Carol Vorderman

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Carol Jean Vorderman MBE (born 24 December 1960), is a British television personality best known for being a long-standing co-presenter of Channel 4 game show Countdown. She was awarded an MBE in June 2000.

Born in Bedford, England, as a young child Vorderman lived in a single parent household; her mother remarried in 1969 to an Italian national. Vorderman attended the Roman Catholic comprehensive Blessed Edward Jones High School, although she is not known to be Catholic herself.

Aged 17, she was accepted by Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge to read Engineering. She graduated with a third class degree.

After graduation, her mother's second marriage had broken down, and the family were back in financial difficulties. Vorderman found work as a graduate management trainee, but it was her mother who saw a newspaper advertisement asking for a woman with good mathematical skills to appear as co-host on a quiz show for the fledgling fourth terrestrial channel - Jean even wrote out the application for Carol ([1]).

Contents 1 Career 2 Writing career 3 Controversy 4 Personal life 5 Trivia 6 Videos and writing 7 External links

[edit] Career

In 1982 at the age of 21, Vorderman made her name on Countdown first with Richard Whiteley from the show's inception in 1982 until Whiteley's death in June 2005, and currently with Des Lynam since production resumed in October 2005. Vorderman was a new kind of game show hostess, revealing her intellectual ability by carrying out fast and accurate mathematical calculations as part of the game. Her continued success on the show saw her become one of the highest-paid women in Britain, being paid £3 million per year.

She went on to present numerous other television programmes including the BBC's Tomorrow's World until she left to pursue a commercial career ([2]).

She was offered a huge contract with ITV in 1999. She moved to ITV, and went on to present numerous other television programmes including On Your Marks with Quizmania's Greg Scott, "What Will They Think of Next", "Tested to Destruction", "How 2" on CITV, the popular "Better Homes" which began in 1999 and spawned a spin-off "Better Gardens".

She was a newspaper reviewer on the last episode of Breakfast with Frost. In 2005, she beat off competition from other celebrities in ITV's Gameshow Marathon, winning the series.

She appeared as a guest on Have I Got News For You on May 14, 2004 and hosted the show on May 26, 2006. Carol presented the Channel 4 entertainment show The Friday Night Project on August 11, 2006.

[edit] Writing career

Carol has also had columns in newspapers The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror.

She has written books on Detox diets. She is also a self-described sudoku addict since April 2005 when she wrestled a book of sudoku puzzles from her 12-year-old daughter Katie during a vacation in the Caribbean. Vorderman has written numerous books of sudoku puzzles with help on how to tackle these addictive puzzles. She has sold millions of Sudoku books worldwide in less than a year, with almost a million being sold in the UK alone.

[edit] Controversy

Carol Vorderman's career has not been without controversy and humour. In 2006 she received flak on comedy shows Dead Ringers and Have I Got News For You for appearing in many adverts and a 2006 a petition was signed by over 88,000 people to ask her to stop doing secured loan adverts [3].

[edit] Personal life

She was first married at age 24 to Chris Mather, a naval officer and former rugby league international player, but the marriage only lasted eighteen months. Vorderman's second marriage was to management consultant Patrick King in 1990, which produced two children, Katie and Cameron. She separated from King in 2000 and has lived with Daily Mail columnist and PR consultant Des Kelly in London. The couple also have a house in Glandore, West Cork.

[edit] Trivia

• Vorderman reportedly has an IQ of 154. She is a member of MENSA.
• Third-class honours degrees are sometimes referred to as "Vordermans" by students in the UK.
• Vorderman was a member of the "Nines Club" at Cambridge, so-named because members achieve a third in each of their three years of study (3+3+3=9). This has also become known as 'Doing a Vorderman'.
• Vorderman was briefly a backing singer in the Leeds-based pop group Dawn Chorus and the Blue Tits, fronted by radio DJ Liz Kershaw.
• She participated in the 2nd series of the BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, and was the second celebrity voted out of the competition.

[edit] Videos and writing

• How Mathematics Works
• Carol Vorderman's Guide to the Internet
• Carol Vorderman's Guide to Maths
• Carol Vorderman's Pop Times Tables
• Carol Vorderman's Detox Diet
• Carol Vorderman's How To Do Sudoku, 2005
• Carol Vorderman's Massive Book Of Sudoku, 2005

[edit] External links

• Remind4u Carol's Greeting Card Site
• Carol's Bum - The Carol Vorderman Fan Site - As spoken about on Frank Skinner Show
• Another Carol Vorderman Fan Site
• Carol's Tribute to Richard Whiteley