Cat Deeley

From Celebrity Wiki

Catherine Elizabeth "Cat" Deeley (born 23 October 1976) is an English disc jockey, television personality and former fashion model, who rose to fame at the age of 21, co-hosting the well-known children's series SM:TV Live, alongside Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, for also hosting Stars in their Eyes since 2004, and for hosting So You Think You Can Dance, during its second season in 2006.

The elder of two children, born in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, England, Deeley attended Grove Vale Infant School in Great Barr, Birmingham, followed by Dartmouth High School, where she played clarinet in the Sandwell Youth Concert Band. She continued her education at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School's Sixth Form. After achieving nine A grade GCSEs and four A-levels at school, Deeley became a full time fashion model. She occasionally hung out with her brother Max, becoming a tomboy. Prior to this, she entered a regional BBC competition called The Clothes Show, where she made it through to the finals. She was spotted by an agent, and Deeley signed with the Storm modelling agency, where Kate Moss was also on the roster. She shortened her first name to Cat because there were several other Storm models named Catherine.

Deeley left modelling after two years and became an MTV UK presenter in 1997. She usually co-hosted with Edith Bowman, with whom Deeley is friends.

From 1998 - 2002, she was co-host with Ant and Dec on the Saturday morning children's show SM:TV Live and also hosted its spin-off shows CD:UK (From 1998 to 2005) and CD:UK Hotshots. In 2001, she won a Children's BAFTA award for best presenter and appeared in an episode of the BBC's Happiness. In 2002, Deeley appeared in a television commercial for the British high street store Marks and Spencer.

Other programmes she has hosted include Record Of The Year, Fame Academy, The Brit Awards 2004 and Stars in Their Eyes, as well as a weekly show on London's Capital FM and BBC Choice series Roadtripping both with former MTV colleague Edith Bowman. In 2003 she became patron of Great Ormond Street Hospital, and in 2005 she played herself in an episode of Little Britain and provided the voice of "Loretta Geargrinder" in the UK version of the film Robots replacing Natasha Lyonne

Since 2006, she began hosting the second season of American reality show So You Think You Can Dance, replacing Lauren Sanchez, who was pregnant at the time. Deeley interviewed Kylie Minogue for a television special which aired in the United Kingdom on Sky One on 16 July 2006, in Australia on Channel Nine on 17 July 2006 and BBC America on 9 September 2006.

Deeley also had a stint as a guest reporter on NBC's Tonight Show around this time. She has presented Fox's New Year's Eve special live from Times Square in 2006 and 2007. She is also an entertainment contributor for ABC News, providing coverage from various awards shows including the Golden Globes and the Grammy and Academy Awards.

In 2007, she presented the British coverage of season 6 of American Idol for ITV2. She filmed segments and interviews with celebrity guests and eliminated contestants for UK audiences that were shown just before and after commercial breaks. However, this was not popular with viewers who saw Deeley's role as 'unnecessary'. She will not return with season 7 of American Idol in 2008.

For a period, Deeley was the face of Shape Water and a number of Garnier Fructis products, appearing in print and television advertising in the UK and Ireland.

On July 1, 2007, Deeley was one of many celebrity speakers appearing at the Concert For Diana. The event, watched by an estimated 500 million viewers worldwide, was held at the new Wembley Stadium.

In January 2008, a new series of So You Think You Can Dance started its auditions, with Deeley again hosting.

She is to return to the UK to host a new dating show called The Big Match and to host the UK version of So you think you can Dance.

[edit] Trivia

• On SM:TV Live, she often acted as an apparently slightly unwilling assistant whenever the show featured a guest appearance by a magician. During her time with the show, she regularly found herself appearing and disappearing, and being crushed, stretched, levitated, impaled and guillotined. However, by far the most common event was for her to be sawed in half, an illusion she participated in several times in its various forms - most commonly the traditional "Thin Model" version. In one of the most memorable performances, after she had been divided in two and her halves separated, they were both then "stolen" by Ant and Dec, who wheeled them off-stage in opposite directions! In another performance of this illusion, she became the first British celebrity to participate in the "Clearly Impossible" version of the illusion, where she was divided in two inside a clear-sided box which allowed her entire body to be seen at all times during the sawing-through and separation.

• Renowned for her looks, Deeley has often appeared in 'sexiest women' lists and the like, and has posed for countless photo-shoots in men's and women's magazines. Once, in 1999, she casually mused in an interview that she would like to appear in a Playboy photo-shoot one day. When, in a separate FHM interview, she was asked to confirm in the plainest terms that she would pose completely nude for a photo-shoot if offered a million pounds, she replied unequivocally in the affirmative. To date, however, she has not.

• Deeley once commented that the television personality she found most annoying was Vanessa Feltz, because she was heard talking about her private life too often.

• She is known to be a friend of the fashion designer Matthew Williamson and frequently wears his clothes during red carpet events.