Media UK

Jeremy Beadle

Jeremy Beadle is a television presenter, writer and producer. He was born on April 12, 1948 in Hackney, London.

After an adventurous youth and a series of non-career jobs he began writing for radio and television. He wrote for Terry Wogan, Kenny Everett, Noel Edmonds, Bernard Manning and Celebrity Squares.

A love of trivia led him to write Today's the Day and A Chronicle of the Curious, and for over two years he scripted a daily cartoon series of the same name for the Daily Express. He worked alongside Irving Wallace and his son David Wallechinsky as European editor and biggest contributor to the sensationally successful Book of Lists (1,2,3) and People's Almanac (2,3)

After a career as a radio presenter renowned for on-air pranks, he became well known as one of the presenters of Game for a Laugh (along with Matthew Kelly, Henry Kelly and Sarah Kennedy), and is still commonly known as presenter of various Candid Camera-style programmes and practical joke shows. In 1995 he presented the hugely popular Sunday late-evening show on Talk Radio UK.

He was very popular in his heyday in terms of viewing figures, though like other TV presenters such as Terry Wogan, did not win universal appeal; a British poll in the early 1990s revealed him to be the third most unpopular person alive, beaten only by Saddam Hussein and Anneka Rice.

He is also noted for being one of the first TV presenters with a visible disability, suffering from a 'withered hand', known as Poland's syndrome. He is patron of Reach, the charity that supports those affected by similar conditions.

He was awarded an MBE for his services to charity. Ironically, as a keen supporter of Children With Leukaemia, he was diagnosed with leukaemia in April 2005, but the condition is not thought to be life-threatening. He had an operation to remove a cancerous kidney in 2004.

He is a Trust Patron of The Philip Green Memorial Trust, and he annually hosts a quiz party along with Crown Prince Shwebomin of Burma to raise money for disadvantaged children.

Famous for his general knowledge, he is a director of Redtooth, Britain's largest supplier of pub quizzes. As host of Win Beadle's Money (based on the US format Win Ben Stein's Money) he lost only 8 times in 52 shows. He wrote and hosted notoriously difficult London quiz show The Atlantic Grill. He also currently writes a quiz for The Independent every Saturday.

Beadle returned to British television screens in June 2005 with Star Stitch-Ups, a programme exploring the Candid Camera-style genre for which he was best known.

Some or all material in this page has been adapted from the Jeremy Beadle entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Beadle), or others, in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia.