Johnny Vaughan
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Johnny Randall Vaughan (born July 16 1966) is a British television and radio presenter. He is currently the presenter of the weekday breakfast show on London radio station Capital FM.
Upon finishing his private school education as a boarder at Uppingham School, Vaughan worked in a video shop and as a drug dealer. The latter caused Vaughan to spend 25 months in prison in the latter half of the 1980s after trying to sell 250 grams of cocaine to detectives at a hotel close to the M1 motorway.
Vaughan's big break into television was on Channel 4 in 1993 where the public first saw his blend of quick-fire humour and impressions on the movie review show Moviewatch. Channel producers decided he was a natural in front of the camera and he fronted The Big Breakfast from 1997 until 2001, forming a partnership with Denise van Outen which proved very successful in terms of audience figures. In parallel he presented another movie show, The Johnny Vaughan Film Show. In 2001 he transferred to the BBC to present a late-night chat show, Johnny Vaughan Tonight in the same vein of American shows by David Letterman and Jay Leno. Viewing figures were not good, especially considering the wonders Vaughan had done for The Big Breakfast, and commentators suggested that the format was not best suited to the free-wheeling Vaughan. A sitcom vehicle 'Oribble was even more poorly received by the critics. In April 2004 he returned to the "zoo" format when he replaced Chris Tarrant as the presenter of the Capital FM breakfast show.
Vaughan has also been heavily involved with telethon charity drives such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sports 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.
Vaughan is an avid supporter of Chelsea F.C. He is married to Antonia, whom he met aged 19 whilst working in the video store. They are married with two children.
References
- Vaughan's interview with Ian Burrell in The Independent, 13th April 2004.
External links
- Johnny's homepage at captialfm.com (http://www.capitalfm.com/breakfastshow/)
- Unofficial - The World of Johnny Vaughan (http://www.geocities.com/jess_mcmahon/)