Phillip Schofield

Biography: An English broadcaster and television personality best known for presenting shows such as This Morning, Dancing on Ice, various game shows including The Cube.

Schofield was born in the Lancashire town of Oldham. He grew up and was educated in Newquay, Cornwall. When he was 15, his first foray into media was a Sunday show on Hospital Radio Plymouth. After many years of writing letters to the BBC, at 17 he took up the position of bookings clerk for BBC Radio at Broadcasting House in London, where he was, at the time, the youngest employee.

Aged 19, Schofield moved with his family to New Zealand, where he made his television debut presenting the children?s music programme Shazam! on 23 February 1982. He also spent two years working for the Auckland-based station Radio Hauraki.

In 1985, Schofield returned to England, where he became the first in-vision continuity presenter for Children?s BBC on weekdays for two years from September 1985. He left the "Broom Cupboard" to present Going Live! on Saturday mornings between September 1987 and April 1993.

He then moved to adult-orientated TV with various programmes for ITV, such as Schofield?s Quest, Schofield?s TV Gold and Ten Ball. From 1994 to 1997, Schofield presented Talking Telephone Numbers for five series, and the National Lottery Winning Lines programme for BBC One between June 2001 and October 2004.

His two current assignments with ITV1 are as co-presenter of daytime TV talk-show, This Morning (since 3 September 2002) and as co-presenter of the BAFTA-nominated celebrity reality television show Dancing on Ice (since 2006) alongside Holly Willoughby. Also, All Star Mr & Mrs with Fern Britton.

Following the success of that show, and his continued spot on This Morning, ITV signed Schofield to an exclusive two-year contract (a so-called ?golden handcuffs? deal) in July 2006, alleged to be worth £5 million.

The exclusive deal also meant he could no longer present the BBC nationwide quiz Test the Nation, which he had presented for fifteen editions with Anne Robinson between 2002 and 2006. Schofield was replaced by Danny Wallace.

On 23 February 2007, Schofield celebrated his 25th anniversary as a television presenter. A surprise feature on This Morning showed highlights of his career, along with tributes from his parents, Pat and Brian; wife Stephanie (née Lowe); daughters Ruby and Molly; and brother, Tim. At the conclusion of the tribute, Gordon the Gopher, on the beach at his "retirement clinic" in Hawaii, was blown up via a detonator manned by Fern Britton.

Schofield married Stephanie Lowe in March 1993, a BBC Production Assistant whom he met during his time at BBC Children?s Television. The couple live near Henley-on-Thames with their two daughters..

To keep in shape, apart from breakfast he only eats one meal a day, saying:

I tend not to have lunch, unless I?m going out for lunch, and then I won?t have supper. As a guy, you?ve got to be aware of all parts of your body as you get older. I eat very carefully and I?ve never let myself get fat. I very rarely have fried food, and I am very disciplined so that when I do have a treat, like a KFC, I really enjoy it. I do a fast-paced one-hour walk every Friday with my wife, and pilates on a Wednesday