Phillip Schofield
Biography
Phillip emigrated with his family when he was 17 to New Zealand, where he fronted Shazam, a pop music show. Further radio and TV jobs followed during the next three years.
Shortly after returning to the UK, he began presenting programme links for Children's BBC from the "broom cupboard", in conjuction with a puppet called Gordon the Gopher. His other shows included quiz The Movie Game, "Take Two" (the kids' version of "Points of View") and later Saturday-morning show Going Live!.
A mish-mash of different ITV projects - from holiday shows to documentaries - haven't particularly done him justice, with the exception of Talking Telephone Numbers which ran for a credible five series. These days he hosts This Morning alongside Fern Britton (and sometimes Lorraine Kelly). After the success of Dancing on Ice, he accepted two-year exclusive contract with ITV, hence why he doesn't do Test the Nation anymore.
A surprise hit in the theatre in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat (he took over the title role from Jason Donovan), he returned to the stage in the acclaimed Doctor Dolittle.
Trivia
Phillip Schofield was the first in-vision presenter to link the famous weekday afternoon programmes slots on Children's BBC.
While he was hosting "Take Two", Schofield was apparently approached by the then Blue Peter editor, Biddy Baxter, to become a presenter on her show without even having to go through an audition, but he turned the offer down.
Schofield's first proper foray into 'adult television' occurred in the late-1980's, when he hosted a series entitled "Schofield's Europe", visiting a number of different European countries. In 1992, he hosted a very enjoyable peak-time show entitled "Television's Greatest Hits" (not to be confused with the Gaby Roslin-hosted quiz of the same name), in which he looked at the highest-rated programmes of a specific year and had studio guests relating to the year in question: these included Ronnie Corbett, Nicholas Parsons, Tammy Wynette, Brian Blessed, Sir Dennis Healey, Emlyn Hughes and Lynda Baron. A shame that the show only lasted one series (plus a Christmas special): it definitely deserved at least one more series.
Contact
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