Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Stephen Ross OBE is an English broadcaster, television personality, film critic, comedian, and writer. He has presented television comedy chat shows, including BBC's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and ITV's The Jonathan Ross Show. For the BBC show, he won three British Academy Television Awards for Best Entertainment Performance. Ross hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio 2 from 1999 to 2010. He served as film critic and presenter of the television programme Film….
Ross began his television career as a TV researcher, before debuting as a presenter for the chat show The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross on Channel 4. His other television work includes being a panellist on the comedy sports quiz show They Think It's All Over, presenting the British Comedy Awards, judging on the musical competition The Masked Singer and its spin-off The Masked Dancer, and competing on the reality series The Celebrity Traitors. In 2012, Ross received a Special Recognition award at the National Television Awards.
In 2005, Ross was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to broadcasting. In 2008, he wrote a semi-autobiographical work titled Why Do I Say These Things?, detailing some of his life experiences. He has also written his own comic books, Turf and America's Got Powers.
Early life and education
Jonathan Stephen Ross was born on 17 November 1960 in St Pancras, north London and raised in Leytonstone, east London. The son of John and actress Martha Ross, he has four brothers and one sister. He is the younger brother of journalist, television editor, and media personality Paul Ross.Their mother put all of her children forward for roles in television advertisements. Ross first appeared in a television advertisement for the breakfast cereal Kellogg's Rice Krispies in 1970, when he was 10 years old. He also appeared in an ad for the laundry detergent Persil.
Ross was educated at the comprehensive schools Norlington School for Boys and Leyton County High School for Boys. He then studied at the Southampton College of Art and took a degree in Modern European History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, which today forms part of University College London.
Ross began his adult career as a researcher on the Channel 4 show Loose Talk. After leaving this, he worked on various other shows before beginning another research job on Soul Train, which became Solid Soul. It is believed his first appearance on television was as an extra in the 1981 It Ain't Half Hot, Mum episode "The Last Roll Call".
Career
1987–95: Channel X
Whilst on Solid Soul, he met fellow researcher Alan Marke, and the two devised what would prove to be a breakthrough hit for Ross in 1987, The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross.The two men based their concept on the successful American show Late Night with David Letterman, and formed a new production company called Channel X, to produce a pilot. Ross had not planned to be the show's host, but he presented the show from its debut in January 1987.
While the series was initially a co-production with Colin Callender, ownership transferred to Marke and Ross, meaning that the latter retained a great deal of control as well as being presenter. The show was successful for both Ross and for Channel 4, making him one of the major personalities on the channel. A year later, his documentary series The Incredibly Strange Film Show introduced many to the works of cult filmmakers like Sam Raimi and Jackie Chan. Ross and Raimi appeared together in a British television advertisement for Raimi's 1987 film Evil Dead II.
In 1990 and 1991, his television documentary series Jonathan Ross Presents for One Week Only profiled and interviewed directors including Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Aki Kaurismäki and in 2014, the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar.
In 1989, he co-presented the biennial BBC charity telethon Comic Relief, the same year he launched One Hour with Jonathan Ross a short lived chat show on Channel 4. Its game show segment, "Knock down ginger", introduced comedians such as Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson to television. In December 1989, Ross appeared on Cilla's Goodbye to the 80s and presented all four members of Queen with the "Top Band of the Eighties" prize in a broadcast for ITV which would turn out to be Freddie Mercury's penultimate public appearance before his death from AIDS in 1991.
Ross presented the annual British Comedy Awards each year from 1991 to 2014 with the exception of 2008 following his suspension from the BBC. In 1992 he presented an interview with Madonna about her Erotica album and Sex Book promotion.
Ross has appeared in numerous television entertainment programmes on several channels throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He was a regular panellist on the sports quiz They Think It's All Over, and hosted the panel game It's Only TV...But I Like It. Other projects include the BBC joke-quiz Gagtag, the Channel 4 variety show Saturday Zoo, new-acts showcase The Big Big Talent Show, and the ITV programme Fantastic Facts.
In 1995, he left Channel X, despite its profitable nature. He was quoted in a 1998 article as stating:
1995–2006
In 1995, he presented Mondo Rosso, a programme about old cult films. He took over presenting of the Film programme, the BBC's long-running cinema review series, in 1999 after Barry Norman left the show. Ross himself has made a number of cameo appearances in films, playing himself in the Spice Girls' film Spice World and voicing the character of Doris in the UK version of Shrek 2. In 2001 he also played himself in Only Fools and Horses, presenting Goldrush, a fictional television quiz on which the main character, Del, was a contestant. In 2001 he voiced characters in two episodes of the animated comedy series Rex the Runt. He also appeared on the first pilot show for Shooting Stars, acting as a team captain.He was the subject of This Is Your Life in March 2001 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel at the BBC Television Centre.
1987, 1999–2010, 2014–2018: BBC Radio
Ross's first radio work was on BBC Radio 1 in 1987, when he sat in for Janice Long for two weeks. Ross began presenting a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2 in July 1999. He has also presented radio shows for Virgin Radio, as well as the now-defunct commercial radio network service The Superstation, where his producer was Chris Evans. Ross's show on Radio 2 last aired on 17 July 2010 when his contract at the BBC ended.In August 2014, he returned to Radio 2 as a stand-in presenter on Steve Wright's afternoon show for four days.
In March 2015 Jonathan sat in for Steve Wright again from 16 to 27 March 2015. In February 2016 Ross returned to Radio 2 on a regular basis to present the weekly arts show. From 11 January 2018, Anneka Rice took over the arts show.
2001–10: ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'' and other projects
In 2001, Ross began presenting his BBC One comedy chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.In 2004, Ross presented a documentary on one of his favourite subjects, punk rock, for the BBC.
In November 2005, Ross appeared on Gordon Ramsay's The F Word where Ramsay shows Ross how to kill lobster.
In 2005, Ross anchored the BBC television coverage of the Live 8 concerts. Later that year he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting. He celebrated the news by playing "God Save the Queen" by The Sex Pistols on his BBC Radio 2 Saturday morning show. On 21 June 2006, Ross was made a Fellow of University College London, where he studied.
In early 2006, Ross announced that after eight years he was quitting his regular panellist seat on the sport/comedy quiz show They Think It's All Over explaining: "I need time now to focus on my other commitments and so regrettably I won't be back for the 20th series." Following Ross's departure, only two more episodes of the show were made before it was cancelled.
In January 2006 he presented Jonathan Ross' Asian Invasion, broadcast on BBC Four. The three-part documentary followed Ross as he explored the film industry in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea, interviewing directors and showcasing clips. His interest in East Asian culture and his self-confessed love for Japanese anime and video games led him to making three series of BBC Three show Japanorama, as well as producing another television series for the same channel called Adam and Joe Go Tokyo, starring Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish. He produced the latter programme through his own television production company Hot Sauce.
In April 2006, details of his fees and those of other BBC personalities were leaked to the tabloid press. It was claimed at the time, by a then-unidentified BBC mole, that Ross earned £530,000 per year for hosting his Radio 2 show. While refusing to comment specifically on the leak in line with BBC policy on the matter, Ross did hint during his radio show that the figure was exaggerated; in addition to this, any pay highlighted as being "his" would actually be split between himself and his producer/co-presenter on the show, Andy Davies.
In June 2006, a bidding war was sparked between BBC and other broadcasters for Ross's services. Although other broadcasters were unsuccessful in poaching Ross, it is believed that their bids were higher than the BBC during negotiations. ITV, who bid for Ross, poached chat host Michael Parkinson around the same time. Ross became the highest paid television personality in Britain, when a new BBC contract secured his services until 2010, for a reported £18 million. That same month, he was named by Radio Times as the most powerful person in British radio.
On 25 June 2006, he performed at the Children's Party at the Palace for the Queen's 80th birthday. In August 2006, Ross asked the first question in the Yahoo! Answers "Five Million Answers challenge". On 16 March 2007, Ross hosted Comic Relief 2007 alongside Fearne Cotton and Lenny Henry.
In June 2006, when Conservative Party leader David Cameron appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Ross began a line of questioning relating to Conservative ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, culminating in the question "Did you or did you not have a wank thinking of Margaret Thatcher?" Ross was defended by the BBC publicly, but repeat showings of the interview have been banned.
On 7 July 2007, Ross co-presented BBC television coverage of the Live Earth climate change awareness concerts, which became the subject of controversy due to the foul language used by performers including Phil Collins, Madonna and Johnny Borrell, resulting in one of Ofcom's toughest sanctions to date on the BBC. Ross had been required to apologise on the day for the language used by Collins and Borrell.
Ross is well-known as an enthusiastic comic book collector. Starting on 10 September 2007, he presented the BBC Four series Comics Britannia, about the history of the British comic. This forms the core of a Comics Britannia season, which includes another documentary, In Search of Steve Ditko, by Ross. Ross is also greatly interested in Japan, presenting a BBC-TV series on many different aspects of Japanese culture, Japanorama, for three series between 2002 and 2007. In May 2008, Ross won the Sony Gold Award "Music Radio Personality of the Year". On 3 August 2008, he hosted Jonathan Ross Salutes Dad's Army, a BBC One tribute to the sitcom set during World War II.
On 5 December 2007, Ross joked at the British Comedy Awards that his salary meant that he was "apparently worth 1,000 BBC journalists". His quip came shortly after the BBC had announced plans for more than 2,000 job cuts, and was condemned as "obscene" by the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists. Ross has denied this and in a 2011 article is quoted as saying that he was commenting on a piece that was written in a newspaper about his salary being that of 1,000 journalists:
The BBC Trust ruled that Ross's interview with American actress Gwyneth Paltrow, broadcast on 2 May 2008, breached editorial guidelines. They ruled that bad language in an episode of Ross's pre-recorded BBC1 chat show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, in which the presenter told Paltrow he "would fuck her", was "gratuitous and unnecessarily offensive". The trust said it disagreed with the judgement made by BBC management that the episode should be broadcast uncensored, adding that the comment was made in an "overly sexual way" and that it had upheld a number of complaints made about the edition of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The trust reminded BBC staff that "the casual gratuitous use of the most offensive language is not acceptable on the BBC in accordance with the BBC's existing guidelines and practices", adding that "this particularly applies in entertainment programmes".