Paul O'Grady

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Born on June 14, 1955, Paul James Grady, MBE, is an English comedian, television presenter, writer, and radio DJ.

With his drag queen character, Lily Savage, who went mainstream in the 1990s, O'Grady became not well known in the London gay scene in the 1980s.

He reacted with his appearance until becoming the host of a variety of television and radio shows in the 2000s, including The Paul O'Grady Exhibition. Born in Birkenhead, O'Grady, in the 1970s, he started working as a peripatetic care officer for Camden Council.

He began his drag act in 1978, baseding Lily Savage's appearance on characteristics that were not present among female relatives.

He went solo as a stand-up comedian touring northern England as part of the Drag Mime duo, the Playgirls.

He grew a following among the city's gay community and spoke out for LGBT rights after performing as Savage for eight years at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (RVT).

After being nominated for the 1992 Perrier Award, he attracted widespread notice and made numerous television, radio, and theater appearances.

As Savage, he hosted The Big Breakfast (1995–2002), game show Blankety Blank (1997–2002), and comedy series Lily Live! 2000-2001-02: I'm a student at the University of On the other hand, he's been awarded various accolades and became a well-known public figure. O'Grady, a former Savage, appeared in BBC Eyes Down (2003–04) and produced two travel books for ITV, hoping to diversify his work away from Savage.

In 2004, he began hosting The Paul O'Grady Show, which was a hit with audiences.

In 2006, when the network refused to hand over creative control of the series to O'Grady's production firm, Olga TV, he defected to Channel 4, where the show was rebranded as The New Paul O'Grady Show and lasted until 2009.

Paul O'Grady Live (2010–2011), as well as Paul O'Grady's Animal Orphanage (2014–2016), while presenting BBC Radio 2's Paul O'Grady on the Radio and publishing a four-volume autobiographical, while presenting BBC Radio 2's Paul O'Grady on the Wireless and publishing a four-volume autobiographical. In the 2008 Birthday Honours for services to entertainment, O'Grady has been given a variety of awards, among which are honorary degrees and an MBE.

Early life

O'Grady was born on June 14th, 1955 at St. Catherine's Hospital in Birkenhead, Cheshire, (now Merseyside). Patrick "Paddy" Grady (1912-1933), an Irish boy who grew up in Ballincurry, County Roscommon, before settling in England in 1936 and settling in Birkenhead, a working-class neighborhood. When he joined the Royal Air Force, his name was changed from "Grady" to "O'Grady" in a paperwork mistake, but he kept the original spelling. Patrick married Mary "Molly" Savage (1916-1988), who was born in England to Irish immigrants from County Louth. Paul was their third child and his life came more than a decade after brothers Brendan (born 1941) and sister Sheila (born 1944).

At 23 Holly Grove in Higher Tranmere, O'Grady spent his youth at the family's rented house. "I have no bad memories when I look back on my childhood," he said later. Our family was loving and full of love. I had no idea what divorce was until I moved to London. "I was a indulged child and was entirely shielded from everything bad." O'Grady, a Catholic Primary School in St. Joseph's, excelled in all subjects other than mathematics. His parents paid for his son's tuition at a private school, the Catholic-run Redcourt, hoping that he had a positive future ahead of him, but his grades fell. He was too late to enroll in a grammar school, so he attended the Blessed Edmund Campion R.C. Secondary Modern and the Corpus Christi High School. O'Grady's first homosexual encounter was at the school, where he was enjoying a brief friendship with another boy, but he mistook him for heterosexual.

O'Grady, a fan of the famous television series The Avengers and Batman, had been accepted by his mother in the Cub Scouts but he resisted it, leaving after a month. He was dismissed after laughing at a funeral service as an altar boy at a local Catholic church. He then joined the Sea Cadet Corps' Marine Cadet Section, later claiming that he was following in the footsteps of his childhood hero, the cartoon Popeye. He loved the cadets and joined the Boys' Amateur Boxing Club on his captain's recommendation, resulting in a lifelong love of the game. Since burglarizing a house with three relatives, playing truant from school, he got into trouble with his parents and then the police. O'Grady's first job was a paper round that he kept for a week, and he saved up to buy Mod clothes for a time as a suedehead.

Since leaving school at the age of 16, O'Grady obtained a career in the civil service, as a clerical assistant for the DHSS in Liverpool; he commuted in from his parents' Tranmere home. He worked part-time at the Royal Air Forces Association (RAFA) club in Oxton, supplementing his income. He resigned after being called to a discipline hearing at the DHSS and accused of incompetent conduct and tardiness. Aged 17, O'Grady obtained a job at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Surrey, Surrey; the staff accused him of stealing, which he denied.

Prospertly returning to Birkenhead, he became increasingly gay, attended meetings of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, and working at the Bear's Paw in a gay bar; this was kept a mystery from his parents, who was not "out of the closet." He had casual sex with Diane Jansen, a female friend who became pregnant, in the same week that O'Grady learned that both his parents died from heart attacks; his mother recovered, but his father died. Following Sharon Lee Jansen's birth in May 1974, O'Grady promised to pay for her upkeep but refused to marry Jansen, acknowledging his homosexuality.

O'Grady spent a short time as an assistant clerk at Liverpool Magistrates' Court, supplementing the funds with the occasional night at the Bear's Paw. He was unable to help himself and his daughter, but found only low paying barman work in London. He began identifying with drag queens in London, particularly a couple who used the stage name Harlequeens. Despite making friends in the city, O'Grady was sick and returned to Birkenhead. He started working as an accountant in a FMC Meats Merseyside abattoir, and later worked at the Children's Convalescent Home and School in West Kirby, a home for disabled and abused children.

He rented a flat in Crouch End and started busking with a friend in Camden Town before returning to London to work as a physiotherapist's assistant at the Royal Northern Hospital. O'Grady began working at the Showplace, befriending Teresa Fernandes, a Portuguese lesbian woman who was made redundant by government sector layoffs, befriending a Portuguese lesbian named Teresa Fernandes. They married in May 1977 to prevent her removal; they lost touch and only divorced in 2005. He began working as a cleaner and a waiter at private functions; living in Camden Council as a peripatetic care officer had a long-term effect on him.

Personal life

Sharon, O'Grady's daughter, was born in 1974 with his friend Diane Jansen. Abel, O'Grady's grandson, was born in December 2006, with a granddaughter born in December 2009. He was in a marriage of convenience with Portuguese woman Teresa Fernandes from 1977 to 2005, but he was not in a long-term relationship with her.

Brendan Frank Murphy, his long-time companion and business partner, was born on March 4, 1956, and died on June 9, 2005. He wrote a book about him "always had a penchant for the bad boys." O'Grady is best known for her many high-profile and celebrity friends, including actor Mo Mowlam, actress Amanda Mealing and Barbara Windsor, comedian Brenda Gilhooly, and singer Cilla Black, who is commonly known as "Lily" or "Lil" in several circles.

O'Grady divides his time between his Central London flat and his rural Kentish farmhouse, where he grows organic fruit and vegetables as well as a variety of herbs, due to his keen interest in herbalism. As a child, O'Grady kept rabbits, hamsters, mice, a ferret, and a rat as pets; as a result, his mother found him "a bit strange." He has owned sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens, geese, ferrets, bats, mice, and dogs on his farm.

Two of O'Grady's pet dogs became well known to the British public through appearances on The Paul O'Grady Show. Buster Elvis Savage, a Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise cross, was the first rescue dog. In November 2009, a buster was euthanized due to cancer. Buster's second volume of his autobiography, "The greatest canine actor since Lassie," O'Grady called him. The Cairn Terrier Olga, a second dog, attracted even more interest. It was revealed in 2013 that she was receiving chemotherapy due to cancer. Olga died in April 2018 after suffering from kidney disease.

In an interview with the Daily Mirror in 2006, O'Grady admitted that smoking forty cigarettes a day caused his two heart attacks.

O'Grady is a social critic who has been raised by his father to see them as social parasites; the exception in his mind was Diana, Princess of Wales, who was praised for her charitable work with people living with HIV/AIDS. O'Grady expressed support for Labour Party Ed Miliband, a Labour leader who is regarded as a better candidate for UK Prime Minister David Cameron in 2013. He slammed the Conservative-Liberal coalition government when it was in power, calling them "completely disgusting." They have no idea what the common working man and woman are doing. They are not in touch with the working class. They have lived privileged lives; they've attended public schools and never been on the shop floor. Jeremy Corbyn, Miliband's successor, was also lauded.

Despite his wealth, he still felt "very much" working-class in 2015, according to a reporter; "I know that may sound strange." I'm still am, mentally speaking. I'm still wondering if I'm getting the rent for Friday. Although he was raised as a Roman Catholic, he related having "grown out of Catholicism" after his mother's death, but he had "always been interested in alternative faiths," citing a particular interest in Wicca. He has also seen unexplained lights over his Kent home, considering the possibility that extraterrestrials were observing him.

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Career in drag

O'Grady's first attempt at putting together a drag show portrayed Lily Savage's character; he later wrote, "I wanted to get up there but be larger than life, but not human." He made his debut on October 7, 1978 at The Black Cap gay bar in Camden, where his act involved miming the words to Barbra Streisand's "Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" from "Boyles and Needles." He visited an ex-boyfriend in Manila, Philippines, and spent a short time as a barman and waiter at a brothel.

O'Grady and the Glamazons, a drag act, performed in London, migrated to Purley and then Streatham. He founded the Playgirls, a two-man drag mime act, but found no jobs in London, with one of them named "Hush." They migrated to Slaithwaite, Yorkshire, after a month of playing at a club in Copenhagen, Denmark, adapting to a tour of northern England. O'Grady discovered fire eating and created a striptease while wearing a fat suit he described as "Biddy." O'Grady continued his drag show as a solo act under the name of "Paul Monroe," a nod to Marilyn Monroe. O'Grady and his mother took him back to Birkenhead to help with financial difficulties. O'Grady briefly lived off the dole before resurrecting the Playgirls with his companion Vera; they were first seen in Liverpool, where they were trapped in the 1981 Toxteth riots, before returning to London.

O'Grady lived in Vauxhall and then Brixton before reviving the Playgirls with Hush, devising an approach based on the film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? In a drag pantomime of Cinderella at the end of the year, he appeared as an Ugly Sister. He joined the Equity Union in March 1983, allowing him to participate in the Donmar Warehouse's dramatic production of If They'd Asked for a Lion Tamer. The Playgirls gained interest in London and even in Amsterdam and Copenhagen; O'Grady and Hush formed a group called "LSD" for "Lily, Sandra, and Doris; They gained interest in London and Edinburgh as a result of Devising an act that parodied children's television show Andy Pandy.

O'Grady first started working as a barman at the Elephant and Castle in Vauxhall, 1984. He hosted "Ladies Night" each Tuesday, where amateur drag acts would appear. He attempted out comedy routines as compere, becoming famous for disparaging both the performers and the audience; as compere, he attracted large audiences and was interviewed by artist Patrick Procktor. He moved his act to the nearby Royal Vauxhall Tavern (RVT) gay bar, re-opening his show on Thursday nights as "Stars of the Future." In 1985, he bought his own council flat in Vauxhall's Victoria Mansions. He began a friendship with Brendan "Murph" Murphy, the administrator of a gay sauna near the Oval, Kennington, in the 1980s. Murphy became O'Grady's boss later in life.

On Sundays, O'Grady began appearing at the Union Tavern in Camberwell and the Goldsmith's Tavern in New Cross, where he often preceded Vic Reeves' three-hour show Vic Reeves Big Night Out. Since quitting his council positions, he concentrated fully on his work as Lily, performing around the country and abroad. The Madame JoJo's club in Soho, the Bloomsbury Theatre, and the Heaven nightclub were among his performances. O'Grady and his befriend, Beloved American drag queen Divine and his handler Bernard Jay, are due to appear in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. O'Grady produced his own Hi-NRG song "Hardy at the Top," as Divine had done. He appeared in The Scythe of Reason in 1988 and then appeared at the Glasgow Mayfest, where he began a lifelong friendship with actor Ian McKellen.

During the HIV/AIDS epidemic, O'Grady spoke out on topics affecting the gay community, especially during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He marched against Section 28, which Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government initiated a drive in 1988 that many protested as homophobic. Many of his friends died as a result of AIDS-related illnesses, and he later said, "People my age will never get over the horrors." Amanda Mealing, who was in a play about the illness at the King's Head Theatre in Islington, was befriending co-star Amanda Mealing.

O'Grady appeared on the Edinburgh Fringe every year from 1989 to 1992, gaining increasing success. He was nominated for the 1991 Perpetrier Award alongside Jack Dee, Eddie Izzard, and Frank Skinner, the ultimate winner. "The Edinburgh Festival changed my life," he later said. The experience opened doors for me that would have otherwise been largely closed, exposing me to a much larger audience than I had expected." Lily Savage Live from the Hackney Empire came after O'Grady's performance was the first time his appearance was recorded. He began in 1992 on an Australian tour, starring Australian comedian Mark Trevorrow, and then travelled to Los Angeles, where he was present for the 1992 riots in the city.

In three episodes of ITV's police drama The Bill, O'Grady made his television debut when he portrayed Roxanne, a transvestite prostitute informant. O'Grady's mother died just before filming on the first episode. He appeared in the ITV miniseries Chimera as a social worker in 1990, and he befriended co-star Liza Tarbuck during filming. In an episode of Rik Mayall's ITV comedy The New Statesman, he followed this with a performance as a Marlene Dietrich-style cabaret singer. He had continued to work at the RVT, and after Pat and Breda McConnor, the company's founders, decided to move on, Murphy and Murphy unsuccessfully attempted to replace them. Since the McConnors left, O'Grady never returned to the RVT.

O'Grady continued to tour as Lily and then released VHS videos of his appearances after leaving the RVT. Viva Cabaret, a late-night Channel 4 comedy show, is gaining more attention after appearing on an episode of BBC quiz show That's Showbusiness, which was broadcast on ABC. He began appearing on Woman's Hour and Loose Ends as Lily on Woman's Hour and Loose Ends. He travelled to Dublin, Ireland, to act as an inmate in the 1993 film In the Name of the Father, but not in the Lily role, he was also cast as "Paul Savage." Lily, who appeared on an October 1994 episode of BBC series The Steve Wright People Show, made a cameo in the soap Brookside the next month and premiered an episode of BBC Music Show Top of the Pops. In an episode of BBC children's show Pirates, he also appeared as a female pirate.

He was also hired to narrate BBC Two's Life Swaps, as part of Live from the Lilydrome, which was shot in a Blackpool working men's club. He appeared in Albert Hall's 1994 Equality Exhibition, despite top billing by the gay rights charity Stonewall. In 1994, he was nominated for both Top Live Stand-Up Comedian and Top Television Newcomer, reflecting his increasing success in mainstream British comedy. Some on the gay scene in South London were dismissive of O'Grady, accusing him of being a sell-out; he vehemently denied these allegations, saying, "I've done almost ten years on the factory floor and now I feel I deserving a shot in the office."

After Paula Yates resigned as host of the Channel 4 morning television show The Big Breakfast, its production company Planet 24 retained O'Grady to replace her. As a trial run, a four-week Lie-in with Lily was sent. Lily, O'Grady, skipped the planned questions of PR agents and instead asked personal questions of his guests; attracted 2 million viewers, Planet 24 renewed his deal to keep him as presenter. He befriended several A-list celebrities, including Elton John and Cher, through personal contacts in showbusiness. In a musical adaptation of Prisoner Cell Block H at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End, O'Grady found the early morning matinee challenging, particularly because he was also appearing as Lily in a musical version of Prisoner Cell Block H. O'Grady took a break from The Big Breakfast to accompany it when the musical first toured the United Kingdom.

On tour, Buster, a shih tzu-bichon frisé cross, was much happier than in a television studio or theater; O'Grady later said that "He was never happier than in a television studio or theater." He was a smashing dog." At the time, O'Grady had been wanting to know his teenage daughter; the Daily Mirror tabloid portrayed her existence as a headline story in autumn 1994. O'Grady, a critic of the media, has condemned them for merely referring to him as a drag queen; he said that Barry Humphries, who played Dame Edna Everage, was "never called a drag act because he is a heterosexual male." I'm not a gay guy, but I'm referred to as one. It's homophobic and ineffective because there is nothing remotely sexual about what I do. "I dress up as a woman for financial reasons, not else."

In April 1996, O'Grady filming An Evening with Lily Savage was broadcast on ITV in November. It was named Best Entertainment Program at the 1997 National Television Awards, a hit. He turned down ITV's following offer of a weekly show because it would air before the watershed and thereby force him to dramatically change his appearance into a form of light entertainment. Murphy founded Wildflower, a production firm. He returned to theatre for a 16-week sell-out run at Blackpool's North Pier Theatre and then Lily's Christmas Cracker at the Blackpool Opera House, the latter being filmed for broadcast by the BBC. He decided to appear Lily in Ford Escort ads, then appeared in ad campaigns for Pretty Polly tights, the soft drink Oasis, and a bingo company at this moment. Mr. Spencer was able to move from his Vauxhall council flat to a house near Tower Bridge in South London thanks to his earnings from his appearances. He also bought a house in Saltaire.

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