Phillip Schofield (born 1 April, 1962) is a British television presenter.

Television

Schofield was born in the Lancashire town of Oldham. He left at 17 to take up his position as a bookings clerk for BBC Radio at Broadcasting House in London, where he was, at the time, the youngest employee. When he was 19, he moved with his family to New Zealand, where he made his television debut presenting the children's music programme Shazam! on 23 February, 1982. He also spent two years working for the Auckland-based station Radio Hauraki.

In 1985, Schofield returned to England, where he became the first in-vision continuity presenter for Children's BBC on weekdays for two years from September 1985. He left the "Broom Cupboard" to present Going Live! on Saturday mornings between September 1987 and April 1993.

He then moved to adult-oriented TV with various documentaries and holiday programmes for ITV. From 1994 to 1997, Schofield presented Talking Telephone Numbers for five series, and the National Lottery Winning Lines programme for BBC One between June 2001 and October 2004.

His two current assignments with ITV1 are as co-presenter of daytime TV talk-show, This Morning (since 3 September, 2002) and as co-presenter of the BAFTA-nominated celebrity reality television show Dancing on Ice (since 2006) alongside Holly Willoughby.

Following the success of that show, and his continued spot on This Morning, ITV signed Schofield to an exclusive two-year contract (a so-called golden handcuffs deal) in July 2006, alleged to be worth £5 million.http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds35131.html

The exclusive deal also meant he could no longer present the BBC nationwide quiz Test the Nation, which he had presented for fifteen editions with Anne Robinson between 2002 and 2006. Schofield was replaced by Danny Wallace.

During the run of the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, Schofield co-hosted the new ITV1 spin-off series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here! Exclusive with Sheree Murphy. He has also presented two series of Have I Been Here Before?, a programme in which a celebrity attempts to use regression to get in touch with a previous life.

On 23 February, 2007, Schofield celebrated his 25th anniversary as a television presenter. A surprise feature on This Morning showed highlights of his career, along with tributes from his parents, Pat and Brian; wife since 1993, Stephanie (née Lowe); daughters Ruby and Molly; and brother, Tim. At the conclusion of the tribute, Gordon the Gopher, on the beach at his "retirement clinic" in Hawaii, was blown up via a detonator manned by Fern Britton.

On 1 May, 2008 Schofield's father, Brian, died after a long-standing heart condition, which led to Schofield taking a break from presenting This Morning. John Barrowman stood in for him until his return.

In April 2008, Phillip and his colleague, Fern Britton, presented a revival of the hit ITV show Mr and Mrs. A celebrity version, it aired as a six-part series on Saturday nights.

Radio

During the same period Schofield was presenting Going Live!, he was also broadcasting on BBC Radio 1 with a Sunday show (also called Going Live).

When Radio 1 made the switch from medium wave to FM stereo in 1988, Schofield was one of the presenters chosen to help with the launch by officiating at the turning on of the Southend transmitter. During his 2005 appearance on Room 101, Schofield recalled how a large crowd gathered in expectation of Simon Mayo arriving by helicopter to turn on the transmitter. Due to a miscommunication, however, Mayo instead flew to nearby Norwich. Realising the crowd would be disappointed by Mayo's failure to appear, Schofield and an unnamed producer fled in a Radio 1 outside broadcast vehicle without revealing the bad news and leaving the crowd - which included the town's mayor - still watching the sky. For this reason, and as a result of a later incident involving wing walking on a plane leaving Southend Airport, Schofield chose Southend as one of his pet hates for the programme.

Theatre

Schofield elected to try his hand at theatre, and took over the role of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat from Jason Donovan on the West End stage. As a consequence, he achieved a moderately-placed single in the UK charts with Close Every Door. Another theatre production he was involved in was Dr Doolittle.

Gordon the Gopher

Schofield was accompanied by Gordon the Gopher, a hand puppet, in his Children's BBC and Going Live! days. Gordon is often mentioned, and sometimes appears, on Schofield's TV interviews, usually as a joke or novelty. When Schofield appeared on Room 101, Gordon was the first thing Schofield asked to be interred there - however, the audience took the side of the rodent. His four choices for inclusion were Gordon the Gopher (rejected), Rooks (accepted), Southend-on-Sea (accepted) and Satellite navigation systems (accepted).

External links

• Official Phillip Schofield website
• Phillip Schofield at itv.com