Talent Biography
Phillip Schofield
Phillip Schofield was born in Oldham, Manchester on April 1st, 1962. When he was two, Phillip and his parents moved to Newquay in Cornwall. By the age of ten he had already decided that he would like to pursue a career in broadcasting and began to write to the BBC. He was finally offered a job in September 1979 at Broadcasting House, London, working for Radio Outside Broadcasts as a bookings clerk.
At 19, Phillip left the BBC and immigrated with his family to New Zealand. On arrival he applied for jobs in broadcasting and was asked by TVNZ to front their new pop show Shazam. Within a year he began a regular Sunday morning radio programme for an Auckland station called Radio Hauraki and became a regular presenter of other television shows. After three and a half years he decided that it was time to return to Britain.
Within four months, the BBC presentation department offered him the job of fronting Children’s BBC from the Broom Cupboard; the first time in 35 years that an `in-vision' presenter had linked the weekday afternoon programmes. Phillip accepted and stayed with presentation for two years. He then went on to present five series of the popular live Saturday morning show Going Live, four series of the Take Two, three series of his own quiz show, The Movie Game, two series of the highly acclaimed travel show Schofield's Europe and a series of Televisions’ Greatest Hits.
Phillip was also been awarded with the BBC/SOS Top Man on TV Award for three years running and TV Times Awards for four consecutive years. 1993 saw him being awarded with the highly prestigious Show Business Personality of the Year by The Variety Club of Great Britain.
Phillip married Stephanie Lowe in 1993 and they now have 2 daughters, Molly and Ruby. In 1993 he also signed a two year contract with ITV and starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium until 2nd. Phillip then took the show on tour around the UK and Eire from December 1993 until February 1995. In December 1995 he took up the 'Dreamcoat' again at the Oxford Apollo Theatre and in February 1996 moved to the Hammersmith Labbatts theatre through to the middle of 1996.
In 1996 Phillip also signed an exclusive contract with Carlton Television and presented a number of shows including Schofield’s Adventures in Hawaii (a one hour special), Schofield’s Quest, two series of Tenball and two Christmas specials Schofield’s Gold and Six Little Angels. Autumn 1996 saw Phillip presenting two series, One In A Million and Schofield's TV Gold, followed by a one off Christmas special, Now We’re Talking. In autumn 1997 Talking Telephone Numbers returned for it’s fifth series and a further series of One In A Million ran through to July 1997.
The summer of 1998 saw the launch of one of Phillip’s biggest career projects. On the 14th July 1998 he returned to the Labatts Apollo, Hammersmith to play “Doctor Dolittle” in the four million pound stage production of the film.
Having run the show in Hammersmith for a year the production was taken around the major theatres in Britain with Phillip at the helm, finally finishing in September 2001. Whilst touring, he also managed to find the time to host City Hospital (BBC1) and he temporarily stepped out of the role in September 2000 to take up the challenge of playing Jack The Ripper at Windsor in “The Lodger”. He also presented a one-hour animal special with the BBC called ‘Schofield’s Animal Odyssey’ and a one off special for ITV called ‘Predictions’.
The summer of 2001 saw Phillip take over the highly successful National Lottery Show ‘Winning Lines’ (BBC One), of which, he continues to present (the most recent series finished in October 2004).
Since signing to co-present the flagship ITV1 show ‘This Morning’ with Fern Britton in September 2002 (Monday – Friday, ITV1 at 10.30am-12.30pm), the duo have brought the show back to essential viewing, winning many awards including the National Television Award 2004 for “BEST DAYTIME PROGRAMME 2004”.
In the Summer of 2003, Phillip filmed two 1xhour long ratings winners, ‘Best Ever Magic Tricks’ and ‘Best Ever Hidden Camera Stunts’, for ITV1. Such was the success of these, he has filmed a number of additional shows - the most recent of which, “Best Hidden Camera Stunts 5” will transmit on ITV1 in Summer 2005.
Amongst a very hectic schedule with This Morning, Phillip will continue to present a number of “Best Ever….” Specials for ITV1 during 2005 and his new series “Have I Been Here Before” transmitted during May / June 2005 – a second series is planned for next year. Phillip continues to present ‘Test The Nation’, with Anne Robinson – the show recently won the prestigious International Golden Rose Award for Best Game Show 2005 at the Rose d’Or Festival.
2006 kicked off with Phillip hosting the massive ITV1 hit show, ‘Dancing on Ice’ with over 10million viewers tuning in each week. The year continued to be as busy with him continuing to host This Morning, the Best Ever….series for ITV as well as Test the Nation for BBC1. He and Fern Britton also hosted The British Soap Awards.
The year culminated in Phillip not only hosting I’m A Celebrity Exclusive (daily, ITV1)and two fantastic primetime specials for ITV1 (Its Now or Never and Phillip Schofield’s Night Before Christmas), but also with him signing an exciting exclusive 2 year deal to the channel.
2007 started with a bang with the return of the hit show Dancing on Ice (ITV1) – viewing figures regularly topped 10 million. He continued to co-host This Morning with Fern Britton and the duo again hosted The British Soap Awards. Phillip was thrilled to have been asked to co-host The Royal Variety Show in December and hosted a Christmas special for ITV1 called Star Traders.
Dancing on Ice returned for its third series in 2008 – at the same time, he continued to host This Morning with Fern Britton as well as Mr & Mrs (Saturday nights ITV1). The duo once again hosted The British Soap Awards for the third consecutive year in May 2008 and in June, Phillip anchored ITV1’s coverage of the Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Concert.
2009 has continued to be as equally busy for Phillip. He spent the first 10 weeks of the year hosting the fourth explosive series of Dancing on Ice, he and Fern hosted the second series of Mr & Mrs and he hosted The British Soap Awards for the fourth year in a row! In August 2009 Phillip hosted the brand new exciting physical gameshow The Cube for ITV. And in September he returned to host the 21st year of This Morning with brand new co-host, Holly Willoughby.
Contact: George Ashton
