Edward Michael Grylls, nicknamed "Bear", (born 7 June 1974) is a British adventurer, writer and television presenter. He is best known for his television series Born Survivor, known as Man vs. Wild in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India. He is the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, doing so at age 23. In July 2009, Grylls was appointed the youngest ever Chief Scout at the age of 35.
Personal life
Grylls grew up in
Donaghadee,
Northern Ireland and
Bembridge on the
Isle of Wight. He is the son of the late
Conservative party politician
Sir Michael Grylls and Lady Grylls (née Sarah Ford). His maternal grandparents were
Patricia Ford, an
Ulster Unionist Party MP and
Neville Ford who played first-class
cricket. He has one sibling—an elder sister, Lara Fawcett, a cardio-tennis coach. In an episode of
Man vs. Wild featuring Hollywood actor
Will Ferrell, he said his sister gave him the nickname "Bear" when he was just a week old.
Grylls was educated at Eaton House, Ludgrove School, Eton College, and Birkbeck, University of London, where he graduated with a degree, obtained part-time, in Hispanic studies in 2002. He learned to climb and sail from his father at an early age. As a teenager, he learned to skydive and also earned a second dan black belt in Shotokan karate. He now practices Yoga and Ninjutsu. He also became involved in scouting, beginning at age eight, as a cub scout. He speaks English, Spanish, and French. Grylls is Christian, describing his faith as the "backbone" in his life.
Grylls married Shara Grylls (née Cannings Knight) in 2000. and Huckleberry (born 15 January 2009 via natural childbirth on his houseboat). and spent a few months hiking in the Himalayan mountains of Sikkim and West Bengal, Assam. He eventually joined the British Army and after passing United Kingdom Special Forces Selection (where he claims he was one of four to have passed out of his group of 180), from 1994 to 1997, he served in the part-time United Kingdom Special Forces Reserve, with 21 Regiment Special Air Service, 21 SAS(R), as a trooper, survival instructor and Patrol Medic. He claims that he served in North Africa twice. His canopy ripped at 16,000 feet, partially opening, causing him to fall and land on his parachute pack on his back, which partially crushed three vertebrae. Grylls later said: "I should have cut the main parachute and gone to the reserve but thought there was time to resolve the problem". According to his surgeon, Grylls came "within a whisker" of being paralysed for life and at first it was questionable whether he would ever walk again. Grylls spent the next 18 months in and out of military rehabilitation at Headley Court
Everest
On 16 May 1998, Grylls achieved his childhood dream (an ambition since his father gave him a picture of Everest when he was eight) and entered the
Guinness Book of Records, as the youngest Briton, at 23, to summit Mount Everest, just eighteen months after injuring his back. However, James Allen, an Australian/British climber who ascended Everest in 1995 with an Australian team, but who has dual citizenship, beat him to the summit at age 22. The feat has since been surpassed by
Jake Meyer and, at age 19, by
Rob Gauntlett.
Grylls' expedition involved nearly four months on Everest's southeast face: From his first reconnaissance climb where Bear was almost killed in a crevasse at 19,000 feet, he was knocked unconscious and came to swinging on the end of a rope, to the weeks of acclimatisation climbs involving climbing up and down the South Face, negotiating the Khumbu icefall (a frozen river), the Western Cwm glacier, and a 5000 foot wall of ice called the Lhotse face, to the gruelling ascent with the ex-SAS soldier Neil Laughton, involving climbing for hours in the night, that took him past extreme weather, fatigue, dehydration, last-minute illness, sleep deprivation and almost running out of oxygen inside the death zone where air is three times thinner than at sea level.
To prepare for climbing at such high altitudes in the Himalayas, in 1997, Grylls became the youngest Briton to climb Ama Dablam, a peak described by Sir Edmund Hillary as "unclimbable".
Other expeditions
Circumnavigation of the UK
In 2000, Grylls, led the first team to circumnavigate the UK on a personal watercraft or jet ski, taking about 30 days, to raise money for the
Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). He also rowed naked for 22 miles in a homemade bathtub along the
Thames to raise funds for a friend who lost his legs in a climbing accident.
Crossing the North Atlantic
Three years later, he led a team of five, including his childhood friend, SAS colleague, and
Mount Everest climbing partner Mick Crosthwaite, on the first unassisted crossing of the north
Atlantic Arctic Ocean, in an open
rigid inflatable boat. Suffering weeks of frozen spray and icebergs, battling
force 8 gale winds, hypothermia, and storms in an eleven-metre-long boat through some of the most treacherous stretches of water in the world including the
Labrador Sea, the
Denmark Strait, and the stretch made famous by
The Perfect Storm, Grylls and his team were just barely able to finish the journey from
Halifax, Nova Scotia to
John o' Groats, Scotland.
Paramotoring over Angel Falls
In 2005, Grylls led the first team ever to attempt to
paramotor over the remote jungle plateau of the
Angel Falls in
Venezuela, the world's highest waterfall. The team was attempting to reach the highest, most remote
tepuis.
Dinner party at altitude
In 2005, alongside the
balloonist and
mountaineer David Hempleman-Adams and Lieutenant Commander Alan Veal, leader of the Royal Navy Freefall Parachute Display Team, Grylls created a world record for the highest open-air formal dinner party, which they did under a hot-air balloon at 25,000 feet, dressed in full
mess dress and
oxygen masks. To train for the event, he made over 200 parachute jumps. This was in aid of
The Duke of Edinburgh's Award and
The Prince's Trust.
Paramotoring over the Himalayas
In 2007, Grylls claimed to have broken a new world record by flying a Parajet
paramotor over the Himalayas, higher than Mount Everest. Grylls took off from 14,500 feet, 8 miles south of the mountain. Grylls reported looking down on the summit during his ascent and coping with temperatures of −60 °C . He endured dangerously low oxygen levels and eventually reached 29,500 feet, almost 10,000 feet higher than the previous record of 20,019 feet. The feat was filmed for
Discovery Channel worldwide as well as
Channel 4 in the UK.
While Grylls initially planned to cross over Everest itself, the permit was only to fly to the south of Everest, and he did not traverse Everest out of risk of violating Chinese airspace.
Journey Antarctica 2008
In 2008, Bear lead a team of four to climb one of the most remote unclimbed peaks in the world in
Antarctica. This was raising funds for Global Angels kids charity and awareness for the potential of alternative energies. During this mission the team also aimed to explore the coast of Antarctica by inflatable boat and jetski, part powered by
bioethanol, and then to travel across some of the vast ice desert by wind-powered kite-ski and electric powered paramotor. However, the expedition was cut short after Grylls suffered a broken shoulder while kite skiing across a stretch of ice. Travelling at speeds up to 50 km/h (30 mph), a ski caught on the ice, launching him in the air and breaking his shoulder when he came down. He had to be medically evacuated.
Longest indoor freefall
Grylls, along with the double amputee Al Hodgson and the Scotsman Freddy MacDonald, set a Guinness world record in 2008 for the longest continuous
indoor freefall. The previous record was 1 hr 36 mins by a US team. Grylls, Hodgson, and MacDonald, using a vertical wind tunnel in
Milton Keynes, broke the record by a few seconds. The attempt was in support of the charity
Global Angels.
Northwest Passage Expedition
In August 2010 Grylls lead a team of five to take an ice-breaking
rigid-inflatable boat (RIB) through of the ice strewn
Northwest Passage. The expedition intended to raise awareness of the effects of
global warming and to raise money for children's charity
Global Angels.
Media
Grylls entered
television work with an appearance in an
advertisement for
Sure deodorant, featuring his ascent of Mount Everest. Bear was also used by the UK Ministry of Defence to head the Army's anti-drugs TV campaign, and featured in the first ever major advertising campaign for the world renowned shop:
Harrods. Grylls has been a guest on television programs, including
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross,
The Oprah Winfrey Show,
Late Night with Conan O'Brien,
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,
Attack of the Show,
The Late Show with David Letterman,
Jimmy Kimmel Live! and
Harry Hill's TV Burp. Grylls recorded two advertisements for Post's Trail Mix Crunch Cereal, which aired in the US from January 2009. He also appeared as a distinguished instructor in
Dos Equis' Most Interesting Academy in a webisode named "Survival in the Modern Era". He appeared in a five-part web series that demonstrates urban survival techniques and features Grylls going from bush to bash. He also has marketed the
Alpha Course, a course on the basics of the Christian faith.
Warner Bros. had asked Grylls to appear in its remake of the film
Clash of the Titans
Grylls is a bestselling author. Grylls' first book, titled Facing Up, went into the UK top 10 best-seller list, and was launched in the USA entitled The Kid Who Climbed Everest. About his expedition and achievements climbing to the summit of Mount Everest. Grylls' second book Facing the Frozen Ocean was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2004. His third book was written to accompany the series Born Survivor: Bear Grylls. (Released in America in April 2008 to the Man vs. Wild Discovery television show) It features survival skills learned from some of the world's most hostile places. This book reached the Sunday Times Top 10 best-seller list. His also wrote an extreme guide to outdoor pursuits, titled Bear Grylls Outdoor Adventures.
He has a series of children's adventure survival books titled: Mission Survival: Gold of the Gods, Mission Survival: Way of the Wolf, Mission Survival: Sands of the Scorpion and Mission Survival: Tracks of the Tiger.
Escape to the Legion
Grylls filmed a four-part TV show in 2005, called
Escape to the Legion, which followed Grylls and eleven other "recruits" as they took part in a shortened re-creation of the
French Foreign Legion's basic desert training in the
Sahara. The show was broadcast in the UK on
Channel 4, and in the USA on the
Military Channel. In 2008, it was repeated in the UK on the
History Channel.
Born Survivor/Man vs. Wild
Grylls hosts a series titled
Born Survivor: Bear Grylls for the British
Channel 4 and broadcast as
Man vs Wild in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.A., and as
Ultimate Survival on the Discovery Channel in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The series features Grylls dropped into inhospitable places, showing viewers how to survive. Man Vs Wild debuted in 2006 and went on to become the No. 1 cable show in all of America and now reaches a global audience of over 1.2 Billion viewers. The second season premièred in the US on 15 June 2007, the third in November 2007, and the fourth in May 2008. Grylls is currently filming the sixth season in 2010.
The show has featured stunts including Grylls climbing cliffs, parachuting from helicopters, balloons, and planes, paragliding, ice climbing, running through a forest fire, wading rapids, eating snakes, wrapping his urine-soaked t-shirt around his head to help stave off the desert heat, drinking urine saved in a rattlesnake skin, drinking fecal liquid from elephant dung, wrestling alligators, field dressing a camel carcass and drinking water from it, eating various "creepy crawlies" [insects], utilizing the corpse of a sheep as a sleeping bag and flotation device, free climbing waterfalls and using a bird guano/water enema for hydration. Grylls also regales the viewer with tales of adventurers stranded or killed in the wilderness.
In some of the earlier episodes, Man vs. Wild / Born Survivor was criticized by some sources for misleading viewers about some of the situations in which Grylls finds himself. Discovery and Channel 4 television subsequently pledged production and editing transparency and clarification related to the criticism.
Worst Case Scenario
Grylls' latest project is titled
Worst Case Scenario and airs on Discovery in the USA. It is based on the popular books of the same name.
Chief Scout
On 17 May 2009,
The Scout Association announced Grylls would be appointed Chief Scout following the end of
Peter Duncan's five year term in July 2009. He was officially made Chief Scout at
Gilwell 24 on 11 July 2009 in a handover event featuring Peter Duncan in front of a crowd of over 3,000
Explorer Scouts. He is the tenth person to hold the position and the youngest Chief Scout since the role was created for
Robert Baden-Powell in 1920.
Charities
Many of Grylls' expeditions and stunts have raised money for
charitable organisations. Grylls is an
ambassador for
The Prince's Trust, an organisation which provides training, financial, and practical support to young people in the United Kingdom. Grylls is continuing his fundraising work for Global Angels in August 2010 by undertaking an expedition through the
Northwest Passage in a
rigid inflatable boat. Many of his expeditions also support environmental causes such as his Antarctica expedition and his circumnavigation of Britain which tested a pioneering new fuel made from rubbish.
Other work
Outside of TV, Grylls works as a
motivational speaker, giving speeches worldwide to corporations, churches, schools, and other organizations. He is also a spokesperson for and owner of a
Juice Plus franchise. Grylls has his own outdoor survival clothing range produced by British manufacturer
Craghoppers as well as a knife manufactured by
Gerber.
See also
Ranulph Fiennes, British adventurer and a hero of Bear's growing up
Bruce Parry, British adventurer & TV presenter
Les Hiddins, Australian survival expert & TV presenter
Les Stroud, Canadian survival expert & TV presenter
Ray Mears, English survival expert & TV presenter
References
External links
North West Passage Fundraising Page
Video for North West Passage
Journey Details for North West Passage
Official Born Survivor website
BearGrylls.com official website
Video of Bear Grylls confirming that he will be the new Chief Scout for the UK
Video from the Gilwell 24 event showing the investiture of Bear Grylls as Chief Scout for the UK, by the previous incumbant Blue peter presenter Peter Duncan
Adventurer Bear Grylls' battle with back pain and high cholesterol
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Category:English Christians
Category:Living people
Category:1974 births
Category:Old Etonians
Category:Old Ludgrovians
Category:Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London
Category:English explorers
Category:English mountain climbers
Category:English non-fiction writers
Category:English motivational speakers
Category:English television presenters
Category:British karateka
Category:English people of Northern Ireland descent
Category:British summiters of Mount Everest
Category:Special Air Service soldiers
Category:Artists' Rifles soldiers
Category:The Scout Association
Category:Survivalists
