Noel Edmonds

Biography: Noel Ernest Edmonds, is a British broadcaster and executive, who made his name as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presented many light entertainment television programmes, including Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Top of the Pops, The Late, Late Breakfast Show, Telly Addicts and Noel?s House Party. He currently presents the Channel 4 gameshow Deal or No Deal and the Sunday edition of Sky1?s Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old? and previously the topical Sky1 show, Noel?s HQ.

The son of a headmaster who worked in Hainault, Edmonds attended Glade Primary School and Brentwood School. He was offered a place at the University of Surrey but turned it down in favour of a job as a newsreader on Radio Luxembourg, which was offered to him in 1968 after he sent tapes to pirate radio stations. In 1969, he moved to BBC Radio 1 where he began by recording trailers for broadcasts and filling in for absent DJs, such as Kenny Everett. In April 1970, Edmonds began his own two-hour Saturday afternoon programme, broadcasting from 1pm-3pm, before replacing Kenny Everett on Saturday mornings from 10am-12pm in July of that year. In October 1971 he was moved to a Sunday morning slot from 10am-12pm before being promoted to Radio 1?s prestigious breakfast programme from June 1973 to April 1978, taking over from Tony Blackburn. Edmonds moved back to Sunday mornings from 10am-1pm in 1978 and also presented Talkabout, an hour long talk show broadcast on Thursday evenings.

Edmonds hosted Top of the Pops at various points between 1970 and 1978, during which time he also presented a phone in programme for teenagers called Z Shed on BBC1 as well as a programme called Hobby Horse. He hosted the children?s Saturday morning programme, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, which ran from 1976 until 1982.

Edmonds later moved to a Saturday early evening slot, first with The Late, Late Breakfast Show. The programme was cancelled by the BBC on 15 November 1986, following an accident two days earlier in which Michael Lush, a viewer who had been selected to take part in a live stunt for the ?Whirly Wheel? section, died during rehearsals. He was rehearsing a bungee jump and plunged 120 ft when his rope came loose. Noel Edmonds quit the show immediately after, although returned to Saturday night TV with his ?Saturday Roadshow?, two years later.

Edmonds was one of the original presenters of the BBC?s motoring series Top Gear during the 1970s. During his time on the programme, he rubbished the Fiat Strada, saying it "wasn?t very good", which caused Fiat to threaten to sue the BBC unless he apologised for the comments. Edmonds reappeared in one episode of Top Gear in the 1990s, to road test the classic 1960s Ford GT40 supercar, because current host Jeremy Clarkson - at 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall - was unable to fit into the cockpit. Edmonds is one of a few people in the UK to privately own a GT40.

Edmonds returned to television with The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow in 1988, after presenting a show called Whatever Next? earlier in the same year. By 1991, the Saturday Roadshow morphed into Noel?s House Party. This latter series ran for eight years from Edmonds? supposed mansion in the fictional town of Crinkley Bottom.

Edmonds made his television comeback, presenting the gameshow Deal or No Deal on Channel 4 (produced by Endemol), from a format that had already proved popular in numerous countries. The programme is filmed in a set of studios in Bristol converted from an old warehouse. It began UK transmission on Monday, 31 October 2005, and is broadcast on afternoons six days a week. In March 2006, Edmonds had his contract for presenting Deal or No Deal extended until Autumn 2007, for a fee rumoured at £3 million, making him one of the highest paid personalities on UK television.

Edmonds is a trustee of the Renewable Energy Foundation, (REF) an organisation which is strongly opposed to wind farms. He was said to have joined "because of the threat near his home in Devon". He has been quoted as saying that, "Politicians are promoting the wind industry as a green icon, but they are misleading the public into believing the propaganda of the wind industry. The reality is that wind power is too costly and can never meet our energy needs; but it will destroy the countryside".

Edmonds was married to Gillian Slater from 1971, but the marriage ended in divorce after eleven years. In July 1986, he married Helen Soby, and the couple have four daughters: Charlotte, Lorna, Olivia and Alice. The couple bought an 855-acre estate at Jacobstowe, near Okehampton, Devon as a family home. In 2004, he and Soby divorced, splitting with much tabloid publicity due to her extramarital affair.

After his second divorce, Edmonds started a relationship with Marjan Simmons, a French estate agent. They dated for a year until summer 2006. Simmons later went to the press, telling how she was left heart-broken after he dumped her, claiming she felt "discarded" by him after he battled to regain his television career.

It was reported that Edmonds was involved with English teacher and former Miss England Pauline Bull, who lives in Monaco, close to his £3m home in Magagnosc, near Grasse, in the South of France. However, Edmonds stated that he was not ready to get seriously involved in a relationship so soon after his second divorce.

On July 23, 2009 Edmonds? married his third wife, Liz Davies a make-up artist on the programme Deal or No Deal in Lower Slaughter Gloucestershire.

As a result of his success on Deal or No Deal, Edmonds purchased a new home in Devon, a £1.7 million Grade-II manor house.

Edmonds is a licensed helicopter pilot, and one of his early personal aircraft was registered G-NOEL He was president of the British Horse Society between 2004 and 2007.

For many years Edmonds has been a believer in Spiritualism, in particular the concept of Cosmic ordering a subject he became interested in after being introduced to the book ?The Cosmic Ordering Service - A Guide to Realising Your Dreams? by his reflexologist. He had not worked on TV since the end of his BBC TV show ?Noel?s House Party? in 1999. One of his wishes was for a new challenge. Later he was offered the chance to return to TV to work on Deal or No Deal. Edmonds later went on to write his own book titled "Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways To Change Your Life".

He has also claimed that he is occasionally visited by two melon-sized "spiritual energy" balls, which appear over his shoulders and which he believes to be the spirits of his dead parents. Edmonds further claims that the orbs only appear on digital photographs