2011) was an English singer who was reportedly the highest-paid female singer of her generation. She is best known for her cover version of Doris Day's "Secret Love" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in second place. Her physical appearance often drew comparisons with Marilyn Monroe. She peaked in popularity in the 1960s.
Kirby was born in Ilford, Essex. She was the eldest of three children of Irish parents. Her mother Eileen brought them up alone after their father left early in their childhood. Kirby grew up in Tomswood Hill, Barkingside, near Ilford and attended the Ursuline Convent School in Ilford where she sang in the choir.
Kirby's voice became apparent early in life, and she took singing lessons with a view to becoming an opera singer. She became a professional singer after meeting bandleader Bert Ambrose at the Ilford Palais in 1956. She remained with Ambrose's band for three years and he remained her manager, mentor and lover until his death on stage in Leeds in 1971.

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Katie Boyle
Katie Boyle, Lady Saunders (born Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali di Francavilla; 29 May 1926) is an Italian-born British actress, television personality, and game show panelist, well known for appearing on TV panel games such as What's My Line? and for presenting the Eurovision Song Contest in the 1960s and 1970s. She was also a former agony aunt answering problems from people that had been posted to the TV Times.
She was born in Florence, Italy and she is the daughter of an Italian marquis, the Marchese Demetrio Imperiali di Francavilla and Dorothy Kate Ramsden. She came to Great Britain in 1946 and started her modelling career, which included such publications as Vogue. Catherine also appeared in several 1950s films, the first being Old Mother Riley, Headmistress, (1950) in which she was billed as 'Catherine Carleton' followed by The House in the Square (1951), Not Wanted on Voyage (1957), The Truth About Women, Intent to Kill (with Richard Todd, and miscredited as 'Catherine Boyl') in Les Carnets de Major Thompson/The Diary of Major Thompson (1955), with Jack Buchanan, filmed in France by American film director Preston Sturges.

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Katy Hill
Katy Hill (born 15 April 1971) is an English television presenter, who worked on the BBC children's magazine programme Blue Peter for five years.
Born in Poole, Dorset, her father, Chris Hill, was the local vicar and he now takes biblical tours to Israel - and will complete his 81st tour in October 2011. Hill has two siblings, an elder brother Simon and a younger sister Naomi. She gained 9 'O' levels and 4 'A' Levels at St. Edwards Church of England School in Romford, Essex and before she started presenting she worked in a record shop. Katy worked for free in Local radio station BBC Essex, to gain the experience required to become a presenter.
Hill began her media career with voluntary work in Essex at EastWard Hospital Television, and presented Katy's Capers on BBC Radio Essex, before transferring to Nickelodeon. While working for BBC channel controllers and the Head of Children's Television, as a BBC secretary she bombarded the Editor of Blue Peter with ideas and showreels, which resulted in an audition.

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Keith Strachan
Keith Strachan (born 21 January 1944, Consett, County Durham) is a British composer and theatre director. He co-wrote the song "Mistletoe and Wine", which got Cliff Richard the 1988 Christmas number one. His TV work includes the theme music for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
After reading maths and science at Queen Elizabeth College, London University, Strachan became a maths teacher. He left teaching and became a musical director of theatre productions in London. In 1976 he co-wrote his first musical, Shoot Up at Elbow Creek. He also wrote The Little Match Girl, based on Hans Christian Andersen's short story, for the Orange Tree, which contained the song "Mistletoe and Wine."HTV produced the play for television in 1986. Two years later, he received an Ivor Novello award for the song, which Cliff Richard released it as a single.
Throughout the eighties and nineties he directed a series of pop and rock compilation musicals for Bill Kenwright.
In 1998, television production company Celador, for whom he had written the themes for The Detectives and Talking Telephone Numbers, called upon him to supply some music at short notice for a quiz show called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. They needed someone to rearrange the pop song that Pete Waterman had written for it. Celador's brief required "something dramatic and full of tension", so Strachan set upon composing a new piece altogether. Working with his son Matthew, he based the piece on "Mars" from Holst’s The Planets suite. The show's huge domestic and international success means that the composition has made them millionaires. In 2002, Keith and Matthew Strachan were given an award by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) for the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? theme.

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Kelly Osbourne
Kelly Michelle Lee Osbourne (born 27 October 1984) is an English media personality, television personality, host, fashion designer, singer and actress, best known for being the daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. She was thrust into the limelight after appearing on the reality series The Osbournes with her family, for which they won a 2002 Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Programme. She has also appeared on Dancing with the Stars, in which she and professional dance partner Louis van Amstel took third place, and has made forays into music, acting, theatre, writing, columnist and broadcast presenting.
Osbourne was born in Westminster, London. She has an elder sister, Aimee, and a younger brother, Jack. She has two half-siblings: Jessica Hobbs and Louis John Osbourne from Ozzy's first marriage. She had an unofficially "adopted" brother, Robert Marcato, whom Sharon and Ozzy took in after Marcato's mother died. Kelly grew up travelling with her father as he went on tour, and lived in more than 20 homes between the UK and the US.

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Kimberley Walsh
Kimberley Jane Walsh (born 20 November 1981) is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, television presenter and actress. She is best known for being a member of girl group Girls Aloud, formed through ITV's reality television programme Popstars: The Rivals. The group has achieved twenty consecutive top ten singles (including four number ones) in the UK, five studio albums have all been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), two of which went to number one in the UK, and accumulating a total of five BRIT Award nominations.
Walsh fronts the 2009 Autumn/Winter collection for the fashion chain New Look. In July 2010, Walsh became a presenter on music talk-show, Suck My Pop. Walsh's net worth was estimated at £6 million in April 2012.
Walsh was born in Bradford to Diane and John Walsh. She grew up with elder sister Sally, younger brother Adam and younger sister Amy in the suburb of Allerton. Sally appeared on the soap opera, Emmerdale, between 1997 and 2000, playing the role of Lyn Hutchinson.

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Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE (

/ˈkaɪliː mɨˈnoʊɡ/; born 28 May 1968) — often known simply as Kylie — is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, showgirl, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987. Her first single, "Locomotion", spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart and became the highest selling single of the decade. This led to a contract with songwriters and producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman. Her debut album, Kylie (1988), and the single "I Should Be So Lucky", each reached number one in the United Kingdom, and over the next two years, her first 13 singles reached the British top ten. Her debut film, The Delinquents (1989) was a box-office hit in Australia and the UK, and received generally positive reviews.
Initially presented as a "girl next door", Minogue attempted to convey a more mature style in her music and public image. Her singles were well received, but after four albums her record sales were declining, and she left Stock, Aitken & Waterman in 1992 to establish herself as an independent performer. Her next single, "Confide in Me", reached number one in Australia and was a hit in several European countries in 1994, and a duet with Nick Cave, "Where the Wild Roses Grow", brought Minogue a greater degree of artistic credibility. Drawing inspiration from a range of musical styles and artists, Minogue took creative control over the songwriting for her next album, Impossible Princess (1997). It failed to attract strong reviews or sales in the UK, but was successful in Australia.

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Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse (born 29 January 1931) is an English composer, lyricist, and playwright.
Although best known for his partnership with Anthony Newley, Bricusse has worked with many other composers. He was educated at University College School in London and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge University, he was Secretary of Footlights between 1952 and 1953 and Footlights President during the following year. He currently lives in California in the United States, and he is married to the actress Yvonne Romain.
Sammy Davis, Jr. had hits with two of Bricusse's songs - "What Kind of Fool Am I?" (from Stop the World - I Want to Get Off) and the #1 hit "The Candy Man" (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory). Other recording artists who have had popular success with his songs include Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra ("My Kind of Girl"), Shirley Bassey ("Goldfinger"), Harry Secombe ("If I Ruled the World"), Nancy Sinatra ("You Only Live Twice"), Maureen McGovern ("Can You Read My Mind"), and Diana Krall ("When I Look in Your Eyes"). Bricusse also partnered with George Tipton to write the opening theme of the U.S. television series It's a Living.

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Lindsay Dracass
Lindsay Dracass (born 1984, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England) is an English pop music singer.
Dracass was discovered at 13 years old by Alan Wood. She was directed to Alan Kirk's recording studio, and the demos she recorded were then played to Peter Van Hooke, who signed Dracass to his production company who then, in turn, signed her to a recording contract with Universal Records.
As a 15 year old schoolgirl, she was selected through the BBC Television programme, Eurovision: Your Country Needs You, to be the UK's entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2001, which was held at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the song "No Dream Impossible", Dracass was the sixteenth act to sing on the night (out of twenty three countries), and came fifteenth overall with 28 points - Ireland being the country to give her the most points (four). The track reached #32 in the UK Singles Chart in May that year.
Dracass later toured Europe, with Paul Carrack and his band.

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Lorraine Kelly
Lorraine Kelly, OBE (born 30 November 1959, Gorbals, Glasgow) is a Scottish television presenter, journalist and actress, best known as a presenter for TV-am, and later GMTV and ITV Breakfast, on Lorraine. Previously, a reporter and main presenter of TVam's "Good Morning Britain" (1983), one of the UK's original breakfast television news programmes.
Kelly has also made appearances in other television shows. She has served as guest presenters for shows such as Have I Got News for You and This Morning, despite during this period, being the presenter of her talk show, LK Today, which ran between 1993 until 2010, when it was replaced by the re-vamped Lorraine. Kelly has also made actress appearances in the Scottish sitcom, Still Game and the soap opera, River City.
Kelly's father, John, worked as a television repairman. She spent the first few years of her life in Glasgow before the family moved to East Kilbride where she attended Claremont High School. She turned down a university place to read English and Russian in favour of a job on the East Kilbride News, her local newspaper, and then joined BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1983. She moved to TV-am as an on-screen reporter covering Scottish news in 1984.

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Louis Walsh
Louis Walsh (born Michael Louis Vincent Walsh; 5 August 1952) is an Irish entertainment manager and judge on the British television talent show The X Factor.
Originally from Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Walsh moved to Dublin to get a start in the music industry. He managed Johnny Logan, Boyzone and Westlife, three of Ireland's most successful pop artists in recent decades. In later life, Walsh began an alternative career as a TV talent pundit, on programmes such as You're a Star, The X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent, amongst others.
Louis Walsh got his start in talent an agreement with Johnny Logan, whom Walsh met on a bus when he was 20, and, despite legal difficulties with Logan's previous management, Walsh was convinced that Logan could be a big star if he just got the right breaks. Walsh persuaded Logan to enter the 1979 and 1980 National Song Contests. Logan won 1980 heats with a Shay Healy number called "What's Another Year", representing Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest that year in the Netherlands, which he won.

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Lynsey de Paul
Lynsey de Paul (born 11 June 1950) is an English singer-songwriter. Allmusic journalist Craig Harris stated that "one of the first successful female singer-songwriters in England, de Paul has had an illustrious career".
Born Lynsey Monckton Rubin in Cricklewood, London to Meta and Herbert Rubin, a property developer. She grew up in a Jewish family in Cricklewood, North London, and attended South Hampstead High School followed by Hornsey College of Art, now part of Middlesex University.
de Paul took an unusual route to becoming the UK's first commercially successful female singer-songwriter. While attending Hornsey College of Art, and wanting to leave home, she started to design album sleeves for artists which required her to listen to the tracks. From income earned from album sleeve design, she got her first flat, where she turned to songwriting. Three of her earliest songs were co-written with Ed Adamberry and recorded by Jack Wild: "E.O.I.O." from the album A Beautiful World (and also released as a single by The Beads) plus "Takin' It Easy" and "Bring It on Back to Me" from the album Everything's Coming Up Roses.

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Mark Goodier
Mark Goodier (born 28 June 1961) is a British radio disc jockey.
Mark Goodier was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). His family moved to the UK when he was a child, eventually settling in Scotland. He was educated at George Heriot's School, in Edinburgh. He became a mobile DJ in Edinburgh and then joined local station Radio Forth at the age of 19. After progressing through several jobs at stations in Scotland including Radio Clyde in Glasgow and at Metro Radio in the North East of England, he joined BBC Radio 1 in 1987, beginning a 15 year stint with the station, beginning with a 2 hour Saturday night show.
Goodier co-presented the Liz & Mark weekend breakfast show (with Liz Kershaw), and he quickly progressed to a drivetime slot. He created The Evening Session and hosted between 1990 and 1993. During this period, he also presented the UK Top 40 chart countdown on Sunday evenings and was also an established host on Top Of The Pops along several of his Radio 1 colleagues.
Many acclaimed bands and artists recorded sessions for Goodier at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios, some of which were commercially released. In 1992, Nirvana's "odds-and-sods" release, Incesticide, featured several songs recorded for Goodier's BBC show. The album reached the top 40 on both sides of the Atlantic and achieved Platinum status in America. A further session recording was "Something in the Way", released on the 2011 edition of Nevermind.

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Mark Rhodes
Mark Thomas Rhodes (born 11 September 1981) is an English singer and television presenter.
Born in Darlaston, Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, England, Mark finished in second place in the second series of Pop Idol in the UK, runner-up to Michelle McManus. After Pop Idol, he teamed up with third-place Sam Nixon, releasing two singles under the name Sam & Mark. In February 2004, their cover of the song "With a Little Help from My Friends" reached #1 in the UK singles chart, remaining there for one week. Their second single 'The Sun Has Come Your Way" only reached #19 in the singles chart. The pair were subsequently dropped from their record label.
Mark went on to co-present Top of the Pops Reloaded with Sam Nixon and Fearne Cotton in 2004. From April 2006, Mark co-hosted the weekday children's breakfast show Level Up on BBC Two alongside Nixon and Ayesha Asantewaa. Level Up finished its first series in September 2006.
Since September 2006, Rhodes co-presents BBC Two's Saturday morning show TMi alongside Sam Nixon and television presenter Caroline Flack. He has his own short segment of the show called "Question Mark", A feature where he tries to answer viewers' questions, but Caroline and Sam talk through it. In later series Caroline left and the show moved to Fridays. He also co-presented Do Something Different with Sam Nixon and Ayesha Asantewaa. Sam and Mark have produced children's reality series, Who wants to be a Superhero? and Sam and Mark's guide to Dodging Disaster.

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Mary Hopkin
Mary Hopkin (born 3 May 1950), credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti, is a Welsh folk singer best known for her 1968 UK number one single "Those Were The Days". She was one of the first musicians to sign to The Beatles' Apple label.
Hopkin was born in Pontardawe, Wales into a Welsh-speaking family; her father worked as a housing officer. She took weekly singing lessons as a child and began her musical career as a folk singer with a local group called the Selby Set and Mary. She released an EP of Welsh-language songs for a local record label called Cambrian, based in her home town, before signing to The Beatles' Apple Records. The model Twiggy saw her winning the British ITV television talent show, Opportunity Knocks and recommended her to Paul McCartney. She became one of the first artists to record on the Beatles' Apple record label.
Her debut single, "Those Were the Days", produced by McCartney, was released in the UK on 30 August 1968 (catalogue number APPLE 2). Despite competition from a well-established star, Sandie Shaw, who released her version of the same song as a single that same year, Hopkin's version became a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart, and reached Number 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100. It sold over a million and a half copies in the United States alone, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A.. Global sales topped the eight million mark.

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Matt Aitken
Matthew James Aitken (born 25 August 1956, Coventry, England), is a British songwriter and record producer, brought up in Astley, Greater Manchester, best known as the creative force behind the 1980s songwriting/production trio Stock Aitken Waterman.
It has been claimed by Aikten's collaborator Pete Waterman, that Aitken was a noted perfectionist, particularly when it came to his guitar solos.
He began his musical career as a musician, and had been a member of many different bands before teaming up with Mike Stock to write and produce music for other artists. They both later teamed up with Pete Waterman, and they went from small independent labels to the major RCA, producing a myriad of hits.
After the partnership split up in the early 1990s, Aitken went into a period of retirement, raising a family and enjoying life. He returned to the music industry briefly, before seemingly retiring.

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Matt Monro
Matt Monro (1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.
He was born Terence Edward Parsons in Shoreditch, London and attended Duncombe School in Islington, and Elliott School in Putney. Affectionately nicknamed "the singing bus driver" (because one of his many occupations prior to achieving fame was driving the Number 27 bus from Highgate to Teddington),^{[citation needed]} he got his first break in 1956 when he became a featured vocalist with the BBC Show Band. An important influence on his early career was the pianist Winifred Atwell, who became his mentor, provided him with his stage name, and helped him sign with Decca Records.
In 1957 Monro released Blue and Sentimental, a collection of standards. Despite the album's critical acclaim, Monro languished among the young male singers trying to break through at the end of the 1950s, many of them emulating Frankie Vaughan by recording cover versions of American hits. (Monro even recorded a version of Vaughan's "Garden of Eden" during this period.) A short recording contract with Fontana Records followed.

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Mel and Kim
Mel and Kim were a British pop duo, comprising sisters Melanie and Kim Appleby. They achieved success between 1986 and 1988 before Melanie succumbed to cancer.
Mel & Kim were born to British and Jamaican parents. In 1985, Mel recorded two demos solo, under Alan Whitehead's management. The producers loved her voice and they asked her if she would have someone to sing with. That's how Kim got involved. The girls recorded about five demos (according to Mr. Whitehead). One of these songs - "Wild and Crazy Love",a Mary Jane Girls cover - can be heard on the Mel and Kim documentary on YouTube. The demos got them signed with Supreme Records, and Nick East - president of Supreme - put them in touch with Stock Aitken Waterman.
"System" was intended as their first single, but they and the producers were unhappy with it, and it became the "B-side" of their first release "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)", which reached number three on the British charts in 1986 and number one on the USA Dance charts. Their next single "Respectable" reached number one in Britain and became one of the year's biggest hits. They became well-known celebrities, particularly in Britain, and were known for their visual style which combined urban street wear with high fashion; prior to their music career Mel had worked as a glamour model. Their third single "F.L.M." reached number seven in the UK, while their final single "That's the Way It Is" reached number ten, giving them an unbroken run of top ten hits.

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Mel Giedroyc
Mel Giedroyc (

/ˈɡiːdrɔɪtʃ/ or /ˈɡjɛdrɔɪ̯t͡ɕ/; born Melanie Clare Sophie Giedroyc on 5 June 1968 in Epsom, Surrey) is an English television presenter, actress, and writer.
Giedroyc is best known for presenting comedy items alongside Sue Perkins. The two women met whilst students at Cambridge and both were members of the famous Footlights comedy club.
As Mel and Sue, the duo were short-listed for the Daily Express Best Newcomers Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1993. After a few years writing for French & Saunders, they hosted a lunchtime show on Channel 4 called Light Lunch (and the early evening version, Late Lunch). They were reunited in 2010 to host the cookery competition The Great British Bake Off, on BBC Two from 16th August 2010. The two returned for the second series on 27th September 2011.
Giedroyc has also been a presenter on Channel 4's RI:SE. She narrated Celebrity Driving School in 2003. Some other ventures include being a contestant on the 2005 series of The Games, co-starring in the 2005 BBC One sitcom Blessed and co-presenting Richard Hammond's 5 O'Clock Show on ITV1. She was in one episode of The Vicar of Dibley.

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Michael Aspel
Michael Terence Aspel,OBE, (born 12 January 1933) is an English television presenter on programmes such as Crackerjack, Aspel and Company, This is Your Life, Strange but True? and Antiques Roadshow.
Aspel was born in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. During the Second World War he was evacuated and spent nearly five years in Chard, Somerset. He attended Emanuel School after passing his eleven-plus in 1944. He served as a conscript of the National Service, in the ranks of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, from 1951 to 1953.
He worked as a drainpipe-layer and gardener, and sold advertising space for Western Mail newspaper in Cardiff. According to Aspel "National Service was the catalyst that got me to Wales. Before that I was a teaboy in William Collins publishers, in London, serving tea" to famous authors. He took up a job at the David Morgan department store in Cardiff, before working as newsreader for the BBC in Cardiff in 1957. By the early sixties, he had become one of four regular newsreaders on BBC national television, along with Richard Baker, Corbet Woodall and Robert Dougall.

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Michelle McManus
Michelle McManus (born 8 May 1980, Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, actress, radio DJ and television presenter, who rose to fame after winning the second series of the UK talent show Pop Idol.
McManus released two singles "All This Time" and "The Meaning of Love" along with the release of her debut album The Meaning of Love (2004) in the UK and Ireland before being dropped by her management and record label. She has subsequently appeared in musicals and theatre productions throughout the UK, Ireland and Asia, as well as establishing herself as a radio DJ and television presenter in Scotland.
McManus was also a presenter of STV's lifestyle magazine show The Hour, originally alongside Stephen Jardine and later, Tam Cowan.
Michelle McManus was born on 8 May 1980 in Queen Mother's Maternity Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland to John McManus and Helen McManus., and is the oldest of five sisters. Before auditioning for Pop Idol, McManus lived in the Glasgow district of Baillieston, to the east of city with her mother and sisters.

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Mike Batt
Michael Philip "Mike" Batt (born 6 February 1949) is a British songwriter, musician, producer and Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry. He is best known for creating The Wombles pop act, writing the chart-topping "Bright Eyes," and discovering Katie Melua.
Born in Southampton, Batt attended Peter Symonds School, Winchester. His blog refers to his role as cadet Company Sergeant Major at the school .
Batt began his career in pop music at the age of eighteen when he answered the same advertisement as Elton John and Bernie Taupin placed by Ray Williams in the New Musical Express on behalf of Liberty Records. Batt became part of Liberty's production team, and in 1969 he took over production duties from Noel Walker, on McKenna Mendelson Mainline's first release, Stink. Walker and Batt were credited on the album only as "Liberty Staff". Also in 1969, Batt released as producer/artist a Liberty single, his cover version of The Beatles' "Your Mother Should Know". Batt subsequently became Head of A&R for Liberty.

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Mike Read
Michael David Kenneth Read (born 1 March 1947, Manchester) is an English radio disc jockey, writer, journalist and television presenter.
Read is the only child of a publican, but the family moved from Manchester to Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, when he was still an infant. He attended Woking Grammar School followed by a sixth-form college. He was an estate agent for a while and recorded under various names including Mickey Manchester.
Read's professional broadcasting career began in March 1976 at Reading's Radio 210, where he co-hosted a show with Steve Wright, before joining Radio Luxembourg late in 1977.
He joined BBC Radio One at the end of 1978 and was soon presenting the night time programme before John Peel's show, where he championed new groups and featured live sessions. He was one of the most popular Roadshow presenters during his time at the station and took over the Breakfast Show on Monday 5 January 1981, a spot notable for his on-air decision in 1984 not to play the Frankie Goes to Hollywood single "Relax" due to supposedly obscene lyrics.^{[citation needed]}

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Myleene Klass
Myleene Angela Quinn (née Klass; born 6 April 1978) is an English singer, pianist, media personality and occasional model. She was formerly a member of the defunct British pop band Hear'Say. Her net worth was estimated at £11 million in April 2012.
Klass was born in Gorleston, Norfolk, England to an Anglo-Austrian father and a Filipina mother. She comes from six generations of classical musicians on her father's side: Klass's grandmother was an opera singer and her grandfather left his violin to her, which she went on to play. Klass began to learn the piano and violin from the age of four and then the harp at 12. She took Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music exams in violin, piano and voice. She received an A grade in A-level music, and became a Norfolk County scholar.
Klass attended St. Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School, then Cliff Park High school in Gorleston, before going to Notre Dame High School, Norwich for a short time.^{[citation needed]} While at school, she spent her Saturdays studying singing at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,^{[citation needed]} and later took a musical theatre course at the Royal Academy of Music, University of London.^{[citation needed]}

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Nadine Coyle
Nadine Coyle (born 15 June 1985); is an Irish singer, songwriter, actress, and model who rose to fame in the early 2000s as a member of the band Six before becoming a member of the girl-group Girls Aloud. The group amassed a joint fortune of £25 million by May 2009. With Girls Aloud, Coyle has been successful in achieving a string of 20 consecutive UK top ten singles (including four number ones), two UK number one albums, and received nominations for five BRIT Awards, winning Best Single in 2009 for "The Promise".
Coyle released her debut solo album Insatiable and its title track was released on 8 November 2010 through her own label, Black Pen Records in partnership with supermarket giant Tesco. The album peaked at number twenty on the Irish Album Charts and number forty-seven on the UK Album Charts in the UK.
Coyle was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on 15 June 1985 to Lillian and Niall Coyle. Her parents first noticed her talent for singing at the age of two, when she sang The Drifters' "Saturday Night at the Movies." Coyle was uninterested in her education but received good grades. She recorded a demo CD, which was distributed to Louis Walsh and The Late Late Show. The CD included cover versions of "Fields of Gold", "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", "Love Is", and the aria "Summertime".

wn.com/Nadine_Coyle

Natalie Anderson
Natalie Anderson (born 24 October 1981) is an English actress.
Anderson was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. She married fiancé James Shepherd at a ceremony in Harrogate on 6 June 2008. It has been confirmed in March 2012 that she and her husband are expecting a baby boy, this is their first child.
Anderson appeared as Nurse Stella Davenport in the ITV1 drama series The Royal between 2005 and 2008, playing a lead role and having several storylines based around her character. She left the series at the same time as Scott Taylor who played ambulance driver, Frankie Robinson.
Previously, she has taken guest roles in Wire in the Blood, Holby City and Dalziel and Pascoe. She made the Top 50 in the original series of Pop Idol in 2001, but narrowly missed out on a place in the live finals after finishing third in her group. Before this, she made her television debut in 1996 as Francesca in The Biz.
She recently played the role of Ewa in British film 'Freight', released in December 2009.
Anderson is a former cheerleader for the Bradford Bulls rugby league team.

wn.com/Natalie_Anderson

Natalie Cassidy
Natalie Ann Cassidy (born 13 May 1983)^{[citation needed]} is a British actress. She is best known for her role on EastEnders where she played Sonia Fowler for twelve years. She also appeared in the BBC Two sitcom Psychoville was a contestant on the seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing and the ninth series of Celebrity Big Brother. On 9 April 2012 it was announced by Cassidy that she would become a regular on Loose Women as of 13 April 2012.
As a child, Cassidy attended the Anna Scher Theatre. She joined the cast of EastEnders in 1993, playing Sonia Jackson. In 2006, she played a rival to Lauren Cooper in an episode of The Catherine Tate Show screened on BBC Two. On 9 April 2006, the BBC announced Cassidy's departure from EastEnders with her final scenes being screened in February 2007. She then concentrated on work in the theatre, appearing in extensive UK tours of The Vagina Monologues, Bedroom Farce and Gertrude's Secret opposite Prunella Scales and a run of The Cherry Orchard at the Chichester Festival Theatre opposite Diana Rigg.^{[citation needed]}

wn.com/Natalie_Cassidy

Natasha Kaplinsky
Natasha Margaret Kaplinsky (born 9 September 1972 in Brighton) is a British newsreader and television presenter, currently employed by ITN produced ITV News and London Tonight having previously worked for Channel 5, Sky News and the BBC. She won the first series of the TV show Strictly Come Dancing.
Kaplinsky's parents are Raphael Kaplinsky, an exiled Jewish South African economics professor at the Open University, and his wife Catherine Kaplinsky née Charlewood, a psychotherapist.
Her paternal grandparents originated from Slonim (then in Poland, now in Belarus), and emigrated to South Africa in 1929. Kaplinsky was born in Brighton, but spent her early life in Kenya (where she claims to have been fluent in Swahili), although she later returned to the United Kingdom, where she was brought up in Barcombe, East Sussex. She attended Ringmer Community College, until the age of sixteen when she moved to Varndean College in Brighton.
After graduating in English from Hertford College, Oxford in 1995, one of her first jobs was working in the press offices of Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith.

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Neville Staple
Neville Eugenton Staple (born 11 April 1955) is a singer for the two-tone ska band, The Specials as well as his own combo, The Neville Staple Band. Along with Ranking Roger, he also sings in Special Beat.
Staple was born in Manchester, Jamaica. At the age of five, Neville left Jamaica to live in the English town of Rugby, Warwickshire but later moved to Coventry. He was initially active in the sound system scene forming his own crew called "Jah Baddis". Neville was a regular fixture at the Locarno ballroom in Coventry where he met its resident DJ, Pete Waterman. Pete was heavily involved in the seventies reggae scene before going on to become a major pop producer in the 1980s. Pete has written the foreword to Neville's biography - "Original Rude Boy" - and briefly managed The Specials.
Neville's first involvement with The Specials was when they were still called The Coventry Automatics. He initially joined as their roadie but at a gig supporting The Clash, Neville took to the stage and never looked back. For a while, The Specials were managed by The Clash's manager Bernard Rhodes of whom Neville used to toast "Bernie Rhodes knows don't argue" at the beginning of the Specials hit single "Gangsters".

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Nicki Chapman
Nicki Chapman (born 14 January 1967 in Herne Bay, Kent) is an English television presenter who also works in the British pop music industry. She was also a judge on the ITV reality shows Popstars, with Nigel Lythgoe and Paul Adam, and Pop Idol, along with Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman and Neil Fox. Nicki currently hosts Wanted Down Under, Escape To The Country, The RHS Chelsea Flower Show. She also presents on BBC Radio 2.
Chapman worked her way up in the music industry from being Promotions Assistant at MCA records at the age of 21. She later worked at RCA as Head of Promotions where she first met Simon Cowell. Up until the end of 2000 she was a joint partner in the Brilliant! PR company with Nick Godwyn they managed Billie Piper and Amy Winehouse as well as representing, among others, the Spice Girls, Kylie Minogue, Charlotte Church, Take That, David Bowie, Van Morrison, Phil Collins as well as the PR for the BRIT Awards and the Big Breakfast. Having met and worked with Simon Fuller in the nineties she joined his management company 19 Entertainment in January 2001 as Creative Director, working with acts including Annie Lennox, Will Young, S Club 7, and Spice Girls.

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Nicki French
Nicola S. French (born 26 September 1964,Carlisle, Cumberland, England) is a female English singer and dancer. She is best known for her 1995 dance cover version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", and for representing the United Kingdom in 2000 at Eurovision in Stockholm.
French provided backing vocals on Rose-Marie's 1992 album, Emotional Exposure. Generally, French had been a session singer for many years before she covered "Total Eclipse of the Heart", a song originally made famous by Bonnie Tyler. French's single was first released in 1994 in the United Kingdom. When it was re-released in 1995 the song reached number 5 during a three-month chart run in the UK Singles Chart, selling over 250,000 (UK) copies in the process and earning a silver sales award.
This was followed by even more successful chart run in the United States, where the track reached #2, spending 6 months on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and gained Gold certification from the RIAA. The single also reached number 1 in a number of countries — Japan, Canada, Spain and Brazil — as well as charting in Australia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. French sold in excess of 5 million copies.

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Nicola Roberts
Nicola Maria Roberts (born 5 October 1985) is a British recording artist and entrepreneur. After auditioning and successfully completing the reality television series and competition Popstars The Rivals, Roberts became part of girl-group Girls Aloud. Their debut single "Sound of the Underground" topped the UK Singles chart. This success helped them win the competition and they were later entered in Guinness World Records as the most successful reality television music-group. The five-piece band enjoyed 20 consecutive top ten singles, spawning five albums and positive critical responses. But during her time with the band Roberts was referred to as "the ugly one" for her pale skin tone which left her depressed with her fame derived from the time with Girls Aloud.
In 2008, after releasing a pale skin make-up collection titled Dainty Doll, Roberts advocated the ban of underage usage of tanning beds with the documentary Nicola Roberts: The Truth About Tanning. Her public stance with a British MP led to a bill which banned under 18s from using tanning beds. In 2011 Roberts released her debut album Cinderella's Eyes with her debut single "Beat of My Drum" with both earning acclaim commercial success was mixed. Two follow-up singles "Lucky Day" and "Yo-Yo" both gained equally positive critical responses but failed commercially. The album was described as electronic-influenced and garnered positive reviews and peaked at number 17 in the United Kingdom.

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Nigel Lythgoe
Nigel Lythgoe (born 9 July 1949) is an English television and film director and producer, and former dancer in the Young Generation and choreographer. He is noted for being the producer of the shows Pop Idol and American Idol as well as being a creator, executive producer and a regular judge for So You Think You Can Dance. He was also creator of the 2009 competition Superstars of Dance.
Born in Wirral, England to dockworker, George Percival Lythgoe and mother Gertrude Emily Lythgoe, he became interested in dance at the age of 10. He began with tap and then went on to become a student at the Hylton-Bromley School of Dance and Drama and later at the Perry Cowell School of Dance, both in Wallasey, Merseyside where he studied classical ballet, modern jazz, ballroom, character, classical Greek and National dance from various countries. Lythgoe's first professional job was in the Corps de Ballet for the National tour of "The Merry Widow." He went on to train in London under Joanne Steuer and Molly Molloy. Beginning in 1969, Lythgoe performed with the BBC's "Young Generation" dance troupe. He later became their choreographer in 1971 and has choreographed over 500 television shows.

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Nik Kershaw
Nik Kershaw (born Nicholas David Kershaw, 1 March 1958) is an English singer-songwriter. The one time jazz-funk guitarist was a 1980s teen idol. His 50 weeks on the UK Singles Chart in 1984 beat all other soloists. Kershaw appeared at Live Aid, and penned hits for Let Loose, The Hollies and a number 1 for Chesney Hawkes, "The One and Only".
Although born in Bristol, Kershaw grew up in Ipswich, Suffolk, and after leaving Northgate High School in 1976 worked as a shop assistant and in the Department of Employment for several years, during which time he played guitar and sang in a number of underground Ipswich bands. However, when the last of these, Fusion, split up in 1982, he embarked on a full time career as a songwriter and performer. In 1983, he signed a recording contract with MCA Records, a deal which spawned his debut single, "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".
At the beginning of 1984, Kershaw released his breakthrough song "Wouldn't It Be Good", which reached Number 4 in the UK Singles Chart, and was a big success in Europe, particularly in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and in Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand. The music video, featuring Kershaw as a chroma key-suited alien, received heavy rotation by MTV, helping the song reach No.46 in the United States. He enjoyed three more Top 20 hits from his debut album Human Racing, including the title track and a successful re-issue of "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". This track ultimately proved his biggest hit as a performer when it reached Number 2 in the UK.

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Noel Sullivan
Noel Sullivan (born 28 July 1980) is a Welsh singer and actor. He was a member of the British pop group Hear'Say. Like the other members of the group, he won his part through the talent show Popstars.
Sullivan was born in Cardiff, Wales. He grew up having trained as a chorister and came from a strong choral background. Having understudied for the Welsh National Opera, Sullivan established a love for theatre. He performed with many choirs, before finishing his A levels and touring the United States with The Black Mountain Male Chorus of Wales when he was aged 18, as a musical theatre soloist. Sullivan then spent two years working in Ibiza for Laser Entertainments, as a singer and a puppeteer with a Black Light Theatre of Prague style show. At this time Sullivan also worked as a videographer at a Spanish diving centre.
Sullivan first rose to fame in 2001, after his appearance as an aspiring pop singer in the first series of the reality television documentary Popstars, which aired on the British television channel ITV1. After impressing the judges of the series (which included Nigel Lythgoe and Nicki Chapman), Sullivan was selected as a founder member of the pop group Hear'say, alongside Danny Foster, Myleene Klass, Kym Marsh and Suzanne Shaw.

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Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John, AO, OBE (born 26 September 1948) is an English-Australian singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles (including two platinum) and 14 of her albums (including two platinum and four double platinum) have been certified gold by the RIAA. Her music has been successful in multiple formats including pop, country and adult contemporary and has sold an estimated over 100 million albums worldwide. She co-starred with John Travolta in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Grease, which featured one of the most successful film soundtracks in Hollywood history.
Newton-John has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues. Since surviving breast cancer in 1992, she has been an advocate for health awareness becoming involved with various charities, health products and fundraising efforts. Her business interests have included launching several product lines for Koala Blue and co-owning the Gaia Retreat & Spa in Australia.

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Our Tune
Our Tune is a long-standing feature/segment on British radio presented by broadcaster Simon Bates. Originally part of his mid-morning show on BBC Radio 1 throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the feature has more recently been heard on Smooth Radio, where Bates now presents the Breakfast Show. An edition of Our Tune typically features a personal story submitted by a listener together with a song that has significance to the person or situation. At its peak the slot was heard by 11 million listeners on a daily basis, and it helped to establish Bates as a household name in the United Kingdom.
The Our Tune slot first appeared on Simon Bates' mid-morning show on BBC Radio 1 in the Summer of 1980, and was intended to run for a few weeks. Bates had the idea for the feature after reading a letter from one of his listeners who had enjoyed a holiday romance during a two-week trip to Bournemouth which ended after both parties returned home, and her love interest joined the armed forces. She asked Bates to play the song they had danced to during the vacation, and he read the story out one morning shortly before 11.00am. Bates then invited listeners to write to him with their personal stories and was quickly inundated with letters. He would then read these out on air. The segment quickly proved to be popular and was extended, soon becoming a regular mid-morning fixture for listeners, with people in offices and factories often stopping work to hear the stories. Indeed, at its peak Our Tune attracted 11 million listeners on a daily basis. The name Our Tune was decided by listeners who would often request a song that was described by them as "our tune".

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Paddy O'Connell
Guy Patrick Bennett O'Connell (born 11 March 1966 in Guildford, Surrey, England), known as Paddy O'Connell, is an English television and radio presenter, working mainly for the BBC.
He presents BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme each Sunday morning. He is also an occasional presenter of Radio 4's PM programme. O'Connell is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Paddy O'Connell was educated at Gresham's School, an independent school in the small town of Holt, Norfolk, England, and at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Patrick O'Connell began his broadcasting career in 1989 on the BBC's local radio trainee scheme, leading to five years spent as a BBC local radio reporter in Devon, Essex and Cleveland. He then joined BBC Radio Five Live at its launch in 1994, before moving to the US to present BBC World Service's The World programme. O'Connell has also presented and reported for a range of other radio stations across the world, including in Australia and Canada.
In 1997, O'Connell became BBC News' North America Business Correspondent and Wall Street anchor, based in New York. He appeared regularly on BBC World, BBC News 24 and BBC One news bulletins reporting on and presenting business news. He was the main US-based anchor for the BBC's World Business Report programme, on BBC World and BBC News 24, on which he became well known for his laid back but incisive style, and deadpan delivery.

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Pat Sharp
Pat Sharp (born 25 October 1961) is a British radio and television presenter and DJ. In the UK, he is known mainly for his work on the children's television programme Fun House, his former mullet and his radio shows as well as his support of Arsenal. In Europe, he was known in the 1980s as one of the Sky Channel's VJs and for presenting Coca-Cola Eurochart Top 50 and Nescafe UK Top 50.
Sharp worked as a presenter at BBC Radio 1, mixing holiday cover for other TV presenters with a regular early Sunday morning slot and a number of television appearances hosting BBC1's Top of the Pops. He deputised for David Jensen on The Network Chart Show. In the mid-1980s he became a DJ for Radio Mercury and has also worked for the British Forces Broadcasting Service. For 10 years, starting in 1987, Sharp was a DJ on Capital FM in London. followed by another 11 years at Heart, both in London and Cambridge.
In the late-1980s, Sharp teamed up with Mick Brown as the duo Pat and Mick, to release the charity singles Let's All Chant and I Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet. Both songs made the Top 20 of the UK singles chart. The duo released five hit singles making the Top 75, raising more than a million pounds for charity.

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Patricia Bredin
Patricia Bredin (born 1934) is a British actress and one-time singer from Hull, England, who was best known as the very first United Kingdom representative in the Eurovision Song Contest. She took part in the 1957 contest, held in Frankfurt, and finished in seventh place out of ten entries with the song All, the first ever song sung in English at the Eurovision. According to The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History by John Kennedy O'Connor at 1:52, this is the shortest performance in the history of the contest.
In 1959 she starred in the British comedy film Left Right and Centre with Ian Carmichael. The following year Patricia had a leading part in another film, the period adventure The Treasure of Monte Cristo, and starred with Sid James in Desert Mice.
Bredin had the distinction of succeeding Julie Andrews as Guenevere in the Broadway production of Camelot. She played the role from 16 April 1962, until she was replaced by Janet Pavek three months later.
In 1964, she married singer Ivor Emmanuel, but they had no children, and divorced within two years.

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Pete Waterman
Peter Alan Waterman OBE (born 15 January 1947) is an English record producer, occasional songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting team he wrote and produced many hit singles. He is the owner of significant collections of both historic and commercial railway locomotives and rolling stock, a passion and expensive hobby made possible by the commercial success of the acts he signed.
Born in Stoke Heath, Coventry, Warwickshire, Waterman had left Whitley Abbey Comprehensive School (now rebuilt and called Whitley Abbey Community School) to work at a railway depot. After closure of the depot, Waterman chose to follow a career in music, being inspired by The Beatles. To supplement his income as a DJ, Waterman became a gravedigger and then an apprentice at General Electric Company, becoming a trade union official.
Building a record collection through rare US imports, his DJ work began to take him across the UK, entertaining bigger crowds with a blend of rhythm and blues and soul music tunes he had sourced. Given a residency with the Mecca Leisure Group, he developed new initiatives including matinée discos for under 18s at Coventry’s Locarno club, which gave him a valuable insight into what music interested a younger audience. Waterman noticed that the younger dancers preferred records with high beats per minutes and this influenced his later work. It was at the Locarno that Waterman first met Neville Staple, later to be a vocalist for The Specials - a band that Waterman would manage for a brief period. In early 2009, Waterman wrote the foreword to Neville's biography "Original Rude Boy", which was published by Aurum Press in May 2009.

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Peter Kay
Peter John Kay (born 2 July 1973) is an English comedian, writer, actor, director and producer from Lancashire. His work includes That Peter Kay Thing (2000), Phoenix Nights (2001), Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere (2004), Britain's Got the Pop Factor... (2008) and other independent productions which have included two sell out tours. Kay has sold over 10 million DVDs, a UK record for a comedian.

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Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh (19 October 1944 – 11 September 1987), was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers (1963–1974), and who afterwards had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.
Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, and was raised by his aunt. He began to sing and learn guitar at an early age, inspired by American radio stations. After a notable career with The Wailers and as a solo musician, he was murdered at his home during a robbery.

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Peter Waterman
Peter Waterman (8 December 1934 - 16 January 1986) was an English boxer and a British and European welterweight champion.
Waterman was born in Stepney, East London, England, one of nine children of Rose Juliana (née Saunders) and Harry Frank Waterman. His brother Dennis Waterman became an actor and singer. His father had been an amateur boxer and made all of his sons box.
He began boxing at the age of 11 and had an amateur career winning 121 of his 130 bouts. In 1952 he represented the United Kingdom at the 1952 Summer Olympics at Helsinki, Finland in the light-welterweight class.
When Waterman was 18 he became a professional and won the British welterweight title in 1956. In 1957 he beat Emilio Marconi to gain the European welterweight title. In April 1958 after a fight with British lightweight champion Dave Charnley he had to be helped to the dressing room, a few months later Waterman underwent brain surgery and never fought again.
He died suddenly in Islington at the age of 51.

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Precious (band)
Precious were a British girl group, comprising Louise Rose, Anya Lahiri, Sophie McDonnell, Kalli Clark-Sternberg and Jenny Frost. They first achieved fame as the UK's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest and went on to become a moderately popular act until the group disbanded in 2000.
Precious was established in late 1998^[where?] by friends Sophie McDonnell and Jenny Frost. A set of auditions saw the remaining members join, these were: Anya Lahiri, Kalli Clark-Sternberg and Louise Rose. It was Rose who would take up the lead vocals.
The following year saw things take off rapidly for the girls. In May 1999, Precious were voted in to represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest taking place that year in Jerusalem, Israel. Their song, "Say It Again" proved popular and the group were able to sign with EMI to release Say It Again as a single on the 17 May. It debuted at No.6 in the UK singles chart. In the Eurovision Song Contest, Precious did not carry off the grand prix with "Say It Again", sharing 12th position, but this was not to stop them from continuing a greater pop career.

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Richard O'Brien
Richard Timothy Smith (born 25 March 1942), better known under his stage name Richard O'Brien, is an English writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. He is perhaps best known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for his role in presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze. In addition to writing The Rocky Horror Show, O'Brien also co-wrote the screenplay of the 1975 film adaptation, and appeared in the film himself as the character Riff Raff. The stage show has been in almost continuous production and the cinematic version is one of the best known and most ardently followed cult films of all time. He is also the voice of Lawrence Fletcher, the title characters' father in Phineas and Ferb.
O'Brien was born Richard Timothy Smith in 1942 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. In 1951, O'Brien emigrated with his family to Tauranga, New Zealand, where his father had purchased a sheep farm. After learning how to ride horses, a skill which provided him with his break into the film industry as a stuntman in Carry On Cowboy, and developing a keen interest in comic books and horror films, he returned to England in 1964. Upon launching his acting career he changed his name to O'Brien, his maternal grandmother's name, as there was already an actor named Richard Smith.

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Richard Peebles
Richard Peebles (born 1956), working under the stage name Rikki, is a Glaswegian singer who won the BBC's A Song for Europe contest in 1987 with his own composition, "Only the light". Although he had been writing and performing with the group Marmalade,^{[citation needed]} at the time he was picked to represent the UK, he was a mini-cab driver in Glasgow. At the Eurovision Song Contest in Brussels the song fared poorly and was placed 13th out of the 22 entries. This was the worst result for a UK entry in the history of the contest, outstripping the 11th place achieved by Co-Co which had held the record to this point. It wouldn't be until 2000 that any British song fared worse, when Nicki French placed 16th. There was further disappointment for Rikki when his single of "Only the Light" failed to reach the UK singles chart Top 75. This is one of only three occasions this has happened. But he did release an album, similarly titled, in 1987, which also failed. He has not released any material since.

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Rick Astley
Richard Paul "Rick" Astley (

/ˈrɪk ˈæstli/; born 6 February 1966) is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and radio personality. He is known for his 1987 song, "Never Gonna Give You Up", which was a #1 hit single in 25 countries. Astley holds the record for being the only male solo artist to have his first 8 singles reach the Top 10 in the UK and by retirement in 1993 had sold approximately 40 million records worldwide.
After retiring from the music industry in 1993, Astley made a comeback in 2007 when he became an Internet phenomenon, as his video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" became part of a popular Internet meme known as "Rickrolling". Astley was voted "Best Act Ever" by Internet users at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008.
Richard Paul Astley was born on 6 February 1966 in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, England, becoming the fourth child of his family. His parents divorced when he was five, and Astley was brought up by his father. His musical career started when he was ten, singing in the local church choir. During his schooldays, Astley formed and played the drums in a number of local bands, where he met guitarist David Morris. After leaving school at sixteen, Astley was employed during the day as a driver in his father's market-gardening business and played drums on the Northern club circuit at night in bands such as “Give Way” - specialising in covering Beatles and Shadows songs - and “FBI”, which won several local talent competitions.

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Rik Waller
Rik Waller (born 1981, Gillingham, Kent, England) is an English singer.
Waller is best known for being a finalist in the first series of the British ITV television series Pop Idol. He made it into the final ten of the show, but was forced to pull out due to severe laryngitis, leading to torn vocal cords as a result of overuse, and his place in the final 10 was taken by Darius Danesh.
Following the show, Waller signed a recording contract with EMI in a deal worth approximately £200,000. His first single was a cover version of Dolly Parton's song "I Will Always Love You" which made #6 in the UK Singles Chart. He followed this up with another top 40 hit, recorded originally by Labi Siffre, "Something Inside So Strong". Both of these songs appear on Waller's album From Now.
Waller has suffered from weight problems all of his life, and briefly appeared on Celebrity Fit Club before withdrawing from the programme.
When he was dropped by EMI, Waller formed his own band to take his music out on the road. He then signed an album deal with Red Admiral Records. In October 2004, it was reported in the media that the Devon concert of Waller and his band's UK tour was cancelled because only two tickets were sold.

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Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, CBE, AM (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.
Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the characters. He also began a musical career initially with the piano accordion. He wrote the famous song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", and when performing in Canada he introduced his popular routine around his song "Jake the Peg". He often uses unusual instruments in his performances: he plays the didgeridoo, has been credited with the invention of the wobble board, a rhythmic percussion instrument, and was associated with the Stylophone, a small electronic keyboard instrument.
From the 1960s he has become a popular television personality, presenting shows including Rolf's Cartoon Club, Animal Hospital and various programmes about serious art. In late 2005 he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was the subject of a special episode of Rolf on Art.

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Ronnie Carroll
Ronnie Carroll (born Ronald Cleghorn, 18 August 1934, Roslyn Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Northern Irish singer and entertainer.
Through work in variety theatre he met his first wife, Millicent Martin. He scored his first hit in 1956 with "Walk Hand in Hand" on the Philips label. Having taken part in the 1960 UK Eurovision selection contest with the song "Girl With A Curl", he returned to win the selection and be Britain's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962, and with the song "Ring-A-Ding Girl" shared fourth place, the same placing he reached in 1963 with another British Eurovision Song Contest entry, "Say Wonderful Things". Carroll is the only singer to have represented the UK in the competition two years in succession. This success was followed by two Top 10 hits during 1962 and 1963, but a lack of good material meant that he could not sustain a chart presence.
Although somehow never quite breaking through into the very top flight of British singers, Ronnie Carroll's output on disc was well enough received.

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Rosie Ribbons
Rosemary "Rosie" Ribbons (born 22 July 1983) is an Australian-born, UK-raised singer-songwriter. In the early 1980s, her English father (from North London), Ronald, visited Australia. He met and married Rosie's mother Carol, and the family moved to Pontardawe near Swansea when Rosie was four, to be near Ron's parents who had moved from London to South Wales for work prior to retiring.
Ribbons reportedly wanted to be a pop singer ever since she was eight years old. A big fan of Mariah Carey, she learned to mimic her singing, and also started to write her own songs. She lost interest during her final school year, passing only two GCSEs, English and Drama.
In 2001, bored with her supermarket job, Ribbons auditioned for ITV1's talent show Pop Idol. She initially performed her own composition called "Colours" to judges Simon Cowell, Nicki Chapman, Neil Fox and record producer Pete Waterman. Although impressed with her vocal, Cowell suggested that she pick a more familiar song. Taking his advice, Ribbons then wowed the panel with a rendition of "Hero" by Mariah Carey, a performance that moved Waterman to tears.

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Samantha Womack
Samantha Zoe Womack (née Janus; born 2 November 1972) is an English actress, singer and director, both on television and stage. In recent years she has been best known for playing the role of Ronnie Branning in EastEnders, but made her name in the mid 1990s as Mandy Wilkins in Game On, and also represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1991. She is currently the star of the award winning show South Pacific, touring the UK with the cast and gaining the most impressive reviews of her career so far. Samantha is patron to Expressions Performing Arts in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
Janus was born in Brighton, Sussex. Her father Noel left the family when she was three, and soon after her mother Diane married a doctor and the family moved to Edinburgh. She has a younger sister, Zoe. Janus lived on the QE2 with her grandmother for a short time. On 23 August 2009, her 60-year-old estranged father was found hanged in the bathroom of his council flat in Brighton, where he lived alone. It is believed he committed suicide.

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Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw (born 26 February 1947) is an English pop singer, who was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. In 1967 she was the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest. She has been described as "the barefoot pop princess of the 1960s".
Sandra Ann Goodrich was born and brought up in Dagenham, Essex, England. On leaving school, she worked at the nearby Ford Dagenham factory, and did some part-time modelling before coming second as a singer in a local talent contest. As a prize, she appeared at a charity concert in London, where her potential was spotted by singer Adam Faith. He introduced her to his manager, Eve Taylor, who won her a contract with Pye Records in 1964 and gave her the stage name of "Sandie Shaw".
Taylor teamed Shaw with songwriter Chris Andrews, who wrote her first single, "As Long as You're Happy Baby", which failed to make the charts. However, for her second single Taylor gave her the Bacharach and David song "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", which had been a #49 US pop hit for singer Lou Johnson. Shaw's version rose quickly to #1 in the UK Singles Chart in the autumn of 1964, and also charted in the United States at #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 early the following year. "I’d Be Far Better Off Without You" was issued as the follow-up, but DJs preferred its B-side, "Girl Don't Come", also written by Andrews, and the sides were switched. "Girl Don't Come" reached #3 in the UK and became her biggest US hit, reaching #42. It was followed by further hits in the UK including "I'll Stop at Nothing", "Long Live Love", her second UK #1 in 1965, and "Message Understood". The singles were produced by Taylor, Andrews and Shaw herself (though she was never credited), with help from Pye Records arranger Ken Woodman.^{[citation needed]}

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Sarah Harding
Sarah Nicole Harding (born Sarah Nicole Hardman, 17 November 1981) is an English singer-songwriter, actress and model best known for being a member of the pop group Girls Aloud, formed through ITV's reality television programme Popstars: The Rivals. They have become one of the few reality television acts to achieve continued success, amassing a fortune of £25 million by May 2009. With Girls Aloud, Harding has been successful in achieving a string of 20 consecutive UK top ten singles (including four number ones), two UK number one albums, and received nominations for five BRIT Awards, winning Best Single in 2009 for "The Promise".
Harding was born in Ascot, Berkshire. She was raised together with her two half brothers in Staines, Surrey, then Stockport, Greater Manchester. She grew up in a musical household and has attributed her "musical genes" to her musician father, John Adam Hardman, who introduced her to the studio at a very young age. She attended Hazel Grove High School from 1993 to 1998, and later attended Stockport College where she studied hair and beauty. When she was 15, her father left her mother. Harding's parents subsequently divorced; she has no contact with her father.

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Sarah Whatmore
Sarah Louise Whatmore (born 5 July 1981) and raised in Walkden, in the City of Salford, England, is an English singer, best known from the British TV series Pop Idol.
Whatmore rose to fame in the first series of the British television show Pop Idol. Simon Fuller signed her to RCA Records including a world wide management deal with 19 Entertainment.
In 2002 and 2003 she released two singles "When I Lost You" and "Automatic" respectively which both reached the Top 20 in the UK Singles Chart. Whatmore was writing for fellow Pop Idol alumni, and spent time working on her debut album, 'Living Proof'.
A third single failed to materialise, and the release of 'Living Proof' was cancelled. Several recordings were leaked over the years, including "Close To Me" and "Don't Let Me Go".
Turning down the opportunity to become a backing singer for Kylie Minogue to concentrate on her own solo career, Whatmore spent the next five years honing her craft. During the years she wrote more than two hundred songs with various collaborators including Greg Fitzgerald and Peter John Vettese . Whatmore continued to record and write for herself as well as other musicians.

wn.com/Sarah_Whatmore

Simon Bates
Simon Bates (born 17 December 1947, Birmingham) is a UK disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He later became a regular presenter on Classic FM. In January 2011, he took over as host of "The Breakfast Show" on Smooth Radio.
Bates was raised in Suffolk and Shropshire and was educated at Adams' Grammar School before working for radio stations in New Zealand and Australia while still a teenager. Bates returned to the UK in 1971 to join the BBC, initially working for BBC Radio 4 and then joining BBC Radio 2 in 1973 presenting the Late Night show, before presenting the Early Morning show in 1975. Bates left BBC Radio 2 in January 1976 and joined BBC Radio 1 in May the same year standing in for Tom Browne to host the Sunday Top 20 show before presenting the Sunday morning show two months later.
Initially a weekend presenter playing new pop records, Bates took over the weekday mid-morning programme in November 1977 and remained the presenter for 16 years. The least flashy and garrulous of Radio 1's principal broadcasters, with an avuncular appearance (sober clothes, large glasses), Bates nevertheless became popular, attracting up to 11 million listeners. His voice — essentially a sped-up, slightly Americanised version of the standard Received Pronunciation associated with BBC Radio 4 — was unusual in that most Radio 1 DJs of the time had a more informal 'DJ' voice.

wn.com/Simon_Bates

Simon Cowell
Simon Phillip Cowell (born 7 October 1959) is an English A&R executive, television producer, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is known in the United Kingdom and United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and American Idol. He is also the owner of the television production and music publishing house Syco.
As a judge, Cowell is known for his blunt and often controversial criticisms, insults and wisecracks about contestants and their abilities. He is also known for combining activities in both the television and music industries, having promoted singles and records for various artists, including television personalities. He was most recently featured on the fifth series of Britain's Got Talent and the first season of The X Factor USA.
In 2010, the British magazine New Statesman listed Cowell at number 41 in a list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".
Cowell was born in Lambeth, London and brought up in Elstree, Hertfordshire. His mother, Julie Brett (née Josie Dalglish), is a former ballet dancer and socialite, and his father, Eric Selig Phillip Cowell (1918–1999), was an estate agent developer and music industry executive. Cowell's father was from a mostly Jewish family, though he did not discuss his background with his children (Cowell's paternal grandmother had immigrated from Poland). Cowell's mother was from a Christian background, and is of part Scottish descent. He has one brother and three half-brothers and a half sister; younger brother Nicholas Cowell, half-brother John Cowell, half-brother Tony Cowell, half-brother Michael Cowell and half sister June Cowell.

wn.com/Simon_Cowell

Sinitta
Sinitta Renet Malone (born October 19, 1968 in Seattle, Washington, United States), known professionally as Sinitta, is an American singer who has lived in the United Kingdom for most of her life. She is best known for her hit records in the 1980s including "So Macho", "Toy Boy", "Cross My Broken Heart" and "Right Back Where We Started From". She has also acted in a number of West End shows, is a mentor on The X Factor, and appeared as a contestant on the eleventh series of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!.
Sinitta is the daughter of Canadian actress and singer Miquel Brown, and Anthony Blackett. Although her official website cites her birth year as 1968, some press sources have said that she was born earlier, perhaps 1966 or even as early as 1963. Indeed, 1963 seems most likely given that in 1982 she was dating 21-year-old Nick Cowell before dumping him for his 23-year-old brother Simon. It would be unlikely that either man would date a 13-year-old, which would be her age if she had been born in 1968.

wn.com/Sinitta

Sonia (singer)
Sonia (born Sonia Evans, 13 February 1971), is an English pop singer from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, who was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She is perhaps best known for the number one hit "You'll Never Stop Me Loving You" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest.
Her singing career was launched in 1989 by the songwriting and music producing trio Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman known as Stock Aitken Waterman. She was signed to Chrysalis Records after badgering Pete Waterman to listen to her sing outside the recording studio in Liverpool. Waterman did a regular weekly radio broadcast. He called her bluff and had her sing live on his show. She released her debut single, "You'll Never Stop Me Loving You" in June 1989 and it quickly became a number one single in the UK Singles Chart. At 18, she became one of the youngest female British singers to achieve this feat.
She released her debut album, Everybody Knows, in 1990, which peaked at #7. All 5 singles taken from it became top 20 hits, making Sonia the first British solo female artist to achieve this. Also in 1990, she recorded the song "You've Got A Friend" with the group Big Fun. It was released as a charity single for Childline and became a top 20 hit.

wn.com/Sonia_(singer)

Susan Cadogan
Susan Cadogan (born Alison Anne Cadogan, 2 November 1951, Kingston, Jamaica) is a reggae singer best known for her hit records in the 1970s.
Cadogan is the daughter of singer Lola Cadogan, who released several 78rpm singles of devotional music during the 1950s. She spent several years of her childhood in Belize, where her family had moved, before returning to Jamaica. She trained and qualified as a librarian, taking a job in the library of the University of the West Indies at Mona. Her talents as a singer led to her recording her first single, "Love My Life" for Jamaican Broadcasting DJ Jerry Lewis, who was the boyfriend of one of Cadogan's schoolfriends.Lee "Scratch" Perry was in the recording studio at the time, and was impressed by Cadogan's voice enough to record an album's worth of material with her, also renaming her Susan.
One of her first recordings for Perry, a cover of Millie Jackson's soul hit, "Hurts So Good" (featuring bassist Boris Gardiner and the Zap Pow horns), was released to little effect in Jamaica on Perry's new 'Perries' record label, but was released in the UK by Dennis Harris's DIP International label, and topped the UK Reggae Chart. Magnet Records picked up the single and it went on to reach the top 5 of the UK Singles Chart, with Cadogan flying to London to promote the single, including a television appearance on Top of the Pops. Cadogan then signed directly to Magnet, who issued the official follow-up, the Pete Waterman produced "Love Me Baby", which reached number 22 in July 1975, but was her last UK hit Perry, meanwhile, arranged with the Birmingham based label Black Wax to release an unofficial follow-up - a remixed version of "Love My Life". Other singles were released on Klik and Lucky in an attempt to cash in, but none of these charted.

wn.com/Susan_Cadogan

Suzanne Shaw
Suzanne Shaw (born Suzanne Crowshaw on 29 September 1981 in Bury, Greater Manchester)^{[citation needed]} is an English actress, singer and television personality. Originally famous for winning the talent contest Popstars and subsequently being a member of the band Hear'Say, she is now an established musical theatre and West End performer, actress, model and television presenter in her own right. She is also the winner of series 3 of the popular ITV1 program Dancing on Ice. She was married to presenter Jason King of duo JK and Joel. Shaw has played the character of Eve Jenson in the soap opera Emmerdale.
Shaw started ballet lessons at the age of two and by the age of three was attending the Lupino and Freelance Dance school, where she trained in all forms of dance. Shaw also studied acting, and performed in her first show Annie at five years of age. She joined an amateur dramatics society and did various productions, including The Sound of Music, and a West End production of Showboat at the age of nine. She was a member of an ABBA tribute band, The Right Stuff, and appeared in television roles including an Esso advertisement, Holby City, and a BBC production, Elidor. She also tried for the part of Maria Sutherland in Coronation Street, and made it to the final three along with Girls Aloud member Kimberley Walsh, but lost out to Samia Smith.

wn.com/Suzanne_Shaw

Terry Wogan
Sir Michael Terence Wogan, KBE, DL (born 3 August 1938), also known as Terry Wogan, is a veteran Irish radio and television broadcaster who holds dual Irish and British citizenship. Wogan has worked for the BBC in the United Kingdom for most of his career. Before he retired from the weekday breakfast programme Wake Up to Wogan on BBC Radio 2 on 18 December 2009, it had a regular 8 million listeners, making Wogan the most listened-to radio broadcaster of any European nation. He began his career at Raidió Teilifís Éireann where he presented shows such as Jackpot in the 1960s.
Wogan has been a leading media personality in the UK since the late 1960s and is often referred to as a national treasure. He is perhaps best known in the United Kingdom for his BBC1 chat show Wogan, for his work presenting Children in Need, as the host of Wake Up to Wogan, the original host of the BBC game show Blankety Blank (before being replaced by Les Dawson), a presenter of Come Dancing in the 1970s, and as the BBC's commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest on radio and television from 1971 to 2008. Wogan currently hosts a two hour Sunday morning show, Weekend Wogan on Radio 2.

wn.com/Terry_Wogan

The Cheeky Girls
The Cheeky Girls are a pop duo consisting of twin sisters Gabriela and Monica Irimia, from Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania, Romania, but based in Britain. After appearing as auditionees in Popstars: The Rivals, they achieved success in the charts with four top ten hits between 2002 and 2004. They are best known for their debut single, "Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)", which has sold more than 1.2 million copies worldwide.
Gabriela and Monica were born on 31 October 1982 to Doru and Margit Irimia. Gabriela is older by 10 minutes. Their early life in Romania consisted of studying gymnastics and ballet and touring with the Hungarian National Opera. Moving to the United Kingdom with their mother in 2002, the girls shot to fame as the Cheeky Girls after auditioning on the British TV shows, Channel 4's Model Behaviour and more importantly Popstars: The Rivals. Following two appearances on the show with their audition which had judges Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh not knowing what to say (Waterman was later quoted as saying they were the worst act ever), various record companies approached the Granada Press Office. The Press Office contacted Paul Holland at Granada Ventures who was able to secure them a deal with the Multiply label part of Telstar Records. Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) was swiftly recorded and released in the first week in December. Entering the chart at number two, the single remained in the top five for five consecutive weeks – four of them at number two. In the week before Christmas this was one of three singles from the Popstars: The Rivals show to occupy the Top 3, One True Voice and Girls Aloud held the other two positions.

wn.com/The_Cheeky_Girls

Ulrika Jonsson
Eva Ulrika Jonsson (born 16 August 1967) is a Swedish-British television presenter in the UK, who became famous as a TV-am weather presenter and moved on to present Gladiators and became a team captain of the show Shooting Stars.
The granddaughter of Swedish opera singer Folke Jonsson, Jonsson was born in Sollentuna, Stockholm County.^{[citation needed]} Her parents divorced amicably in 1975 when her mother left to be with her lover Michael Brodie in the Netherlands;^{[citation needed]} Ulrika was eight years old. She lived with her father until the age of 12 when her mother suggested that at that age she needed a mother's guidance. Jonsson accepted and moved to Buckinghamshire, England in 1979 where she attended Farnham Common Middle School^{[citation needed]} for a year above the normal age to prepare her for secondary school, then Burnham Grammar School, followed by St Aldate's Secretarial college in Oxford.^{[citation needed]} Jonsson speaks fluent English, French, and German, as well as her native Swedish .

wn.com/Ulrika_Jonsson

Will Carling
William David Charles Carling, OBE (born 12 December 1965) is a former Rugby union player for Harlequins, and a former captain of England from 1988 to 1996, winning 72 caps.
The son of Lt Col Bill Carling and his first wife, Will attended the Sedbergh School in Winder House, on an army scholarship and later graduated with a degree in Psychology from Hatfield College, Durham. After university, Carling joined the army and was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of Wales. He never rose above the rank of Second Lieutenant and his commission was terminated in 1988.
In 1987 he resigned his army commission in order to concentrate on rugby as a career, and then joined Harlequins and assumed his normal position as centre.
In 1988 he became the youngest ever England captain at the age of 22yrs, and was the most successful, until Martin Johnson's period. His first match as captain was a shock win over Australia by 28-19. During his time he led England to back-to-back Five Nations grand slam victories (1991, 1992) and another Grand Slam in 1995, amassing 6 tries from outside centre in the Championship, and several more in other matches. Whilst possibly the one of world's best centres at the time, he and his team went on to the final of the 1991 Rugby World Cup. After Carling's retirement as captain, no England team managed a Five (or Six) Nations Grand Slam until 2003.

wn.com/Will_Carling

Will Young
William Robert "Will" Young (born 20 January 1979) is a British singer-songwriter and actor who came to prominence after winning the 2002 inaugural series of the British music contest Pop Idol, making him the first winner of the now-worldwide Idols-format franchise. His debut single, "Anything is Possible", was released two weeks after the show's finale and became the fastest-selling debut single in the United Kingdom.
As a teenager, Young studied politics at the University of Exeter before moving to London, where he pursued a musical theatre degree at the Arts Educational School. Although enrolled in a three-year programme, Young put his studies on hold in late 2001 to become a contestant on Pop Idol. After winning the competition the following year, he released his debut album From Now On (2002) which went to straight to number one. Friday's Child (2003) followed one year later and enjoyed greater popularity, eventually going platinum five times in the UK and spawning three top five singles. Achieving similar success, the album's successors include the multi-platinum Keep On (2005) and platinum Let It Go (2008) with his most recent release Echoes (2011) becoming his third UK number-one album.

wn.com/Will_Young

World War I
World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.

wn.com/World_War_I

Zoe Birkett
Zoe Birkett (born 16 June 1985, Consett, County Durham, England) was one of the youngest contestants on the ITV show, Pop Idol, being only 16 at the time.
Birkett began attending stage school when she was just 3 years old.
Birkett had had hopes of being a musician and had previously auditioned unsuccessfully to be in S Club 7, finishing in the final 12. She did better in the first series of Pop Idol however, finishing fourth behind Will Young, Gareth Gates and Darius Danesh, being the highest placed female on the show.
During the programme, she performed such songs as Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time", "I Will Always Love You" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"; Aretha Franklin's "I Say a Little Prayer"; ABBA's "Thank You For the Music" and Judy Garland's "Get Happy".
After the show, Birkett was the warm-up act on Pop Idol winners Will Young's and Gareth Gates' tour where she performed in front of 18,000 people. She performed three songs for Pop Idol: The Big Band Album.
In 2003, Birkett signed a recording contract with 19 Recordings and released one single, "Treat Me Like a Lady", on 13 January 2003. The track was co-written by fellow Pop Idol contestant Sarah Whatmore, but only reached number 12 in the UK Singles Chart on 25 January. This quickly drifted down the chart and faded. Soon after, Birkett was dropped by the record label.

wn.com/Zoe_Birkett

Pete Waterman
Born	Peter Alan Waterman (1947-01-15) 15 January 1947 (age 65)^[1] Stoke Heath, Coventry, England
Residence	Warrington, Cheshire, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Record producer, songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, railway enthusiast, entrepreneur
Years active	1986–present
Net worth	£47 million (est.)
Title	Chairman of Pete Waterman Entertainment (since 1984) President of Coventry Bears
Spouse	Elizabeth Reynolds (m. 1970–1974) (divorced) Julie Reeves (m. 1980–1984) (divorced) Denise Gyngell (m. 1991–1999) (divorced)
Website
http://www.pwl-empire.com/

Business positions
Preceded by N/A	Co-chairman of Loose Ends with Peter Collins 1979–?	Succeeded by Not known
Business positions
Preceded by N/A	Chairman of Pete Waterman Entertainment 1984–present	Succeeded by Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Waterman, Pete
Alternative names
Short description	Record producer, songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, railway enthusiast
Date of birth	15 January 1947
Place of birth	Coventry, England
Date of death
Place of death

Waterman, Pete Filmography

Waterman, Pete Filmography

Famous quotes by Pete Waterman:

"I never even knew he was a socialist. Not in 15 years. I couldn't believe it when I found out."

"The public are always right... but I think they've got it wrong tonight"

"To do what you've done makes you a real man - commenting on the farcical admittance by a contestant he was over the age limit"

Make changes yourself !

Contents

Early life [link]

Musical career [link]

Television [link]

Eurovision [link]

Other commercial interests [link]

Railways [link]

Sport [link]

Honours [link]

Personal life [link]

Bibliography [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

http://wn.com/Pete_Waterman

Related pages:

http://de.wn.com/Pete Waterman