| Claudia Winkleman | |
|---|---|
 Winkleman at the 2008 BAFTA Awards |
|
| Born | 15 January 1972 |
| Residence | London |
| Nationality | British |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Television presenter |
| Weight | 13.4 |
| Spouse(s) | Kris Thykier (2000-present) |
Claudia Anne I. Winkleman[1] (born 15 January 1972) is a British television presenter, radio personality and journalist. She is the daughter of Eve Pollard, former editor of the Sunday Express, and Barry Winkleman, former publisher of Times Atlas of the World. Her stepfather is Sir Nicholas Lloyd, former editor of the Daily Express, and her half-sister, from her father's second marriage to children's author Cindy Black, is the actress Sophie Winkleman, wife of Lord Frederick Windsor.
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Brought up in the London suburb of Hampstead, Winkleman attended the independent City of London School for Girls.[2] From there, she went on to the all-female college of New Hall at Cambridge University, obtaining an MA Hons degree in History of Art.[3]
Winkleman's first major television job was in 1991, on the regional discussion programme Central Weekend . In 1992, she began frequently to appear in the long-running BBC series Holiday, and continued to do so throughout the mid-1990s. This culminated in a special documentary in which she travelled around the world for 34 days reporting from Japan, India, Costa Rica and Dubai.
Throughout this period, Winkleman also appeared as a reporter on other shows, most notably This Morning, on which she interviewed various celebrities, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Tony Blair, Sir Alan Sugar and Harrison Ford, (of whom she has often since referred to as "my least favourite interviewee, because his hair is like nylon. I hate him... and only interested in carpentry"[citation needed]).
During the late 1990s, Winkleman presented a number of programmes on smaller digital channels. She had a stint on the cable channel L!VE TV, run by Kelvin MacKenzie and Janet Street-Porter, but soon left to pursue other projects. One programme made during this period was a short series titled Toilets, which drew upon her supposedly extensive knowledge and experience of toilets, and ironically attempted to examine the "design, etiquette, psychology and hidden culture behind the humble loo". She also presented a number of gameshows including the dating show Three's A Crowd, the second series of Granada TV show God's Gift (TV series) and Fanorama, which featured a young David Mitchell as a team captain, in his first television appearance. She was also an occasional team captain herself on a gameshow called HeadJam, hosted by Vernon Kay.
Between 2002 and 2004, Winkleman began her first daily TV role when she hosted the BBC Three Entertainment update show Liquid News. The show, originally hosted by Christopher Price on the now defunct BBC Choice was shown live. She shared the presenting duties with Colin Paterson, and later Paddy O'Connell. The show was irreverent and playful, and often caused a stir, the largest of which occurred when Winkleman interviewed S Club 7 in May 2003. She asked the band, who had just announced their split, about their financial situation. Despite the group themselves seeming happy to answer the question, a PR woman stormed onto the set to halt the interview. Although the altercation was not recorded live, the footage was still shown on that night's programme.
In 2003, Fame Academy appointed Winkleman to present a daily update show on BBC Three, in conjunction with its second series. Reporting from behind the scenes of the show, Claudia conducted daily interviews with contestants, experts and celebrity pundits. She repeated the show in 2005 for the much shorter celebrity version Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. She also began hosting Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, a supplementary programme to Strictly Come Dancing.
Winkleman then presented several more upmarket reality shows including End of Story in 2004, a literature based show, and Art School in 2005, a programme which saw five unlikely celebrities go through a two-week art course at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.
More recently, Winkleman has presented a number of prime time programmes. In 2007, she took over from Cat Deeley as the main host for the third series of Comic Relief Does Fame Academy, co-hosting with Patrick Kielty. She also presented the Eurovision Song Contest. She co-hosted coverage of the inaugural Eurovision Dance Contest 2007 alongside Graham Norton for BBC One in September of that year, and also co-presented the UK selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 called Eurovision: Your Decision, this time accompanied by Eurovision stalwart Sir Terry Wogan. In March 2008, Winkleman rekindled her partnership with Patrick Kielty when the pair hosted the final leg of Sport Relief 2008, announcing £19,640,321 as the final amount raised through viewer's donations. She has since spoken of how much she was moved by the experience.
In 2007, Winkleman also became the face of Sky Movie Premiere's coverage of the 79th Academy Awards, repeating it for the 80th Academy Awards in 2008. The show is recorded live in conjunction to the ceremony itself, running right through the night into the early hours of the morning.
Winkleman has made many guest appearances on panel and talk shows, including: Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Would I Lie To You? (in which she appeared on David Mitchell's team, thus reprising their earlier gameshow collaboration), Have I Got News for You, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and Lily Allen and Friends. In February 2008, she appeared on the British version of the comedy improvisational show Thank God You're Here, hosted by Paul Merton. In it she had to improvise a scene in which she played a boarding school girl who had been called to the headmistress's office. It signalled her first foray into televised acting.
As part of the celebration for London's win for hosting the 2012 Olympics, Winkleman co-hosted the London 2012 party alongside Matt Baker on 24 August, on the BBC.
Winkleman narrates the BBC Three show Glamour Girls, a documentary series focusing on Britain's glamour industry.[4]
Winkleman was a panellist on Channel 4's The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2008.[5] Claudia also appeared in The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2009
In 2009, Winkleman also appeared as presenter of Let's Dance for Comic Relief, a no rule dance contest to raise money for Comic Relief which is similar to Strictly Come Dancing, but with musical, pop and dance songs. In the same year, she presented a section of the Red Nose Day live telethon alongside Jonathan Ross.
In March 2009, Winkleman was announced as the host of the new series of Hell's Kitchen on ITV1. She fronted the nightly show live from the restaurant in East London in its fourth series in the spring.[6]
On 14 November 2009 she stepped in on the main show of Strictly Come Dancing to present backstage, this was due to main presenter Bruce Forsyth being away with the flu. Winkleman co-hosted the show with Tess Daly and guest presenter Ronnie Corbett.
It is through her work on Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two that Winkleman has gained the most public recognition. The programme - which started in 2004 - was devised as a companion show to run conjoined with the second series of Strictly Come Dancing, and continues to run to date. It follows a similar format to the one Winkleman made popular on Fame Academy, and sees her deliberating and dissecting the ins and outs of the main competition, accompanied by an array of dance experts, celebrity pundits and the competitors themselves. The show is aired every weekday throughout the course of the series at 6:30pm on BBC Two.
The show's four judges regularly appear on the programme, with the series seven line-up usually consisting of Craig Revel Horwood on Mondays and Fridays, Len Goodman on Thursdays and via telephone from LA on Mondays, plus Alesha Dixon occasionally appearing. Bruno Tonioli does not appear on the programme until the run of Dancing with the Stars, the US equivalent he and Len also judge, has concluded. Until Arlene Phillips was replaced, she typically appeared on Fridays, with Revel Horwood reporting mid-week.
One of the show's highlights is "Len's Masterclass," a segment in which Head Judge Len Goodman demonstrates with Winkleman a dance move or two. Her hapless attempts to follow the steps are accompanied by much girlish giggling and suggestive innuendo. The show receives some three million viewers on average.
On 14 November 2009, Claudia co-hosted the main show, relieving Tess Daly's duties, who was presenting front of house as regular host Bruce Forsyth was ill.
Winkleman started her journalism career as a travel writer, with columns about her various worldwide excursions. She did so in The Sunday Times and The Independent, but also contributed to the free daily London paper Metro in a similar capacity. As her television career - and family - evolved, she travelled less, and began to write more general work, opinion-led Lifestyle journalism about womanhood, sex and relationships. She wrote for Cosmopolitan and Tatler amongst others.
Between 2005 and 2008, she wrote a regular Wednesday column for The Independent called Take It From Me, collating her various musings on the lighter sides of current affairs, celebrity news and anecdotes concerning her own life. These were mostly tongue-in-cheek diatribes on the shortcomings of men, and the pitfalls of juggling a professional life with that of being a mother. Her column often angled towards the more irritating aspects of life, with her husband regularly the subject of loving scorn. In 2007, this resulted in her husband writing her column instead, as something of a retaliation, though he did this only the once.
On 9 April 2008, Winkleman wrote in The Independent about her having read this very entry on herself when scouring the internet looking for something to write about. In the column, she denied recent speculation (mentioned on this site) that she was to have a third baby - she put her perceived new bulge down to the fact that she had not "...banned pasta from my world". She wrote of typing her name into Google and looking at this entry on Wikipedia. She was perturbed by the knowledge that there was any speculation that she was pregnant, when she wasn't, and - having rejected ideas from her friend Lucy that it was "...to do with the dress" or that "...they'd got her mixed up with Kate Thornton" - decided that the best course of action was to "have a slice of cake and a cup of tea".[7]
From 19 April 2008, Claudia began hosting the first in a six part comedy quiz series taking a humorous look into the week's celebrity gossip, called Hot Gossip. The show takes place on a Saturday afternoon on BBC Radio 2 and sees Claudia dishing out points for those who dish out dirt.[8] The show has featured many famous pundits, including Will Smith, Phil Nichol, Jo Caulfield, Rufus Hound and Jonathan Ross' brother, Paul.
Claudia hosts her own weekly show also on BBC Radio 2 called Claudia Winkleman's Arts Show. The show is aired every Friday night between 10pm and midnight, and consists of interviews with people from the arts world, as well as reviews and debate.[9]
In 2007, she travelled to Uganda for Comic Relief, where the harsh realities of the AIDS situation there affected her greatly. Following this, she manned the phones at the BT Tower for the Disasters Emergency Committee in response to the problems in Darfur.[10] In May 2007, she helped relaunch The National Missing Person's Campaign,[11] and also supported a Christmas campaign by the charity Refuge, which aimed to stop domestic violence.[12]
In June 2008, Winkleman was featured in Heat magazine with no make-up on, as part of a stand against the excessive airbrushing of female celebrities, which she described as "pretty terrifying".[13]
Claudia has also presented several Award Ceremonies including the Purple Heart Awards, The HSBC Awards, and The Campaign Digital Awards. In addition she has hosted promotional videos for companies such as John Lewis Partnership, C&J Clark and the British airport consortium BAA Limited.
Winkleman, who is of the Jewish faith,[14] married film producer Svend Kristoffer Thykier, in France in 2000.[15] They live in Connaught Square, Westminster,[16] and also own a home in Maida Vale.[17] They have two children, both born in Westminster: Jake Leonard Thykier (born March 2003) and Matilda Martha Thykier (born June 2006).[18][19]
On 1 September 2008, The Daily Mail reported on problems in Winkleman's marriage. The paper reported that Winkleman "looked drawn and stressed on the doorstep as she greeted (her father and stepmother), who took her son out for the morning. She was not wearing a wedding ring".[20] However, Winkleman said in February 2009, in an interview with Fabulous magazine regarding her marriage, "Everyone has problems, but you have one life and you have to sort things out. It's what everyone does". She is now wearing her wedding ring again, and has said that everything is back on track.[15][21]
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Angus Deayton |
Hell's Kitchen presenter 2009 |
Succeeded by Series Ended |
| Preceded by N/A |
Eurovision Dance Contest presenter (with Graham Norton) 2007, 2008 |
Succeeded by TBA |
  | Claudia Winkleman, Awards Host - Claudia Winkleman - Television Presenter and Awards Host - Speakers Corner |
| | Fansite - Claudia Winkleman TV Presenter |
| | It May Take Two To Tango But There's Only One Claudia Winkleman - It May Take Two To Tango But There's Only One Claudia Winkleman | Facebook |
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