Merseyside Mirth Makers - Paul O'Grady

Paul O'Grady

Paul James O'Grady was born in St. Catherine's Hospital, Tranmere, Birkenhead on the 14th of June 1955. His father, Patrick "Paddy" Grady, who changed his name to O'Grady due to a paperwork mistake when he joined the Royal Air Force, married Mary "Molly" Savage and had three children of whom Paul was the third, although unplanned. He attended St. Joseph's Catholic Primary School and then a private Catholic-run school, Redcourt in Oxton. However he failed the eleven plus exam and attended the Blessed Edmund Campion R.C. Secondary Modern and the Corpus Christi High School.

He joined the Marine Cadets where, at the advice of his captain, he joined the Boys' Amateur Boxing Club, developing a lifelong love of the sport. Upon leaving school aged sixteen, he obtained a job in the civil service, working in Liverpool as a clerical assistant for the DHSS commuting from his parents home. To supplement his income, he worked part-time at the bar of the RAFA club in Oxton where he increasingly socialised with the Liverpool gay scene as well as working in The Bears Paw, a known gay club in Liverpool.
In 1974, following casual sex with a friend and colleague, Diane Jansen, Paul fathered a baby daughter, Sharon Lee Jansen. Realising his wage was insufficient to support both himself and his daughter, he travelled to London but found only poorly paid work as a barman and began associating with 'drag queens'. Homesick, he returned home and gained employment at the Children's Convalescent Home and School in West Kirby, a home for disabled and abused children where he worked there for three years.

Returning to London he obtained a job with Camden Council and here in 1978 made his first attempt at putting together a drag act encouraged by close friend Oliver Bond, creating the character of Lily Savage. Over the next few years he had various relationships, private and professional, before continuing his drag performance as a solo act under the name of "Paul Monroe", a reference to Marilyn Monroe. Once again though, finding himself under too much financial strain, Paul moved back in with his mother in Birkenhead, there becoming reacquainted with Diane and his daughter. Following a brief period on the dole, he resurrected his act 'The Playgirls' with his friend Vera; initially performing in Liverpool, where they were caught up in the 1981 Toxteth riots before they began touring other parts of Northern England until deciding to quit and return to London once more.

It was in 1984, whilst working as a barman at the Elephant and Castle he debuted his drag character, Lily Savage, in the gay bars and clubs throughout London. The character became extremely popular and from 1989 to 1992, he performed annually as 'Lily' at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Paul in character as Lily Savage on 'Blankety Blank'

Following a tour of Australia, Paul obtained his breakthrough into television when he played the character of a transvestite prostitute informant, Roxanne, in three episodes of ITV's police drama 'The Bill'. Further radio and television work followed including replacing Paula Yates as a presenter of the Channel 4 morning TV programme 'The Big Breakfast'. In April 1996 he filmed 'An Evening With Lily Savage' which was broadcast on ITV that November and was a big hit winning 'Best Entertainment Program at the 1997 National Television Wards.
When the BBC decided to revive 'Blankety Blank', Lily Savage did a pilot episode in 1997 which was so good they commissioned a full series'. The show proved to be such a success that it earned Paul O'Grady nominations for both the Best Comedy Entertainment Personality and Programme at the 2000 British Comedy Awards.

Paul with Buster on The Paul O'Grady Show

Around this time Paul had become tired of appearing as 'Lily' and decided to try to make a career for himself out of drag. Gaining experience as a daytime television presenter by standing in for Des O'Connor in ITV's lunchtime chat show 'Today with Des and Mel' ^, ITV executives deemed it such a success that in 2004 they offered him his own daytime chat show ' The Paul O'Grady Show'. With ratings higher than expected the show included novelty acts, talking dogs, whistling goldfish and extraordinary stories. His audience laughed like drains at his anecdotes and were brought right into the heart of the show. In March 2005 it was awarded Best Daytime Programme by the Royal Television Society and Paul himself was subsequently awarded Best Entertainment Performance at the BAFTA's.
In 2005, Liverpool John Moores University awarded Paul O'Grady an honorary fellowship for services to entertainment.

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