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Johnny Vaughan
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Johnny Vaughan (born 16 July, 1966) is an English broadcaster and journalist. Vaughan has become well-known as a television and radio personality and has also built a reputation as a film critic. He is currently the presenter of the Capital Breakfast with Johnny Vaughan on London radio station 95.8 Capital FM and also writes a weekly column in The Sun newspaper reviewing recent film releases. He is well noted for his ironic sense of humour which some have occasionally found offensive.
onathan Randall Vaughan was born in Barnet, North London, to an engineer father, Randall, and a psychotherapist mother, Fay.
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Encyclopedia
Johnny Vaughan (born 16 July, 1966) is an English broadcaster and journalist. Vaughan has become well-known as a television and radio personality and has also built a reputation as a film critic. He is currently the presenter of the Capital Breakfast with Johnny Vaughan on London radio station 95.8 Capital FM and also writes a weekly column in The Sun newspaper reviewing recent film releases. He is well noted for his ironic sense of humour which some have occasionally found offensive.
Early Life
Jonathan Randall Vaughan was born in Barnet, North London, to an engineer father, Randall, and a psychotherapist mother, Fay. He spent his time in education between St Andrew's comprehensive school in Totteridge, North London and at the private Uppingham School in Rutland. During his school years he showed a talent for comedy, playing the violin and singing. His father became bankrupt when Johnny was 16 years old. On leaving school, Vaughan moved back to London and originally wanted to become a writer. He ended up with a variety of jobs ranging from a grill chef to even starting his own business selling boxer shorts.
In 1988 at the age of 21, Vaughan was arrested for trying to sell £15,000 of cocaine to undercover police officers in a hotel on the M1 motorway near Northampton. He was found guilty of being "concerned with the supply" of class A drugs (namely cocaine) and sentenced to 4 years in Stocken Prison, of which he served 25 months.
Vaughan recalled the event in an interview with the Daily Telegraph:
One night, an old schoolfriend, a student, called and asked him if he had any drug connections; the friend had met somebody who wanted to know. (The somebody, it turned out, was a drug dealer who had been arrested and was now working for the police.) No, said Vaughan, he didn't.
'The next day,' Vaughan says, 'I do bump into someone. He calls me and says, "Tell your friend it's all sorted."?' Vaughan arranged the meeting at a service station on the M1, and went there to introduce the protagonists. He was slammed against a wall by a policeman who asked him how old he was. When Vaughan said 21, the cop said, 'You won't be seeing sunshine again until you're 36.'
It was during his time in prison that Vaughan began to take an interest in literature and philosophy. On release from prison, Vaughan decided to turn his life around and started a job working as a journalist for the Rutland Herald newspaper, reporting on legal cases in his column, 'Johnny Vaughan in the Courts'.
Professional Background
Early Career
His big break came in 1993 when he visited a friend's production company and through a chance meeting was offered a job with Channel 4. He started his television career presenting the movie review show Moviewatch, as well as the music show Naked City and his own chat show Here's Johnny.
The Big Breakfast
Channel 4 producers decided he was a natural in front of the camera, and in light of ailing viewing figures he was chosen to front The Big Breakfast from 1997 until 2001, forming a successful partnership with former programme weather girl and actress Denise van Outen from 1998. Van Outen's cheeky Essex Girl personality played off well against the quick wit of Vaughan, and together they recovered audience figures to record levels. One groundbreaking feature of Johnny's presentation was the way in which he frequently interacted with the various cameramen and technical people in the studio, turning some of them into popular characters in their own right. Also notable was that each programme finished with a zany situational competition in which Johnny revealed considerable talent as a character actor. In parallel with The Big Breakfast Vaughan presented another movie show, The Johnny Vaughan Film Show.
Van Outen left to pursue her acting career at the end of 1998. The partnership with replacement glamour model Kelly Brook failed to reproduce the chemistry between Vaughan and Van Outen, and audience figures "plummeted". Brook was replaced by Liza Tarbuck and Van Outen returned again as main female presenter in 2000 but the show was unrevivable. Johnny and Denise left the show in January 2001 after both their contracts had run out.
Move to the BBC
In 2001, the BBC paid Vaughan a reputed £2.5 million to leave Channel 4. He transferred to the BBC to present a late-night talk show, Johnny Vaughan Tonight in the same vein of American shows by Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. Viewing figures were good (the show regularly received 2.5 - 3 million viewers a night) and commentators suggested that the format was best suited to the free-wheeling Vaughan. However, a highly promoted BBC Two sitcom vehicle 'Orrible, which Vaughan wrote and acted in was poorly received by the critics. Far from being the huge hit that was hoped, the show lost 40% of its audience over its first three episodes and was not renewed for a second series or even repeated. It is now the single most expensive comedy series available for purchase on Amazon. In October 2003 he devised and produced and was the first presenter of BBC Radio Five Live's Fighting Talk, a sport related comedy show currently presented by Colin Murray. Further television appearances ensued, when Vaughan tried a revival of his on screen relationship with Van Outen in 2004 in the BBC's Saturday night family show Passport to Paradise, which lasted for only one series.
Capital Radio
In April 2004 he moved to radio and returned to the "zoo" format, when he replaced Chris Tarrant as the presenter of the 95.8 Capital FM breakfast show, which saw the listening figures for his show drop from over 1.3 million to 980,000 listeners, according to official RAJAR statistics..
In January 2008, Vaughan was reunited with his former presenting partner Denise Van Outen when she joined him on the breakfast show in a move to boost listening figures.. Van Outen left the show only half way through her contract in June 2008.
In August 2008, Van Outen was replaced by model Lisa Snowdon. The show then rose in the ratings, taking the top spot of London's breakfast radio chart in October 2008, with an average weekly audience of 862,000 listeners.
Other Work
Vaughan has also been heavily involved with telethon charity drives such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief. In 2004 the BBC ran "a search to find the nation's best-loved sitcom" with a format that aped that of the 100 Greatest Britons. One celebrity championed each of the top ten sitcoms, presenting an hour-long special on why their favourite was the best. Vaughan was the presenter of the segment on prison-based sitcom Porridge.
In 2005, Vaughan became the host of the American reality/game show My Kind of Town on ABC. The show was cancelled after four episodes. He was also featured in the 2005 film Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, playing an awards ceremony host.
Vaughan presented the controversial hoax "reality" show Space Cadets for Channel 4.
In June 2006, Vaughan appeared as a guest on TV Heaven, Telly Hell.
He was a team captain on the Channel 4 comedy panel show Best of the Worst that also features team captain David Mitchell (Peep Show), and chairman Alexander Armstrong. They and their guests celebrate the very best of the very bad, although the show appears not to have been renewed for a second series.
In December 2006, he made a guest appearance on the BBC comedy panel game QI (Series D, Episode 10, "Divination").
Most recently, Vaughan has presented "Car of the Year 2008" on Dave.
He has his own television production company called World's End.
Personal life
He married costume designer Antonia Davies in August 1999. The couple met while Johnny was working in a video store at age 19. Elvis Costello performed at their wedding. They live in Wandsworth, South London with their dog Harvey and their 2 children, Tabitha (born 2000), and Rafferty (born 2003). Vaughan's father-in-law is Nick Davies, a journalist for the Daily Mirror.
In March 1999 at the age of 33, Vaughan was confirmed into the Roman Catholic church at Westminster Cathedral.
Vaughan is a big fan of cars and currently owns a Maserati 3200 GT. An avid supporter of Chelsea FC, he travelled to Sweden to see Chelsea win the 1998 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, and spent the next day broadcasting live on The Big Breakfast with images and details of the big moments in the match, with input from his friends.
He has had thinning hair for a number of years, and on the television show Best of the Worst expressed jealousy of those with "long fly away locks." He also revealed he used to use spray on hair to hide his thinning hair, the last time he appeared on TV whist using spray on hair was Space Cadets in December 2005. In July 2008, he shaved his hair off in order to raise money for the Capital Radio charity 'Help a London Child'.
External links
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- Unofficial - The World of Johnny Vaughan]
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