Noel Edmonds

The son of Dudley Edmonds, a headmaster who worked in Hainault, London, and Lydia Edmonds, an art teacher, Edmonds attended Glade Primary School in Clayhall and Brentwood School in Brentwood, Essex. He was offered a place at the University of Surrey but turned it down in favour of a job as a newsreader on Radio Luxembourg, which was offered to him in 1968 after he sent tapes to offshore radio stations.

In 1969, Edmonds moved to BBC Radio 1, where he began by recording trailers for broadcasts and filling in for absent DJs, such as Kenny Everett. In April 1970, he began his own two-hour Saturday-afternoon programme, broadcasting from 1 pm to 3 pm, before replacing Everett on Saturday mornings from 10 am to 12 noon in July that year. In October 1971, he was moved to a Sunday-morning slot from 10 am to 12 noon before being promoted to host The Radio 1 Breakfast Show from Monday 4 June 1973 to Friday 28 April 1978, taking over from Tony Blackburn. Edmonds moved to Sunday mornings and early afternoons, from 10 am to 1 pm, in 1978 and also presented Talkabout, an hour-long talk show broadcast on Thursday evenings. Edmonds left Radio 1 in March 1983.

Edmonds married Gillian Slater in 1971, but the marriage ended in divorce after eleven years. From July 1986 to 2005, he was married to Helen Soby; the couple have four daughters.

Edmonds hosted Top of the Pops at various points between 1970 and 1978, during which time he also presented a phone-in programme for teenagers called Z Shed on BBC1 as well as a programme called Hobby Horse. He hosted the children's Saturday-morning programme Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, which ran from 1976 to 1982. With fellow Swap Shop regulars Maggie Philbin and Keith Chegwin, Edmonds was a member of the trio Brown Sauce, which recorded the single "I Wanna Be a Winner" in 1981. It reached number 15 in the UK singles chart. In 1980, Edmonds took part in the Eurovision Song Contest, introducing the UK entry live on stage at the final in the Hague. During Swap Shop's run Edmonds hosted Lucky Numbers, a Saturday evening phone-in quiz programme which required viewers to call in and answer questions based on clips of films shown, and a revival of the 1960s pop music series Juke Box Jury.

Edmonds was involved in the Live Aid concerts in 1985, transporting stars to and from the Wembley Stadium concert via helicopter and appearing on stage at Wembley to introduce the joint set by Sting and Phil Collins. Edmonds also took Collins to Heathrow Airport, where Collins boarded Concorde to fly to the United States to perform at the Philadelphia concert.

In 1985, Edmonds formed the Unique Group, which consisted of various operations. The Unique Broadcasting Company Media Group plc (UBCMG) was an independent producer of audio programming in the UK, supplying BBC and independent radio. Michael Peacock was an executive of the group between 1989 and 2005, and former Radio 1 controller Johnny Beerling joined the group following his departure from the network in 1993. It owned Classic Gold Digital before selling the stations back to GCap Media which merged them into the Gold network. Edmonds resigned as non-executive director of UBCMG in March 2006 as a direct result of the success of Deal or No Deal. As of 2006, Edmonds also had interests in Unique Motor Company, a producer of small off-road vehicles.

The programme is remembered for several accidents during its regular "Give it a Whirl" stunt slot; in particular the death of Michael Lush. The show was cancelled by the BBC on 15 November 1986, following the death of Lush two days earlier. While rehearsing a bungee jump to be performed live on the show, Michael Lush plunged 120 feet (37 m) to his death when his rope came loose. Edmonds resigned from the BBC immediately afterwards.

In June 1986, Edmonds hosted The Noel Edmonds Show on the ABC network in the United States. The series was a one-week trial late-night talk show, following Nightline.

The programme was a slow-burning success and, following the third series in 1990, Edmonds' popularity and reputation were sufficiently re-established with the public for Edmonds to pitch his idea for Noel's House Party to the BBC.

Telly Addicts was a BBC1 game show hosted by Edmonds, who also owned the format. Telly Addicts broadcast for 13 years from 3 September 1985 until 29 July 1998. Questions were based on past and present television programmes, and generally took the form of a short clip being shown followed by a series of questions either specifically about the clip or more generally about the programme from which it had been taken. Two teams sat opposite each other on sofas. In 1991 he presented a prime time series called Noel's Addicts, but this show had no similarity to the Telly Addicts format and only ran for one series.

By 1991, the Saturday Roadshow morphed into Noel's House Party, which ran for eight years, from Edmonds' mansion in the fictional village of Crinkley Bottom. Regular features included NTV, in which cameras were secretly hidden in viewer's homes, often in VHS tape cases. There was also the "Gotchas", with celebrities caught in elaborate and embarrassing set-up situations.

He was visited by Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor in 1993 in the introduction of the 30-year Doctor Who anniversary Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, during which the Doctor (correctly) mentioned that Edmonds would still be on television in the year 2010.

Edmonds had in fact presented the very first National Lottery in 1994 before handing over to Anthea Turner and Gordon Kennedy.

Edmonds was one of the original presenters of the BBC's motoring series Top Gear during the late 1970s. During his time on the programme he criticised the Fiat Strada, saying it "wasn't very good", which caused Fiat to threaten to sue the BBC unless he apologised for the comments. Edmonds reappeared in one episode of Top Gear in the 1990s, to road test the classic 1960s Ford GT40 supercar, of which he owned 2, because the then current host Jeremy Clarkson - at 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall - was unable to fit into the cockpit. In 1997 Clarkson was one of Edmonds' star team for the 1997 Le Mans race which was featured in Noel's Le Mans Dream, a 2 part documentary for BBC 2. In the 1980s Edmonds hosted a series on BBC1 called The Time of Your Life, in which celebrities recalled the time they were at their happiest professionally. It ran for three series from 1983.

In 1997, Edmonds was involved in an episode of the Chris Morris spoof documentary series Brass Eye, in which he unwittingly pledged his allegiance on camera to a campaign to rid the country of a new killer drug, the entirely fictitious 'cake', which apparently made ten seconds appear as a few hours to a user by stimulating part of the brain called Shatner's Bassoon.

Noel's House Party was a staple of BBC1's autumn and spring schedules throughout the 1990s. The show regularly attracted audiences of over 15 million but along with the general decline in the traditional Saturday night ratings by the time it ended it was pulling in less than 8 million. In the final programme, broadcast on 20 March 1999, Edmonds signed off with thanks to the audience and the wish that history would be kind to the programme.

For many years, Edmonds has been a believer in Spiritualism, in particular the concept of cosmic ordering, a subject he became interested in after being introduced to Bärbel Mohr's book The Cosmic Ordering Service - A Guide to Realising Your Dreams by his reflexologist. He had not worked on TV since the end of his BBC TV show Noel's House Party in 1999 and one of his wishes was for a new challenge. Later he was offered the chance to return to TV to work on Deal or No Deal. Edmonds later went on to write his own book titled Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways To Change Your Life.

He coordinated the Heart of Devon campaign to provide information for farmers affected by the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001.

In 2003, Edmonds made a brief radio comeback, taking over the 'drivetime' broadcast on BBC Radio 2 for eight weeks while Johnnie Walker was treated for cancer. His stint on Radio 2 lasted from 4 August until 3 October. In December 2004, Edmonds played a detective on a radio murder mystery play on local station BBC Radio Devon.

The Curse of Noel Edmonds, a documentary tracing the rise and fall of his showbiz career, was transmitted by Five on 9 November 2004, with former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read being one of the contributors to the programme.

In 2005, Edmonds was persuaded back to TV presentation by Peter Bazalgette, then CEO of Endemol who were experiencing great success with their new game show format of Deal or No Deal. Edmonds initially declined the approach citing that he was concentrating on business interests but eventually agreed to host a short run of 66 shows. The programme was initially recorded in a former paintworks in Bristol but later moved to a dedicated studio in Whitchurch. Deal or No Deal began UK transmission on Monday 31 October 2005, and was broadcast on afternoons six days a week. In March 2006 Edmonds had his contract for presenting Deal or No Deal extended until autumn 2007, for a fee rumoured to be £3 million, making him one of the highest-paid personalities on UK television. Edmonds was nominated for a BAFTA award for his work on the programme but lost out on the night to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

On 21 August 2006 it was announced that Edmonds would be returning to the BBC to host a one-off programme called Everyone's A Winner! celebrating National Lottery "good causes". The programme was broadcast on 23 September 2006.

On 16 March 2007, Edmonds made a cameo appearance as himself in a sketch with Catherine Tate who appeared in the guise of her character Joannie "Nan" Taylor from The Catherine Tate Show. Nan appeared on a special episode of Deal or No Deal, where she ended up cheating. The sketch was made for the BBC Red Nose Day fundraising programme of 2007.

On 24 May 2007, Sky One announced that Edmonds would host the UK version of the American hit Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, titled Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old?. The programme made its debut on Sky One on 7 October 2007, at 6.00 pm. Edmonds hosted the peak-time showing of the programme, with the daily programme being presented by Dick and Dom.

Noel's Christmas Presents was an annual broadcast made on Christmas Day in which Edmonds delivered special presents to various people. Some of the gifts included arranging trips to Lapland for ill or disadvantaged children, or arranging family reunions. Noel's Christmas Presents was originally broadcast on BBC One from 1989 until 1999, before it returned to UK screens courtesy of Sky1 on 23 December 2007. Further editions were screened on 21 December 2008, 20 December 2009, 18 December 2010 and 18 December 2011.

Edmonds was also a guest host for the fourth-series episode of The Friday Night Project, broadcast on 26 January 2007.

Sky1's autumn 2008 season saw Edmonds host Noel's HQ, a new live entertainment show with a philanthropic purpose, his fees going to a charitable trust. This was later developed into a series. The show received a negative review from The Guardian. Sky edited a repeat broadcast after Edmonds launched an extended verbal attack on a council press officer. In March 2009, Sky1 announced the cancellation of the show.

Edmonds said that he had stopped payment on his TV licence in early 2008, in response to the sometimes controversial methods used to enforce collection of the TV licence fee. Edmonds said that it is wrong to "threaten" and "badger" people, in response to the collection authority's common assumption that the non-possession of a licence can mean licence evasion, as well as the large fines which can be used as enforcement for non-payment. TV Licensing later claimed that Edmonds did possess a valid current TV licence, but this claim was denied by a spokesman for Edmonds; who said that TV Licensing had their facts wrong.

Edmonds said in 2008 that he is constantly accompanied by two melon-sized "spiritual energy" balls, which appear over his shoulders and which he believes to be the spirits of his dead parents. "Orbs are little bundles of positive energy and they think they can move between 500 and 1,000 miles per hour," according to Edmonds. "They look like little round planets but they come in all shapes and sizes." He has asserted that the orbs appear only on digital photographs.

In July 2009, Edmonds married his third wife, Liz Davies, a make-up artist on the programme Deal or No Deal.

In 2014 he appeared in BBC Four's The Life of Rock with Brian Pern as himself.

In March 2014, Edmonds declared on Newsnight that he was part of a consortium which planned to buy the BBC, because the corporation is "sleepwalking itself to destruction". He said that he did not have a TV licence and watched BBC programmes only on catch-up.

On 27 September 2015, Edmonds received an award from the Atlantic Award Group for his extensive contributions to broadcasting. The selection process was initiated by a nomination by a viewer of Deal or No Deal. Edmonds was the first TV personality to receive an award from the AAG and was also the first recipient from the UK in 2015.

In August 2015, Edmonds gave an interview to the Daily Mirror in which he stated that the greatest problem facing humanity was "electrosmog" due to Wi-Fi and other "systems", causing the destruction of "our natural electro-magnetic fields". He also stated a belief that death was impossible because the body was merely a container for "a universal energy", and that this had "been known for a very long time". When he dies, Edmonds anticipates that "My energy will return to where it came from – part of a massive, incomprehensible universal web of energy".

On 7 June 2016, Edmonds said on Twitter that an Electromagnetic Pulse device costing £2,315 was "A simple box that slows ageing, reduces pain, lifts depression and stress and tackles cancer. Yep tackles cancer!". Edmonds provoked further criticism after tweeting to a man with kidney cancer, lymph node metastases and psoriatic arthritis that "Scientific fact-disease is caused by negative energy. Is it possible your ill health is caused by your negative attitude? #explore." The following day, Edmonds was interrogated by Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on ITV's This Morning television programme stating that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in November 2013. He said that a "very stressful, very negative period" in life had caused his prostate cancer, "I was, I thought, very, very healthy. I know why I got my cancer... the definition of stress is negative energy. It didn't just decide to manifest itself, there was cause". He went on to add: "I then had my tumour destroyed by sound waves, proving yet again energy is at the heart of this issue" and said that "I believe pulsed electromagnetism has a role to play in tackling cancer and I will always believe that".

In 2017, Edmonds presented Cheap Cheap Cheap, a cross between a sitcom and a game show. Edmonds came up with the concept, produced by Hat Trick and Channel 4 commissioned 30 hour-long episodes. The action took place in 'Noel's Store' and according to the Radio Times, "contestants are presented with three similar items – be it laundry detergent, noodles, baked beans, coffins, live poultry or lottery tickets – and must identify the cheapest one of the three in order to win money." A cast of actors play workers at the store. Stuart Heritage of The Guardian said that "It's like watching a weird piece of existential Lithuanian amateur community theatre [...] It's the worst idea in the world, stretched out for all eternity". The Daily Telegraph's Ed Power described it as "naff, tacky and numbingly dull" and "mind-bendingly outlandish".

In June 2017, Edmonds said he attempted suicide in 2005 after fraud by a group of HBOS financiers destroyed his Unique Group business: "Until these criminals took me to the brink of emotional annihilation, I had always felt those who opt out by taking their own lives were selfish and cowardly... But having been cast into that bottomless dark space devoid of logic and reason, I have a much deeper understanding of life without hope... I seek no sympathy and feel no shame in admitting that on the evening of January 18th 2005 I attempted to end the overwhelming mental pain which had consumed my whole being."

In September 2017, Edmonds said there was a direct link between fraudulent HBOS financiers causing stress and his prostate cancer. He stated: "I don't say cancer was caused by the stress, but that my health deteriorated to such an extent I got prostate cancer. I am absolutely sure the negative forces acting on me impacted on my health. There is a wealth of information from various clinical studies of a direct link between stress and cancer. I am absolutely certain there was a link in my case."

In November 2018, Edmonds became the highest paid participant ever on ITV's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. Edmonds became the first celebrity to leave the series when he was voted out on 30 November 2018 to widespread surprise.

In July 2019, Edmonds agreed a compensation deal with Lloyds Banking Group as a victim of the HBOS Reading branch fraud. He had claimed that bank staff had destroyed Unique Group.

Edmonds currently lives in Matakana, near Auckland, New Zealand, with his wife and son having gained residency permission in February 2020. Living in the country since the previous September, Edmonds said he and his wife had felt an "incredible spiritual pull" on a visit in 2016 leading them to settle in the country.