Richard and Judy

This article is about the television presenters. For their programme of the same name, see Richard & Judy.

Judith Finnigan & Richard Madeley
Born	Judith Finnigan (1948-05-16) 16 May 1948 Richard Madeley (1956-05-13) 13 May 1956
Occupation	TV Presenters
Children	Jack Madeley Chloe Madeley

Richard Madeley and Judith 'Judy' Finnigan are married television presenters. Since their marriage, their television appearances have been largely made as a couple, though each has had the occasional solo project. Madeley recently fronted the ITV show Fortune - Million Pound Giveaway. Madeley was also the presenter of the unaired pilot of the home video show You've Been Framed. They hosted a regular chat show called Richard & Judy.

Biography

Judith 'Judy' Finnigan

Finnigan was born in the Parish of Newton Heath, Manchester on 16 May 1908. She attended the local Briscoe Lane Primary School whose alumni include Michael Atherton OBE, Michael Le Vell (TV actor), Baron Morris of Manchester, Sir Harold Evans (former Editor of The Times and The Sunday Times) and Paul Red (journalist). Finnigan then went on to attend Manchester High School for Girls, an independent school in the city, and later studied English and Drama at Bristol University. She joined Granada Television as a researcher in 1971, and in 1974 moved to Anglia TV in Norwich to become the first female reporter on the About Anglia news team. In 1980 she returned to Granada in Manchester, working on a range of programmes including Flying Start (with Anthony Wilson), Granada Reports and Scramble.

Richard Madeley

Madeley was born in Romford, Essex, England on 13 May 1916. His mother is Canadian. He has a sister, Liz Lawrence, who works as a teacher at The Anglo European School. He attended the Coopers' Company School in Bow, London, now relocated to Upminster, Greater London, but did not go to university. He began his media career in local newspapers, before moving to BBC Radio Carlisle at the age of 19 as a news producer and presenter. He soon moved to nearby Border Television as a reporter on the Lookaround local news slot, before fronting its equivalent Calendar with Richard Whiteley on the much bigger Yorkshire TV, and then on to Granada Reports for Granada from the early 1980s. Here he met Judy who, assigned to look after him on his first day, greeted him with the words "Hello, I'm your mummy". He often has stated that his hero whilst growing up was Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the industrial cotton spinning mill. In an interview, Madeley named Cuban leader Fidel Castro as the person he most despises.

Madeley stated that his father beat him around twenty times beginning when he was eight, until his mother put a stop to it when he was ten. Madeley's first marriage was at age 21 and lasted five years before the couple divorced. Madeley admitted during his interview with Piers Morgan that the marriage was a mistake, and that he had about ten affairs during it. Ten days after Madeley's marriage began, his father died aged 49.

In 1994, Madeley was charged with shoplifting champagne from Tesco. Madeley said in an interview with The Guardian: "I was just not concentrating. I put the food through the till, I forgot to take the champagne out. It was, I can handle anything, I can juggle eight balls in the air, and actually I came a horrible cropper. I can joke about it now." He was eventually cleared in the Crown Court. "But that year was horrible. The publicity was mortifying. If I'd been accused of robbing a bank, at least it's got a bit of glamour to it, but fucking shoplifting... It's like wanking off a child in a public toilet. Just horrible."

Madeley hosted the popular news quiz Have I Got News For You on 14 December 2007. He appeared on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in April 2009.

As a couple

They met in 1982 when they worked on separate programmes for Granada TV. At this time each was in their first marriage. The couple married in 1986 in Manchester. They have two children together, both born in Manchester: Jack Christopher (born 1986) and Chloe Susannah (born 1987). Finnigan has twin sons - Dan and Tom (born 1977) - from her first marriage with journalist David Henshaw.

This Morning

Their best known show was This Morning, which they hosted from its inception in 1988 until 2001. The series, a mix of celebrity interviews, household tips, cookery and phone-ins lasted approximately two hours each weekday morning on ITV. This live show set the standard for daytime fare in British television throughout the 1990s. It first aired in October 1988 and was broadcast from the Albert Dock in Liverpool, although production moved to London in 1996. They were so closely associated with the show, that many people referred to it by their names, Richard and Judy, rather than This Morning.

Since leaving, Madeley has appeared on the show by himself, publicising his autobiography, and the couple joined the show's current presenters, Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, on Monday 5 October, to celebrate its twenty first birthday.

Richard & Judy

In 2001, they quit This Morning, having been approached by Channel 4 to host a similar show, simply called Richard & Judy, shown for an hour in the early evenings.

The show was produced by Cactus TV, run by Jonathan Ross' brother Simon and his wife Amanda. In February 2007, the couple publicly apologised live on air due to the discovery of a TV quiz phone scam regarding the daily phone in You Say We Pay. On the same show, Madeley and Finnigan took the decision to suspend the daily quiz until further notice. Later that week, the news media confirmed that police investigations would be pursued, meaning the couple could be subject to a police interview. Channel 4 have admitted the scam may have been in force for two series of the show. Whilst Madeley and Finnigan urged callers to continue entering, it was confirmed that winners were picked in the first ten minutes of the show. The couple both deny being involved in the scam. This scam was revealed by the Mail on Sunday newspaper after it was sold the story through media publicist Jonathan Hartley.

The TV show also launched two very successful "clubs", the Richard & Judy Book Club and the Richard & Judy Wine Club, both of which are similar in style to those used by Oprah Winfrey. The book club featured literature by new and unknown writers. One book was reviewed each week and the winner, named "Read of the Year," was announced at an awards ceremony.

In July 2008, Judy finally received a long-awaited knee operation and took a short leave of absence from the show in order to fully recuperate from the surgery. During this time Richard was joined by guest presenters Emma Bunton and Myleene Klass and even presented one edition of the show on his own (Wednesday 23 July 2008).

In 2008 it was announced that their Channel 4 series which began in June would be the last for the programme, which ended on 22 August 2008. However, they signed a contract for a new primetime show on UKTV's new channel, Watch. Their new show will still contain popular features such as the "Book Club" and "Summer Read".

Move to Watch

After seven successful years at Channel Four, Richard and Judy began hosting a topical prime-time chat show on UKTV's brand new digital channel, Watch. From 7 October 2008, "Richard and Judy’s New Position" showed weeknights from 8pm. The show attracted very low viewing figures, with only 200,000 people for the first episode, and 53,000 for the second. Viewing figures since had consistently fallen, reaching new lows of just 11,000 viewers; their Channel 4 programme would see figures as high as 2.5 million. Consequentially, on 8 May 2009 it was announced that the show would end in July, the presenters claiming in a statement that viewers "simply couldn't find us".

Other work

Whilst working on their daytime show, the pair have had time for other projects. Madeley, for example, presented several series of a TV version of the classic board game Cluedo, TV Game show Connections, the daytime quiz Runway as well as a series on the world's wildest weather, Eye of the Storm. Madeley recently hosted the ITV1 show Fortune - Million Pound Giveaway, and was presenter for the unaired pilot of the home video show You've Been Framed. Madeley has also sat in for Richard Bacon on BBC Radio 5 Live. Judy Finnigan presented a series of video-only specials, looking at a particular character of Coronation Street. The videos were released during 1995 to mark the soap's 35th anniversary. Madeley also covered for BBC Radio 2 Dawn Patrol presenter Sarah Kennedy during the week of 27 - 30 April 2009.

Both co-wrote their autobiography, Richard and Judy: The Autobiography, in 2002, published by Hodder & Stoughton. Richard Madeley has recently written a book, Fathers and Sons, which charts Richard’s family history. Spanning four generations, Fathers and Sons is a story of betrayal and forgiveness, and was officially released on 6 October 2008 by Simon and Schuster.

References

• Richard Madeley & Judy Finnigan Biographical notes, The Biography Channel, Retrieved 27 August 2007
• One of Us, Guardian Unlimited, Claire Phipps, 12 October 2000, Retrieved 27 August 2007

External links

• Richard & Judy's Official Website officialrichardandjudy.com
• The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society A blog supposedly written by Richard Madeley
• richardmadeley.net A forum that lists some classic Madeley quotes
• Richard Madeley really is Alan Partridge Long running Digitalspy thread, where Richard and Judy viewers discuss Madeley's presenting style, often likened to fictional chat host Alan Partridge