name	Yvette Fielding
birth date	September 23, 1968
birth place	Stockport, England
known for	Presenter of ''Blue Peter'', ''Most Haunted'', ''Ghosthunting with...''
occupation	Television Presenter, Producer, Actress
spouse	Barry Sweeny (divorced) Karl Beattie (1999-present)
children	2 (William and Mary)
footnotes	}}

Yvette Fielding (born 23 September 1968) is a British broadcaster, producer and actress. She is best known for being the presenter of the TV shows ''Blue Peter'', ''Most Haunted'' and ''Ghosthunting With...''.

Early life and career

Yvette Fielding was educated at Pownall Green Primary School and Bramhall High School in Bramhall, Stockport, in Greater Manchester. She also attended Hillcrest Grammar School, Davenport and Dane Bank College in Crewe (studying drama). Fielding's first major role came in 1983 when she was cast in the children's BBC series ''Seaview''. The comedy-drama show centred around a teenage girl called Sandy Shelton (played by Fielding), growing up living at her parents' guest house in Blackpool. The show ran for two series and secured Fielding's popularity with younger audiences. After this, Fielding made a guest appearance in an episode of ''Juliet Bravo''.

''Blue Peter'' and beyond

In 1987 Yvette Fielding became a presenter on the BBC children's show, ''Blue Peter''. To date Fielding still holds the record of being the youngest presenter on ''Blue Peter'', starting on 29 June 1987 three months before her 19th birthday. While on the series Fielding also had an acting role in ''Last of the Summer Wine'' (making an appearance in the series while making a ''Blue Peter'' report on the show). During her time on the show, Fielding won the ''SOS Award'' for the ''Most Popular Woman on Television'', competing with Cilla Black, Victoria Wood and Kylie Minogue. Years after Fielding left the show, her trip on a rollercoaster with fellow presenter Mark Curry was voted the ''Favourite Blue Peter moment of all time'' by viewers. After five years of ''Blue Peter'', Fielding co-hosted ''What's Up Doc?'', a Saturday morning children's show on ITV. The series ran for three years and established Fielding with slightly older audiences.

From 1995 Fielding made a successful transition from children's to television for an older audience. After leaving ''What's Up Doc?'' Fielding presented '' The Heaven and Earth Show'', ''The General'' and ''City Hospital'' for the BBC. She was a regular host of ''Karaoke Challenge'' and contributed weekend continuity for Challenge TV. From 1998 - 2000, Fielding appeared as a regular alongside Fred Dineage and Toyah Willcox on a property-pricing based game-show called ''Under Offer'' made for Meridian Television. In 2005 Fielding appeared as Annie Lennox in a celebrity special of ITV's ''Stars in Their Eyes'', and in the same year she also made a guest appearance on the BBC music quiz show ''Never Mind the Buzzcocks''. In 2007 Fielding appeared in the ITV2 reality television programme ''Deadline'', finishing second. Later on in the year she appeared as a guest on ''That Antony Cotton Show''. In January 2008, Fielding appeared as a contestant on the BBC quiz show ''Celebrity Mastermind'', with her specialist subject being Henry VIII.

Fielding and her husband were the celebrity subjects of a one hour documentary for Living called ''Living With Yvette & Karl'' which aired on the 1 November 2008. A sequel documentary entitled ''In Bed with Yvette & Karl'' which aired on Living on January 17, 2009, charted Fielding's hysterectomy operation and recovery. A full-length series of ''In Bed with Yvette & Karl'', was then commissioned, and aired on Living during June and July 2009. In October 2009, a further documentary entitled ''Yvette & Karl: Life begins at 40'' was broadcast. From February to March 2009, Fielding appeared in the ITV1 variety TV show ''Saturday Night Takeaway''. Fielding featured in the Ant v Dec segment of the programme, as a member of Ant's team (she was eliminated from the contest in the 5th round). On 21 May 2009, Yvette appeared for a fourth time on ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', and a day later, she appeared on ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross''. In July 2009, Fielding was a celebrity panelist in an episode of the Channel 4 comedy show ''8 out of 10 Cats''. In November 2009, Fielding appeared as a celebrity contestant in an episode of ''Come Dine With Me'', finishing third.

Presenting the paranormal

In 2002, Yvette Fielding and her husband Karl Beattie established their own television production company, Antix Productions. Their first production was ''Most Haunted'' for the British TV channel Living. In the show, viewers can see Fielding and paranormal experts investigating various supposedly haunted locations around Britain, in the hopes that paranormal activity may be documented by the crew. ''Most Haunted'' proved popular with audiences and remains to this day one of Living's highest-rated original shows. Leading on from this, in 2006 Fielding presented and produced ''Ghosthunting with...'', a paranormal show for ITV2 which shows Fielding leading various celebrities around haunted locations. These two shows established Yvette Fielding as British televisions 'first lady' of the paranormal, and somewhat of a cult figure. Fielding has made many appearances and interviews in the British media in connection with her paranormal investigations and programmes, including guest appearances on ''The Sunday Night Project'' (Channel 4) , ''The Chris Moyles Show'' (BBC Radio 1) and ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'' (BBC One). Furthering her paranormal franchise, in 2008 Fielding made her first move into radio broadcasting, hosting ''Yvette Fielding's Fright Nights'' on Kerrang! Radio. Fielding left the radio station a few months later however, due to other work commitments.

In 2008 Fielding and Beattie formed a new company called Monster Pictures to operate the Paranormal Channel. The channel (launched 9 June 2008) claimed to be the first TV channel in the world dedicated to the paranormal, and aimed to be ground breaking in its investigation of the subject. Fielding acted as anchor to the channel and presented original programming on the station. The channel was subsequently renamed the Unexplained Channel in 2009. However, in April 2010 the Unexplained Channel ceased broadcasting, with its EPG slot on Sky Digital being purchased by Information TV.

On the 25th June 2010, Yvette Fielding announced via the Antix Productions website that she is to step down as presenter of ''Most Haunted''. In subsequent interviews, Fielding has also indicated that she will finish presenting ''Ghosthunting with..'' and all other paranormal-based broadcasts in 2010.

2010

In May 2010, Fielding appeared as a guest on the Five chatshow ''Justin Lee Collins: Good Times''.

Yvette Fielding presented the fourteenth series of ''Most Haunted'', which was broadcast in Spring 2010 prior to her leaving the show. Fielding has also presented episodes of ''Ghosthunting with...'' featuring Katie Price and Alex Reid (broadcast in August), as well as The Saturdays (broadcast in November). Although Fielding has indicated that she will no longer present ''Most Haunted'' or ''Ghosthunting with...'', she has stated that she intends to continue to work on other TV projects.

2011 Projects

After leaving Most Haunted in 2010, Yvette began working on a new project Celebrity Ghost Stories UK that is due to air from 12 May 2011. Later in 2011, she will star in a horror film, Mallum

Personal life

Yvette Fielding, her husband Karl Beattie and daughter Mary (born 1999)and son William Sweeny (Drummer for Harry Styles's ex band White Eskimo) live on a farm in Cheshire. She is very fond of cars and owns 3 Aston Martins, a Land Rover, a Range Rover and a London Taxi (which she uses in ''Ghosthunting with...''), Porsche 911 and a Porsche Chesil Speedster (which Karl her Husband gave Yvette as a 40th Birthday Present in America). Fielding has stated that she has Vitiligo, a disorder that causes depigmentation in patches of her skin.

References

External links

"Antix" productions website

Category:Blue Peter presenters Category:British television presenters Category:People from Stockport Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:People educated at Hillcrest Grammar School

simple:Yvette Fielding

Name	Paul O'GradyMBE
Pseudonym
Birth name	Paul James Michael O'Grady
Birth date	June 14, 1955
Birth place	Birkenhead, Cheshire, England
Nationality	British
Active	1988–present
Medium	Broadcaster, actor, entrepreneur, author, comedian
Domesticpartner
Spouse	(divorced)}}

|notable_work = | module =

{{infobox comedian awards |child	yes |baftaawards Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance2004 ''The Paul O'Grady Show'' (2008) }}

}} Paul James Michael O'Grady MBE (born 14 June 1955) is a British comedian, television presenter, actor, writer and radio DJ. He is best known for presenting the daytime chat television series, ''The Paul O'Grady Show'' and, more recently, ''Paul O'Grady Live'', as well as his drag queen comedic alter ego, Lily Savage, as whom he performed in various television series including ''Blankety Blank'' (1997–1999) and ''Lily Live!'' (2000–2001). He also appeared in the comedy sitcom ''Eyes Down'' (2003–2004) and presented several travel documentaries. In 2003, O'Grady was listed in ''The Observer'' as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2006 he was listed by ''The Independent'' at number 32 in their 101 most influential gay men and women in Britain. In October 2008, he was appointed MBE in the 2008 Birthday Honours list for services to entertainment. On 23 July 2010, O'Grady received an Honorary Doctor of Arts from De Montfort University, Leicester, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to television, radio and the stage.

Life and career

Early life: 1955–71

Paul O'Grady's father, Patrick "Paddy" Grady (died 1973), had grown up on a farm in Ballincurry, County Roscommon, Ireland, but moved to England in 1936 in search for work, and settled down in the working class area of Birkenhead. His name was accidentally changed from Grady to O'Grady in a paperwork mistake when he joined the Royal Air Force and he subsequently decided to keep this altered name. Patrick married Mary Savage (1916–1988), who was born in England but whose parents had also been Irish immigrants, from County Louth. Patrick and Mary were devout Catholics and brought up their children in the faith. Paul was their third child, born at 7:30am on 14 June 1955 at St. Catherine's Hospital, Tranmere. His birth, over a decade after that of his siblings Brendan and Sheila, was not planned; his mother was 39 and she only discovered the pregnancy when she visited the doctor complaining of indigestion. Paul O'Grady spent his early life at the family's rented home of 23 Holly Grove, Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, a house that had been built in a former quarry during the early 1930s, and O'Grady would later remark that the house was always damp and cold and that it also suffered from "ominous cracks" which "would appear in the walls and ceilings overnight".

He initially attended St. Joseph's, a Catholic primary school, where he excelled in all subjects but mathematics, and so his parents, hoping that he had a good future ahead of him, budgeted so that they could afford to send him to a private school, Redcourt, which was the Roman Catholic primary school attached to St Anselm's College. He subsequently failed the Eleven Plus exam, meaning that he was unable to gain entry to a grammar school, much to his mother's dismay, and went instead to the Blessed Edward Campion R.C. Secondary Modern and the Corpus Christi High School. It was here that he had his first homosexual experience, having a brief romance aged twelve with another boy, although in keeping with societal attitudes at the time he still assumed that he was heterosexual.

At the time he was also a huge fan of the popular television series ''The Avengers'' and ''Batman'', and was enrolled in the cub scouts by his mother, which he hated and left after a month. He later became an altar boy at a local Catholic church, though was dismissed from this position after laughing during a funeral service. Following on from this he joined the Marine cadets, later commenting that he was following in the footsteps of his childhood hero, the cartoon Popeye. He enjoyed the cadets, and at the advice of his captain joined the Boys' Amateur Boxing Club, where he gained his lifelong love of the sport. Meanwhile, he began playing truant from school, getting him into trouble with his parents, and then got into trouble with the police after he led three other boys into stealing several antiques from a house that they had broken into. O'Grady's first job was a paper round that he managed to keep for a week, being employed by a woman, Mrs Henshaw, whom his mother despised, and through this and other jobs he saved up to afford Mod clothes, for a time becoming a suedehead.

Early adulthood: 1972–76

After leaving school aged sixteen, O'Grady's mother got him a job in the civil service, working as a clerical assistant for the DHSS, who had offices in Liverpool that he could commute to from his parents' home every morning. To supplement this income, he also got a job working part-time at the bar of the Royal Air Force Association club in Oxton. Meanwhile he also joined an amateur dramatic society, the Carlton Players, at the time claiming that he did so because he wanted to be an actor, but later admitting that in fact it was because he believed that there would be many homosexuals in the group, although at this time he considered himself to be bisexual and was therefore also sexually and romantically interested in women. He was later called for a disciplinary hearing at the DHSS, who accused him of being incompetent and often late, and at which he decided to resign. Hoping for a better and more exciting life, he got a job at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Virginia Water, Surrey, and aged seventeen moved away from his parents' home in Birkenhead and travelled south. He subsequently found the work and accommodation to be appalling, although he noted that it was here that he lost his virginity to a woman whom he had met smoking cannabis at a party. He did not remain in Surrey long however, as soon after he was arrested, accused of stealing from the hotel and was subsequently fired despite protesting his innocence.

Promptly returning home to Birkenhead, he soon got his old job at the RAFA club back, and also began to increasingly socialise within the Liverpudlian gay scene, attending local meetings of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and getting a job at a gay bar, the Bear's Paw, all of which he kept a secret from his parents, to whom he was still not "out of the closet". Nonetheless, he continued to consider himself to be bisexual, and began having casual sex with a friend of his named Diane, who refused to believe that he was homosexual. Meanwhile, he had befriended Tony, a man whom he had met on the gay scene, and they had "hit it off after a prolonged bitching session one night, though we were like chalk and cheese." Becoming best friends, the two of them would regularly travel down to London to socialise with Tony's friend, the classical music conductor John Pritchard, whom O'Grady became very fond of.

When O'Grady was eighteen, his mother suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital, the stress of which caused his father to also suffer one within a matter of hours; whilst his mother recovered, his father soon died. Only a few days later, O'Grady's life was further complicated when he learned that Diane was pregnant with his child, a daughter named Sharon. Following her birth on 16 May 1974, O'Grady agreed to pay £3 every week towards the upkeep of his daughter, but refused to marry Diane as he had begun to recognise that he was homosexual and did not want to enter a marriage that he would hate. Although he initially decided not to tell his mother - who was preoccupied with the birth of his sister's fifth child - about his daughter, she eventually found out, and blamed Diane for the pregnancy due to the fact that she was nine years older than her son, and therefore, in her eyes, a "predatory middle-aged woman".

London, Manila and Lily Savage: 1976–78

Briefly working as an assistant clerk at Liverpool Magistrates' Court, which he soon resigned from, O'Grady subsequently got a job working as a barman at Yates's Wine Lodge, whilst also working the occasional night at the Bear's Paw. Realising that the wage from these jobs was not enough to support both himself and his daughter, he decided to travel to London in search for work. Moving in as the lodger of a gay couple, Billy and Chris, at their flat in Formosa Street, he once again only found poorly-paid work; he took up a job as a barman in Covent Garden, but resigned after only a day, following which he was employed by the Brook Street Bureau employment agency, but he again quit from this soon after. His third London-based job was working once more as a barman, this time at the Samuel Pepys pub in Globe Wharf. Meanwhile, it was in London that he first began to associate with drag queens, particularly a man named Alistair and his stage partner, Phil, the former of whom was the neighbour of Billy and Chris, and accompanied the duo, who went under the stage name of The Harlequeens, to some of their performances. Nonetheless, O'Grady was homesick for Birkenhead and Liverpool, and feeling that he had few prospects in London, returned home.

He got a job working as an accountant in a Merseyside abattoir belonging to FMC Meats, whilst meanwhile getting involved once more in amateur theatre, joining the Unity Youth Theatre. Quitting the abattoir work which disgusted him within a few months, O'Grady gained employment at Conny Home in West Kirby, a home for disabled and abused children, something he would continue for three years. Subsequently entering into a relationship with an older man named Norman, O'Grady moved into his house in Littlehampton, although their relationship did not go well, with both cheating on one another. Moving once more to London, he befriended and moved in with a woman named Angela, and the two started busking in Camden Town. Eventually getting a job as a physiotherapist's assistant at the Royal Northern Hospital, he was unable to rent a room in Camden Town, and so he and Angela finally got hold of a flat in Crouch End that they could rent. Being made redundant from the hospital due to public sector cuts, O'Grady took up a job at a gay club called the Showplace, where he befriended a Portuguese lesbian named Theresa Fernandes, and in May 1977 they legally married in order to prevent her deportation back to Portugal, although after he ceased working there he would never see her again, and only gained a divorce in 2005.

He subsequently took up a job as a cleaner and a waiter at private functions, working for a series of wealthy clients in London, including an elite escort service. Following this, he began working for Camden Council as a peripatetic care officer who would live in with elderly people or dyfunctional families. It was around this time that O'Grady made his first attempt at putting together a drag act, creating the character of Lily Savage in the process. Commenting on this, he would later relate that "I wanted to get up there but be larger than life, a creature that was more cartoon than human. I wasn't sure yet." His debut was on the afternoon of Saturday 7 October 1978, at a pub called the Black Cap, where he mimed the words to the Barbra Streisand song "Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" from the show ''Pins and Needles''. Coming offstage to a round of applause, another, more experienced drag act in the changing room remarked to him that "Well done, dahling [sic], You weren't bad, no, not bad at all… You've got something you know, de-ah, raw of course but with a little polish… who knows? A word of advice though. If you're considering getting an act together I'd drop the name. Lily Savage is all right for a bit of camp but no one is going to take an act that sounds like an old scrubber seriously, dahling." Nonetheless, the name, which was based upon his mother's maiden name, was one thing that he would maintain, and he would later recollect that:

:I've frequently been asked over the years who Lily Savage was based on and I've always answered that it was no one in particular and she was just a figment of my imagination. The truth, I realize now, is that Lily owes a lot to the women I encountered in my childhood. Characteristics and attitudes were observed and absorbed, Aunty Chris's in particular, and they provided the roots and compost for the Lily that would germinate and grow later on.

Following a holiday to Poland with his friends Barbara and Beryl soon after, and discovering that he was owed several more weeks off of work, he agreed to go and visit an ex-boyfriend, Ryan, who was living in Manila, The Philippines, where he worked for an oil company. Managing to afford the fare due to a "sizeable tax rebate" from the Inland Revenue, O'Grady found Manila to be a "culture shock", having difficulty with the climate, the food and the child sex industry, something which deeply disgusted him. He nonetheless learned to like many things about the city, briefly getting a job as a barman and waiter at a brothel known as Gussie's Bar.

Fame with Lily Savage: 1978–2004

He returned to London in the early 1980s and subsequently achieved fame with his creation of Lily, initially playing to gay clubs and pubs up and down the country. He performed many times at the Goldsmith's Tavern, New Cross where he'd often precede Vic Reeves' three-hour show ''Vic Reeves Big Night Out'' before promptly leaving to do a show elsewhere. O'Grady's Lily was best known at the time for an eight-year residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in south London. As Lily Savage, O'Grady was also in several acts which toured Europe. After appearing at The Edinburgh Festival and gaining a Perrier Award nomination, O'Grady's Lily Savage act became more mainstream and the character became popular on television, making appearances on the ITV daytime programme ''This Morning'' and as the 'On the Bed Presenter' on ''The Big Breakfast''. For a few years O'Grady hosted the game show ''Blankety Blank'' as Lily Savage, for the BBC and later for ITV. There was also a comedy show built around the character, ''Lily Live!'', appearing on ITV in 2000. Performing as Lily, O'Grady also co-hosted the 1996 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party with Ant & Dec. O'Grady also appeared along side Cilla Black and Barbara Windsor (as Savage) in the 2001 Royal Variety Performance where the trio performed a rendition of "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" from the musical ''Gypsy''.

O'Grady retired the Lily Savage character around 2004. He claimed she had "seen the light, taken the veil and packed herself off to a convent in France" but on his TV show, he said, "she's escaped the convent and she's heading towards these shores!". On 23 May 2008 on the 500th edition of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', guest star Julie Goodyear told O'Grady that Bet Lynch, the character she played in television soap opera ''Coronation Street'', had joined Savage in the French convent. On the 7 October 2009 episode of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', after being prompted by actor Martin Clunes to "bring Lily back", O'Grady said he could not because she had been "bricked up in a chimney" by the Mother Superior of the convent.

Return of Lily Savage: 2010–11

However, in March 2010 it was announced that Lily Savage would be resurrected for one last time in the Christmas pantomime ''Aladdin – A Wish Come True'' at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, from December 2010 till January 2011.

Television career: 1988–present

Following the success of Lily Savage, O'Grady played a prostitute informant, Roxanne, in several episodes of ''The Bill'' between 1988 and 1990; in 1990 he appeared in the ITV miniseries ''Chimera'' as Tony Donaldson, a social worker skilled in signing for the deaf.

Abandoning drag, to portray himself, in 2000 he appeared in a six-part travelogue series entitled ''Paul O'Grady's Orient'', filmed in Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Bangkok, Bali and Singapore. This was followed in 2001 by ''Paul O'Grady's America''.

From 2002 onwards, he appeared less as Savage and more often as himself. In 2002 he presented ''Outtake TV'', a bloopers show, and in 2003 starred as the lead character in the BBC sitcom ''Eyes Down'' for two series, as the manager of a northern Bingo hall. He also appeared in ''Celebrity Driving School'' for the BBC.

Richard and Judy are close friends of O'Grady, and gave him one of his first TV breaks on ''This Morning'' on ITV in the early 90s.

In July 2010 ''The Sun'' tipped that Paul O'Grady may judge acts in next year's series of ''Britain's Got Talent at the audition stages.

In December 2010, O'Grady hosted Coronation Street: The Big 50, to mark the end of Coronation Street's 50th anniversary week. The show featured 9 Corrie stars and 3 "superfans" in the bid to be crowned champions. The "Rovers Regulars" team which consisted of Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster), Barbara Knox (Rita Sullivan) and William Roache (Ken Barlow) won overall. The show also featured popular ITV show The X Factor as Kirk Sutherland went on it, singing Sex on Fire and judges such as Simon Cowell praised him. It also featured boy band Boyzone (Keith Duffy starred on Corrie), singer Kym Marsh (who played Michelle Connor), Rachel Leskovac (who played Natasha Blakeman) as well as Norris Cole and Mary Taylor who went head to head on Countdown.

The Paul O'Grady Show: 2004–09

O'Grady stood in for Des O'Connor on an episode of the lunchtime celebrity chat show ''Today with Des and Mel'', something that impressed ITV enough that they asked him to stand in for O'Connor on other occasions as well. Eventually they decided that O'Grady would be a success if he presented his own daytime television show, and so commissioned a series, ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', which first aired on October 2004 in the 5 to 6pm slot. The show, which involved O'Grady interviewing celebrity guests, aired at the same time at Channel 4's similar series ''Richard and Judy'', creating a friendly rivalry between the two programs for ratings. Despite the competition, O'Grady's was a success, and won a number of awards in 2005, including a BAFTA and the award for Best TV Comedy Entertainment Personality at the British Comedy Awards. The show ran on ITV for three series, before O'Grady fell out with the broadcasting company and decided to switch to Channel 4.

The fourth series of the show appeared on Channel 4 under the title of ''The New Paul O'Grady Show'' and began broadcasting in March 2006. On 24 August 2007 the ''Daily Mirror'' revealed that O'Grady had rejected a £5 million deal to return to ITV as the "New Parkinson." Instead he signed a £4 million deal to remain with Channel 4 until the end of 2009.

On 28 June 2008, O'Grady appeared in the ''Doctor Who'' episode ''The Stolen Earth''. On 6 June 2009, the ''Daily Mirror'' confirmed that O'Grady will sign a new two year contract with Channel 4 in autumn 2009 to keep his show on air until the end of 2011. However Channel 4 have told O'Grady that his show will face huge budget cuts, and his salary will most likely be halved. On Monday 21 September 2009, O'Grady returned to present the 11th (including ITV series) and final series of ''The Paul O'Grady Show''. On 14 October 2009, O'Grady agreed to an £8 million deal with ITV to host a Friday prime-time chat-show, to rival that of BBC One's ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'' from 2010, after budget talks broke-down with Channel 4.

On 30 November 2009, O'Grady was a guest presenter on ITV's ''GMTV with Lorraine'', in celebration of Lorraine Kelly's 50th birthday. He has guest starred on ''Living'''s paranormal show, ''Most Haunted Live!'', after presenter Yvette Fielding was a guest on his show and invited him on. Also in November 2009, O'Grady reunited with Yvette Fielding to take part in a 2 part paranormal investigation series called ''Death In Venice'' where he and Fielding investigated haunted locations in Venice. The episodes were called "Vampire Island" and "Demonic Doctor".

On 18 December 2009, Channel 4 broadcast the final ever episode of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', after 11 series which started in 2004. Guests included in the final line up were, JLS, Beverley Callard, Catherine Tate, William Roache, Linda Thorson, Honor Blackman, Joe McFadden, Natalie Cassidy, Scott Maslen, Kate Thornton and Melanie Sykes.

Paul O'Grady Live: 2010–present

Paul O'Grady spoke to ''The People'' in March 2010 about his new ITV show, saying "I have no idea what format it will take yet because we have not sat down with the producers ... The show will still have dogs and children but I want it to be a bit more adult too."

The programme began on ITV on Friday 10 September 2010 and ran for 10 episodes, ending on Friday 12 November 2010.

In October 2010, O'Grady attracted media attention when, on an episode of ''Paul O'Grady Live'', he openly criticised the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government for their implementation of mass cuts to government spending on social services, calling them "bastards" and remarking that "Do you know what got my back up? Those Tories hooping and hollering when they heard about the cuts. Gonna scrap the pensions – yeah! – no more wheelchairs – yeah!… I bet when they were children they laughed in ''Bambi'' when his mother got shot." His ''Bambi'' quote was soon after quoted by Peter Taffe at the Socialism 2010 conference. Meanwhile, O'Grady also used the show to voice his support for those student protesters who had occupied and vandalised the headquarters of the Conservative Party at Millbank Tower on Wednesday 10 November 2010.

Theatre

As well as numerous national tours, O'Grady has appeared on stage in ''Prisoner Cell Block H - The Musical'', the musical ''Annie'' as "Miss Hannigan" (as Lily Savage), ''Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'' as "the Childcatcher" and in the pantomime ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarves'' as the "Wicked Queen". He has been quoted as saying "I seem to be making a living frightening children". O'Grady announced on 18 October 2009 that he would be doing pantomime again in 2009-10 in Wimbledon. He appeared at the Mayflower Southampton as Lily Savage in Aladdin in 2010.

Radio work

O'Grady made his radio debut on 12 April 2003, when he stood in for Jonathan Ross to present the Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2. Then, later in December 2003, O'Grady presented a two-part documentary about Cilla Black's illustrious career, with contributions from Black's other celebrity friends. O'Grady then presented his own radio show for the first time on Christmas Day afternoon of that year.

On 28 December 2003, O'Grady chose the tracks on ''Desert Island Discs'' on BBC Radio 4.

Throughout 2004 and 2005, O'Grady voiced many adverts for other local radio stations.

O'Grady returned to Radio 2 on Easter Saturday 2006, with his very own live 3-hour special radio show. The show featured special guests and celebrity chat, the best music and a whole host of games and competitions. O'Grady also taste-tested a selection of the finest Easter Eggs in a search for Britain's Best.

O'Grady then stood in for Elaine Paige on her Sunday radio show ''Elaine Paige on Sunday'' for two weeks, on 28 January and 4 February 2007. John Barrowman then took over from O'Grady for the following two weeks, before Paige returned.

O'Grady returned with his own show on Easter Monday 2007. The show featured special guests and celebrity chat, the best music and a whole host of games and competitions.

In January 2008, O'Grady once again presented Elaine Paige on Sunday, on 13, 20 and 27 January. He sat in for her once again on 31 August, and again on 9 November.

On Christmas 2008, O'Grady returned to Radio 2 with his own show ''The Paul O'Grady Christmas Show'', featuring a seasonal mix of Christmas music and some of the biggest hits of the year, including music from McFly and Girls Aloud.

O'Grady presented a two-part documentary on New Year's Eve and New Years Day 2008 on Radio 2, which was a tribute to Bill Cotton.

From 22 February 2009, O'Grady returned to Elaine Paige on Sunday to present the show for a month, whilst Paige was on tour.

After 6 years, O'Grady was given his own show on BBC Radio 2 entitled ''Paul O'Grady On The Wireless'', each Sunday.

O'Grady once again presented a Christmas Day show in 2009, from 11am until 1pm. Like ''The Paul O'Grady Christmas Show'' that he presented last year, the show featured a round-up of the nation's favourite pantos. There was also a Christmas Motown Triple, a Carpenters Christmas Triple, and Christmas Thank Yous.

On 7 September 2010, O'Grady presented 'Come To The Cabaret', a documentary celebrating the boozy, glitzy and subversive delights of the cabaret.

For the third year running, O'Grady once again presented a special show on Christmas Day. This year, the show was three hours long, running on Christmas morning from 10.00am until 1.00pm. There were Christmas phone messages from celebrity callers, and Christmas triples from Bette Middler, Sir Cliff Richard and Dolly Parton.

Personal life

O'Grady is openly gay. However, he has previously had relationships with women as well as men, and married a Portuguese lesbian, Teresa Fernandes, who was from a Catholic family, at Harrow Road register office, London, on 1 April 1977 in a marriage of convenience. They separated in 1980, before eventually divorcing in 2005. He is very close to his daughter Sharyn, who married her childhood friend Philip Mousley at Liverpool Town Hall on 30 July 2005. O'Grady's long-term lover and business partner of 20 years was Irish television producer Brendan Frank Murphy (4 March 1956 – 9 June 2005), who was HIV+ and died of brain cancer at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, five days before O'Grady's fiftieth birthday. After the first show of series three of ''The Paul O'Grady Show'', there was a tribute to him.

O'Grady owns a flat in London, and a farm in Aldington near Ashford, Kent where his neighbour is Julian Clary. The farm is stocked with 32 animals, including a flock of geese which O'Grady refers to as the "Geese-stapo" (a pun on the ''Gestapo''). O'Grady had a grey Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise crossbreed dog named Buster Elvis Savage, who was euthanised on 19 November 2009, after he was diagnosed with cancer. A spokeswoman said "Buster had been suffering and in a lot of pain. Putting him down was the kind thing to do." O'Grady would later devote the second volume of his autobiography to his canine companion, describing him as "The greatest canine star since Lassie."

This came a few days after O'Grady announced on his show that Buster was 'in retirement' after viewers had asked if Buster had been given away, as Buster frequently appeared on his TV show with him, but has recently been replaced by one of O'Grady's other dogs, Olga, a Cairn Terrier after whom O'Grady named his recently formed production company, 'Olga TV'. He also has another dog called Louie, who only appeared a few times in the first ITV series (mainly due to his bad behaviour), before he adopted Olga live on air. On 29 September 2009, O'Grady adopted a puppy called Bullseye, who appeared on his show after much nagging from the crowd.

O'Grady became a grandfather on 26 December 2006, when his daughter Sharyn gave birth to a son, Abel. He revealed on his show on 2 December 2009 that he had become a grandfather again as Sharyn had given birth to a girl in the early hours of that morning.

Health

In April 2002, O'Grady suffered a heart attack after weeks of complaining that he felt unwell; after an emergency operation and weeks of rest, his health recovered and he gave up smoking for two years. O'Grady went back to his 40-a-day habit after his lover and business partner Brendan Murphy died; he had continued to work on the show at the same time as nursing Murphy. He suffered a second heart attack on 30 June 2006; again he was taken to the William Harvey Hospital and into intensive care. He was given an angioplasty operation before being moved to a cardiac unit. He was released on 4 July and again promised to give up smoking. He therefore postponed the new series of his show from 4 September to the end of the month. The delayed second series started on 25 September 2006, and ran over three weeks into January (for the only time in the show's history), due to its 3 week delay start.

Books

On 18 September 2008, O'Grady released his first autobiography entitled, ''At My Mother's Knee... And Other Low Joints'', which was given a positive review by ''Private Eye'' who noted that the book did not fall into the most common celebrity biography traps of being ghost written, settling scores or not sounding like it had been written by its subject. His second book entitled ''The Devil Rides Out: The Second Coming'' was released on the 16 September 2010. He confirmed on 14 October 2010, during an interview on ''Loose Women'', that he will write a third and final chapter.

TV credits

Paul O'Grady Live (2011)

''An Audience with Michael Buble'' (2010)

''Paul O'Grady Live'' (2010)

''Alan Carr: Chatty Man'' (2010)

''GMTV With Lorraine'' (2009)

''Let's Dance For Comic Relief'' (2009)

''Loose Women'' (2009)

''Most Haunted Live!'' (2009)

''This Morning'' (2009)

''A Taste Of My Life'' (2008)

''Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong'' (2008)

''Doctor Who'' (2008)

''Friday Night With Jonathan Ross'' (2008)

''Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live'' (2008)

''National Television Awards'' (2008)

''The Bill Made Me Famous'' (2008)

''The Girls Aloud Party'' (2008)

''The Graham Norton Show'' (2007)

''Parkinson'' (2006)

''The Paul O'Grady Show'' (2004–2009)

''Brainiac: Science Abuse'' (2005)

''British Comedy Awards'' (2005)

''The British Soap Awards'' (2005)

''Comic Aid'' (2005)

''Adopted'' (2004)

''Ambition'' (2004)

''Christmas'' (2004)

''Cilla Live'' (2004)

''Thief'' (2004)

''Wedding'' (2004)

''Celebrity Driving School'' (2003)

''Blankety Blank'' (2002)

''Outtake TV'' (2002)

''A Great Deliverance'' (2001)

''Paul O'Grady's America'' (2001)

''The Inspector Lynley Mysteries'' (2001)

''Lily Live!'' (2000)

''Creche Landing '' (1998)

''Closed For Business'' (1997)

''Camp Christmas'' (1993)

''In The Name Of The Father'' (1993)

''Lily Savage Live: Paying The Rent'' (1993)

''Heil And Farewell'' (1992)

''The New Statesman'' (1992)

''Chimera'' (1990)

''Information Received'' (1990)

''No Strings'' (1989)

''Personal Imports'' (1988)

''The Bill'' (1988)

References

;Notes

;Footnotes

;Bibliography

External links

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cy:Paul O'Grady de:Paul O’Grady

name	Jack the Ripper
alt	Drawing of a man with a pulled-up collar and pulled-down hat walking alone on a street watched by a group of well-dressed men behind him
birthname	Identity unknown
alias	"The Whitechapel Murderer""Leather Apron"
victims	5+?
beginyear	1888
endyear	?
country	United Kingdom }}

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".

Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard. The "From Hell" letter, received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".

Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper. An investigation into a series of brutal killings in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, but the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified. As the murders were never solved, the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. The term "ripperology" was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases. There are now over one hundred theories about the Ripper's identity, and the murders have inspired multiple works of fiction.

Background

In the mid-19th century, England experienced an influx of Irish immigrants, who swelled the populations of England's major cities, including the East End of London. From 1882, Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia moved into the same area. The civil parish of Whitechapel in London's East End became increasingly overcrowded. Work and housing conditions worsened, and a significant economic underclass developed. Robbery, violence and alcohol dependency were commonplace, and the endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution. In October 1888, London's Metropolitan Police Service estimated that there were 1200 prostitutes and about 62 brothels in Whitechapel. The economic problems were accompanied by a steady rise in social tensions. Between 1886 and 1889, frequent demonstrations, such as that of 13 November 1887, led to police intervention and further public unrest. Racism, crime, social disturbance, and real deprivation fed public perceptions that Whitechapel was a notorious den of immorality. In 1888, such perceptions were strengthened when a series of vicious and grotesque murders attributed to "Jack the Ripper" received unprecedented coverage in the media.

Murders

The large number of attacks against women in the East End during this era adds uncertainty to how many victims were killed by the same person. Eleven separate murders, stretching from 1888 to 1891, were included in a London Metropolitan Police Service investigation, and were known collectively in the police docket as the "Whitechapel murders". Opinions vary as to whether these murders should be linked to the same culprit or not, but five of the eleven Whitechapel murders, known as the "canonical five", are widely believed to be the work of the Ripper. Most experts point to deep throat slashes, abdominal and genital-area mutilation, removal of internal organs, and progressive facial mutilations as the distinctive features of Jack the Ripper's ''modus operandi''. The first two cases in the Whitechapel murders file, those of Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, are not included in the canonical five.

Smith was robbed and sexually assaulted on Osborn Street, Whitechapel, on 1888. A blunt object was inserted into her vagina, which ruptured her peritoneum. She developed peritonitis, and died the following day at London Hospital. She said that she had been attacked by two or three men, one of whom was a teenager. The attack was linked to the later murders by the press, but most authors conclude that it was gang violence unrelated to the Ripper case.

Tabram was killed on 7 August 1888; she had suffered 39 stab wounds. The savagery of the murder, the lack of obvious motive, and the closeness of the location (George Yard, Whitechapel) and date to those of the later Ripper murders led police to link them. However, the attack differs from the canonical ones in that Tabram was stabbed rather than slashed at the throat and abdomen. Many experts today do not connect it with the later murders because of the difference in the wound pattern.

Canonical five

The canonical five Ripper victims are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

Nichols' body was discovered at about on Friday 1888 in Buck's Row (now Durward Street), Whitechapel. The throat was severed deeply by two cuts, and the lower part of the abdomen was partly ripped open by a deep, jagged wound. Several other incisions on the abdomen were caused by the same knife.

Chapman's body was discovered at about on Saturday 1888 near a doorway in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. As in the case of Mary Ann Nichols, the throat was severed by two cuts. The abdomen was slashed entirely open, and it was later discovered that the uterus had been removed. At the inquest, one witness described seeing Chapman with a dark-haired man of "shabby-genteel" appearance at about .

Stride and Eddowes were killed in the early morning of Sunday 1888. Stride's body was discovered at about , in Dutfield's Yard, off Berner Street (now Henriques Street) in Whitechapel. The cause of death was one clear-cut incision which severed the main artery on the left side of the neck. Uncertainty about whether Stride's murder should be attributed to the Ripper, or whether he was interrupted during the attack, stems from the absence of mutilations to the abdomen. Witnesses who thought they saw Stride with a man earlier that night gave differing descriptions: some said her companion was fair, others dark; some said he was shabbily dressed, others well-dressed. Eddowes' body was found in Mitre Square, in the City of London, three-quarters of an hour after Stride's. The throat was severed, and the abdomen was ripped open by a long, deep, jagged wound. The left kidney and the major part of the uterus had been removed. A local man, Joseph Lawende, had passed through the square with two friends shortly before the murder, and he described seeing a fair-haired man of shabby appearance with a woman who may have been Eddowes. His companions, however, were unable to confirm his description. Eddowes' and Stride's murders were later called the "double event". Part of Eddowes' bloodied apron was found at the entrance to a tenement in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Some writing on the wall above the apron piece, which became known as the Goulston Street graffito, seemed to implicate a Jew or Jews, but it was unclear whether the graffito was written by the murderer as he dropped the apron piece, or merely incidental. Police Commissioner Charles Warren feared the graffito might spark antisemitic riots, and ordered it washed away before dawn. Kelly's gruesomely mutilated body was discovered lying on the bed in the single room where she lived at 13 Miller's Court, off Dorset Street, Spitalfields, at on Friday 1888. The throat had been severed down to the spine, and the abdomen virtually emptied of its organs. The heart was missing.

The canonical five murders were perpetrated at night, on or close to a weekend, and either at the end of a month or a week or so after. The mutilations became increasingly severe as the series of murders proceeded, except for that of Stride, whose attacker may have been interrupted. Nichols was not missing any organs; Chapman's uterus was taken; Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney removed and her face mutilated; Kelly's body was eviscerated and her face hacked away, though only her heart was missing from the crime scene.

Historically, the belief that these five crimes were committed by the same man derives from contemporary documents that link them together to the exclusion of others. In 1894, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Assistant Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), wrote a report that stated: "the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims—& 5 victims only". Similarly, the canonical five victims were linked together in a letter written by the police surgeon Thomas Bond to Robert Anderson, head of the London CID, on 1888. Some researchers have posited that while some of the murders were undoubtedly the work of a single killer, an unknown larger number of killers acting independently were responsible for the others. Authors Stewart P. Evans and Donald Rumbelow argue that the canonical five is a "Ripper myth" and that while three cases (Nichols, Chapman, and Eddowes) can be definitely linked, there is less certainty over Stride and Kelly, and less again over Tabram. Conversely, others suppose that the six murders between Tabram and Kelly were the work of a single killer. Dr Percy Clark, assistant to the examining pathologist George Bagster Phillips, linked only three of the murders and thought the others were perpetrated by "weak-minded individual[s] ... induced to emulate the crime". Macnaghten did not join the police force until the year after the murders, and his memorandum contains serious factual errors about possible suspects.

Later Whitechapel murders

Kelly is generally considered to be the Ripper's final victim, and it is assumed that the crimes ended because of the culprit's death, imprisonment, institutionalisation, or emigration. The Whitechapel murders file does, however, detail another four murders that happened after the canonical five: those of Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street torso and Frances Coles.

Mylett was found strangled in Clarke's Yard, High Street, Poplar on 1888. As there was no sign of a struggle, the police believed that she had accidentally choked herself while in a drunken stupor, or committed suicide. Nevertheless, the inquest jury returned a verdict of murder.

McKenzie was killed on 17 July 1889 by severance of the left carotid artery. Several minor bruises and cuts were found on the body, discovered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. One of the examining pathologists, Thomas Bond, believed this to be a Ripper murder, though another pathologist, George Bagster Phillips, who had examined the bodies of three previous victims, disagreed. Later writers are also divided between those who think that her murderer copied the Ripper's ''modus operandi'' to deflect suspicion from himself, and those that ascribe it to the Ripper.

"The Pinchin Street torso" was a headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, on 1889. It seems probable that the murder was committed elsewhere and that parts of the dismembered body were dispersed for disposal.

Coles was killed on 13 February 1891 under a railway arch at Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. Her throat was cut but the body was not mutilated. James Thomas Sadler, seen earlier with her, was arrested by the police, charged with her murder and was briefly thought to be the Ripper. He was, however, discharged from court for lack of evidence on 1891.

===Other alleged victims=== In addition to the eleven Whitechapel murders, commentators have linked other attacks to the Ripper. In one case, that of "Fairy Fay", it is unclear whether the attack was real or fabricated as a part of Ripper lore. "Fairy Fay" was a nickname given to a victim allegedly found on 1887 "after a stake had been thrust through her abdomen", but there were no recorded murders in Whitechapel at or around Christmas 1887. "Fairy Fay" could have been created by the press through confusion of the details of the murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith with a separate non-fatal attack the previous Christmas. Most authors agree that "Fairy Fay" never existed.

Annie Millwood was admitted to Whitechapel workhouse infirmary with stab wounds in the legs and lower abdomen on 1888. She was discharged but died from apparently natural causes aged 38 on 1888. She was later postulated as the Ripper's first victim, but the attack cannot be linked definitely. Another supposed early victim was Ada Wilson, who reportedly survived being stabbed twice in the neck on 1888. Annie Farmer, who resided at the same lodging house as Martha Tabram, reported an attack on 1888. She had a superficial cut on her throat, but it was possibly self-inflicted. "The Whitehall Mystery" was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on 1888 in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in Whitehall. An arm belonging to the body was previously discovered floating in the river Thames near Pimlico, and one of the legs was subsequently discovered buried near where the torso was found. The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never identified. The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin Street case, where the legs and head were severed but not the arms. The Whitehall Mystery and the Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders, called the "Thames Mysteries", committed by a single serial killer, dubbed the "Torso killer". Whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso killer" were the same person or separate serial killers active in the same area is debatable. As the ''modus operandi'' of the Torso killer differed from that of the Ripper, police at the time discounted any connection between the two. Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the river Thames between 2 and 1889, may have been another victim of the "Torso killer".

John Gill, a seven-year-old boy was found murdered in Manningham, Bradford, on 1888. His legs had been severed, his abdomen opened, his intestines drawn out, and his heart and one ear removed. The similarities with the murder of Mary Kelly led to press speculation that the Ripper had killed the boy. The boy's employer, milkman William Barrett, was twice arrested for the murder on circumstantial evidence but was released. No-one else was ever prosecuted.

Carrie Brown (nicknamed "Shakespeare", reportedly for quoting Shakespeare's sonnets) was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 1891 in New York City. Her body was found with a large tear through her groin area and superficial cuts on her legs and back. No organs were removed from the scene, though an ovary, either purposely removed or unintentionally dislodged, was found upon the bed. At the time, the murder was compared to those in Whitechapel though the Metropolitan Police eventually ruled out any connection.

Investigation

The surviving police files on the Whitechapel murders allow a detailed view of investigative procedure in the Victorian era. A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries throughout Whitechapel. Forensic material was collected and examined. Suspects were identified, traced and either examined more closely or eliminated from the inquiry. Police work follows the same pattern today. Over 2000 people were interviewed, "upwards of 300" people were investigated, and 80 people were detained.

The investigation was initially conducted by the Metropolitan Police Whitechapel (H) Division Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. After the murder of Nichols, Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews were sent from Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist. After the Eddowes murder, which occurred within the City of London, the City Police under Detective Inspector James McWilliam were involved. However, overall direction of the murder enquiries was hampered by the fact that the newly appointed head of the CID, Robert Anderson, was on leave in Switzerland between and , during the time Chapman, Stride and Eddowes were killed. This prompted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, to appoint Chief Inspector Donald Swanson to coordinate the enquiry from Scotland Yard.

Partly because of dissatisfaction with the police effort, a group of volunteer citizens in London's East End called the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee patrolled the streets looking for suspicious characters, petitioned the government to raise a reward for information about the killer, and hired private detectives to question witnesses independently.

Butchers, slaughterers, surgeons and physicians were suspected because of the manner of the mutilations. A surviving note from Major Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the City Police, indicates that the alibis of local butchers and slaughterers were investigated, with the result that they were eliminated from the inquiry. A report from Inspector Donald Swanson to the Home Office confirms that 76 butchers and slaughterers were visited, and that the inquiry encompassed all their employees for the previous six months. Some contemporary figures, including Queen Victoria, thought the pattern of the murders indicated that the culprit was a butcher or cattle drover on one of the cattle boats that plied between London and mainland Europe. Whitechapel was close to the London Docks, and usually such boats docked on Thursday or Friday and departed on Saturday or Sunday. The cattle boats were examined but the dates of the murders did not coincide with a single boat's movements and the transfer of a crewman between boats was also ruled out.

Criminal profiling

At the end of October, Robert Anderson asked police surgeon Thomas Bond to give his opinion on the extent of the murderer's surgical skill and knowledge. The opinion offered by Bond on the character of the "Whitechapel murderer" is the earliest surviving offender profile. Bond's assessment was based on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders. He wrote:

Bond was strongly opposed to the idea that the murderer possessed any kind of scientific or anatomical knowledge, or even "the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer". In his opinion the killer must have been a man of solitary habits, subject to "periodical attacks of homicidal and erotic mania", with the character of the mutilations possibly indicating "satyriasis". Bond also stated that "the homicidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of the mind, or that religious mania may have been the original disease but I do not think either hypothesis is likely". While there is no evidence of any sexual activity with any of the victims, psychologists suppose that the penetration of the victims with a knife and "leaving them on display in sexually degrading positions with the wounds exposed" indicates that the perpetrator derived sexual pleasure from the attacks. This view is challenged by others who dismiss such hypotheses as insupportable supposition.

Suspects

The concentration of the killings at the weekend, and within a few streets of each other, has indicated to many that the Ripper was employed during the week and lived locally. Others have thought the killer was an educated upper-class man, possibly a doctor or an aristocrat, who ventured into Whitechapel from a more well-to-do area; such theories draw on cultural perceptions such as fear of the medical profession, distrust of modern science, or the exploitation of the poor by the rich. Suspects proposed years after the murders include virtually anyone remotely connected to the case by contemporary documents, as well as many famous names, who were never considered in the police investigation. As everyone alive at the time is now dead, modern authors are free to accuse anyone, "without any need for any supporting historical evidence". Suspects named in contemporary police documents include three in Sir Melville Macnaghten's 1894 memorandum, but the evidence against them is circumstantial at best.

Despite the many and varied theories about the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, authorities are not agreed on a single solution and the number of named suspects reaches over one hundred.

Letters

Over the course of the Ripper murders, the police, newspapers and others received many hundreds of letters regarding the case. Some were well-intentioned offers of advice for catching the killer but the vast majority were useless.

Hundreds of letters claimed to have been written by the killer himself, and three of these in particular are prominent: the "Dear Boss" letter, the "Saucy Jacky" postcard and the "From Hell" letter.

The "Dear Boss" letter, dated , was postmarked 1888. It was received that day by the Central News Agency, and was forwarded to Scotland Yard on . Initially it was considered a hoax, but when Eddowes was found three days after the letter's postmark with one ear partially cut off, the letter's promise to "clip the ladys (sic) ears off" gained attention. However, Eddowes' ear appears to have been nicked by the killer incidentally during his attack, and the letter writer's threat to send the ears to the police was never carried out. The name "Jack the Ripper" was first used in this letter by the signatory and gained worldwide notoriety after its publication. Most of the letters that followed copied this letter's tone. Some sources list another letter, dated 1888, as the first to use the name of Jack the Ripper, but most experts believe this was a modern fake inserted into police records in the 20th century, long after the killings took place.

The "Saucy Jacky" postcard was postmarked 1888 and received the same day by the Central News Agency. The handwriting was similar to the "Dear Boss" letter. It mentions that two victims were killed very close to one another: "double event this time", which was thought to refer to the murders of Stride and Eddowes. It has been argued that the letter was mailed before the murders were publicised, making it unlikely that a crank would have such knowledge of the crime, but it was postmarked more than 24 hours after the killings took place, long after details were known by journalists and residents of the area.

The "From Hell" letter was received by George Lusk, leader of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, on 1888. The handwriting and style is unlike that of the "Dear Boss" letter and postcard. The letter came with a small box in which Lusk discovered half of a kidney, preserved in "spirits of wine" (ethanol). Eddowes' left kidney had been removed by the killer. The writer claimed that he "fried and ate" the missing kidney half. There is disagreement over the kidney: some contend it belonged to Eddowes, while others argue it was nothing more than a macabre practical joke. The kidney was examined by Dr Thomas Openshaw of the London Hospital, who determined that it was human and from the left side, but (contrary to false newspaper reports) he could not determine its gender or age. Openshaw subsequently also received a letter signed "Jack the Ripper".

Scotland Yard published facsimiles of the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard on , in the ultimately vain hope that someone would recognise the handwriting. In a letter to Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Charles Warren explained "I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case." On 1888, George R. Sims in the Sunday newspaper ''Referee'' implied scathingly that the letter was written by a journalist "to hurl the circulation of a newspaper sky high". Police officials later claimed to have identified a specific journalist as the author of both the "Dear Boss" letter and the postcard. The journalist was identified as Tom Bullen in a letter from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to George R. Sims dated 1913. A journalist called Fred Best reportedly confessed in 1931 that he had written the letters to "keep the business alive".

Media

The Ripper murders mark an important watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists. Tax reforms in the 1850s had enabled the publication of inexpensive newspapers with wider circulation. These mushroomed later in the Victorian era to include mass-circulation newspapers as cheap as a halfpenny, along with popular magazines such as the ''Illustrated Police News'', which made the Ripper the beneficiary of previously unparalleled publicity.

After the murder of Nichols in early September, the ''Manchester Guardian'' reported that: "Whatever information may be in the possession of the police they deem it necessary to keep secret ... It is believed their attention is particularly directed to ... a notorious character known as 'Leather Apron'." Journalists were frustrated by the unwillingness of the CID to reveal details of their investigation to the public, and so resorted to writing reports of questionable veracity. Imaginative descriptions of "Leather Apron" appeared in the press, but rival journalists dismissed these as "a mythical outgrowth of the reporter's fancy". John Pizer, a local Jew who made footwear from leather, was known by the name "Leather Apron" and was arrested, even though the investigating inspector reported that "at present there is no evidence whatsoever against him". He was soon released after the confirmation of his alibis.

After the publication of the "Dear Boss" letter, "Jack the Ripper" supplanted "Leather Apron" as the name adopted by the press and public to describe the killer. The name "Jack" was already used to describe another fabled London attacker: "Spring-Heeled Jack", who supposedly leapt over walls to strike at his victims and escape as quickly as he came. The invention and adoption of a nickname for a particular killer became standard media practice with examples such as the Axeman of New Orleans, the Boston Strangler, and the Beltway Sniper. Examples derived from Jack the Ripper include the French Ripper, the Düsseldorf Ripper, the Camden Ripper, the Blackout Ripper, Jack the Stripper, the Yorkshire Ripper, and the Rostov Ripper. Sensational press reports, combined with the fact that no one was ever convicted of the murders, have confused scholarly analysis and created a legend that casts a shadow over later serial killers.

Legacy

The nature of the murders and of the victims drew attention to the poor living conditions in the East End, and galvanised public opinion against the overcrowded, unsanitary slums. In the two decades after the murders, the worst of the slums were cleared and demolished, but the streets and some buildings survive and the legend of the Ripper is still promoted by guided tours of the murder sites. The Ten Bells public house in Commercial Street was frequented by at least one of the victims and was the focus of such tours for many years.

In addition to the contradictions and unreliability of contemporary accounts, attempts to identify the real killer are hampered by the lack of surviving forensic evidence. DNA analysis on extant letters is inconclusive; the available material has been handled many times and is too contaminated to provide meaningful results. To date more than 100 non-fiction works deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects. The term "ripperology" was coined by Colin Wilson in the 1970s to describe the study of the case by professionals and amateurs. The periodicals ''Ripperana'', ''Ripperologist'' and ''Ripper Notes'' publish their research.

Jack the Ripper features in hundreds of works of fiction and works which straddle the boundaries between both fact and fiction, including the Ripper letters and a hoax Diary of Jack the Ripper. The Ripper appears in novels, short stories, poems, comic books, games, songs, plays, operas, television programmes and films.

In the immediate aftermath of the murders, and later, "Jack the Ripper became the children's bogey man." Depictions were often phantasmic or monstrous. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was depicted in film dressed in everyday clothes as a man with a hidden secret preying on his unsuspecting victims; atmosphere and evil were suggested through lighting effects and shadowplay. By the 1960s, the Ripper had become "the symbol of a predatory aristocracy", and was portrayed in a top hat dressed as a gentleman. The Establishment as a whole became the villain with the Ripper acting as a manifestation of upper-class exploitation. The image of the Ripper merged with or borrowed symbols from horror stories, such as Dracula's cloak or Victor Frankenstein's organ harvest. The fictional world of the Ripper can fuse with multiple genres, ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Japanese erotic horror.

Unlike murderers of lesser fame, there is no waxwork figure of Jack the Ripper at Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, in accordance with their policy of not modelling persons whose likeness is unknown. He is instead depicted as a shadow. In 2006, Jack the Ripper was selected by ''BBC History'' magazine and its readers as the worst Briton in history.

See also

List of murderers by number of victims

Servant Girl Annihilator

Notes

References

Begg, Paul (2003). ''Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History''. London: Pearson Education. ISBN 0-582-50631-X

Begg, Paul (2006). ''Jack the Ripper: The Facts''. Anova Books. ISBN 1-86105-687-7

Cook, Andrew (2009). ''Jack the Ripper''. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84868-327-3

Curtis, Lewis Perry (2001). ''Jack The Ripper & The London Press''. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08872-8

Eddleston, John J. (2002). ''Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopedia''. London: Metro Books. ISBN 1-84358-046-2

Evans, Stewart P.; Rumbelow, Donald (2006). ''Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates''. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-4228-2

Evans, Stewart P.; Skinner, Keith (2000). ''The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook: An Illustrated Encyclopedia''. London: Constable and Robinson. ISBN 1-84119-225-2

Evans, Stewart P.; Skinner, Keith (2001). ''Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell''. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-2549-3

Fido, Martin (1987), ''The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-79136-2

Marriott, Trevor (2005). ''Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation''. London: John Blake. ISBN 1-84454-103-7

Meikle, Denis (2002). ''Jack the Ripper: The Murders and the Movies''. Richmond, Surrey: Reynolds and Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-32-3

Rivett, Miriam; Whitehead, Mark (2006). ''Jack the Ripper''. Harpenden, Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials. ISBN 978-1-904048-69-5

Rumbelow, Donald (2004). ''The Complete Jack the Ripper. Fully Revised and Updated''. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-017395-6

Sugden, Philip (2002). ''The Complete History of Jack the Ripper''. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0276-1

Werner, Alex (editor, 2008). ''Jack the Ripper and the East End''. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 978-0-7011-8247-2

Woods, Paul; Baddeley, Gavin (2009). ''Saucy Jack: The Elusive Ripper''. Hersham, Surrey: Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7110-3410-5

External links

The National Archives: images and transcripts of letters claiming to be from Jack the Ripper.

Casebook: Jack the Ripper

Rossmo, D. K., "Jack the Ripper", Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation, Texas State University.

Jack the Ripper 1888: examines the history of the murders and puts them into the social context of the era.

FBI file on Jack the Ripper a 1988 centennial investigation of the case

Category:1888 crimes Category:1888 in England Category:Crimes against sex workers Category:English serial killers Category:History of the City of London Category:History of Tower Hamlets Category:Murder in London Category:People of the Victorian era Category:Unidentified serial killers Category:1888 in London Category:1888 in the United Kingdom

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