Lorraine Kelly (born 30 November 1959, Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish television presenter and journalist best known as a presenter for TV-am, and later GMTV and ITV Breakfast, on Lorraine.

Early life

Kelly's father, John, worked as a television repairman. She attended Claremont High School in East Kilbride.She turned down a university place to read English and Russian in favour of a job on the East Kilbride News, her local newspaper, and then joined BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1983. She moved to TV-am as an on-screen reporter covering Scottish news in 1984.

Presenting career

TV-am

In July 1989, Kelly presented TV-am's Summer Sunday programme with chief reporter Geoff Meade, and in February 1990 she became a main presenter of Good Morning Britain alongside Mike Morris.

GMTV

Kelly helped launch GMTV in January 1993, and presented a range of programmes, including the main breakfast show with Eamonn Holmes. She presented her show GMTV with Lorraine which aired Monday to Thursday at 08:35 on GMTV, between 1994 and September 2010.

According to the Sunday Mirror, Kelly was banned from appearing in an advertising campaign for Asda because her boss, GMTV's managing director Clive Couch, feared that such a move would lead to more bad publicity for GMTV, which was fined £2 million by broadcasting regulator Ofcom in September for conning viewers with its premium-rate phone lines.

ITV Breakfast

In September 2010, GMTV came to an end, with ITV Breakfast taking over. Lorraine launched with a brand new look, alongside Daybreak, and airs every weekday at 8.30am.

Other television work

Kelly presented Liquid News,Liquid Eurovision and became the national spokeswoman for the United Kingdom during the collation of votes at the Eurovision Song Contest, in both 2003 and 2004, replacing the long-serving Colin Berry.

She has made several appearances on Have I Got News for You and has also presented it.

From 2004, she co-presented This Morning with Phillip Schofield, on Mondays and Fridays, to allow Fern Britton to spend more time with her family, but she left in March 2006.

Kelly acted as the guest host for two shows in 2006. Firstly for an episode of The Friday Night Project for Channel 4 and The New Paul O'Grady Show.She did so again for Paul O'Grady on 30 November 2006, her 47th birthday and owing to sheer popularity, in November 2007 and April 2008.

Kelly also hosted the annual Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards in 2005 and 2006 for STV.

Kelly filmed an ITV documentary programme Secrets Revealed - DNA Stories in 2006, made by STV Productions,and broadcast on Sky Real Lives. A second series was shown on the channel in 2008.

Kelly filmed a six-part documentary series Lorraine Kelly's Big Fat Challenge shown on Bio in 2010.The series featured Kelly and a team of experts putting 'Britain's fattest family', the Chawner's family through their paces in order to lose weight and transform their lives. Daughter Emma Chawner is best known for her unsuccessful appearances on The X Factor.

In 2010, in conjunction with the Missing People charity,Sky and STV produced a new documentary series hosted by Kelly, about missing mothers. This series followed the success of Sky’s previous successful missing person series Missing Children: Lorraine Kelly Investigates.

In 2011, Kelly was the presenter of the ITV1 series Children's Hospital.
Acting

Kelly made a cameo appearance in the BBC Scotland soap opera, River City. She had a small cameo in Nick Cook's fan film, Star Trek: Intrepid, where she played a watch officer.

Writing

Kelly writes weekly columns for The Sun and The Sunday Post.

She was announced as the first Agony Aunt for the Royal Air Force's fortnightly RAF News on 7 October 2009.

Other interests

Kelly is a celebrity patron of the Association for International Cancer Research.

Awards and honours

In April 1991, Kelly was awarded the TRIC Diamond Jubilee Award for New Talent of the Year.


Between 2004 and 2007, she served a period as the first female Rector of the University of Dundee and on 20 June 2008 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University for her services to charity.

In a survey Kelly was voted the celebrity most people would like to buy a car from.In a recent article from the Daily Mail, Kelly was described as, 'TV's best-loved sofa star'.

Personal life

Kelly is married to Steve Smith, a cameraman she met when she was covering Scotland for TV-am in 1985.[5] They have a daughter, Rosie, who was born in June 1994.Lorraine returned from maternity leave in late 1994 to present her own show, Nine O'Clock Live.

She currently resides in Dundee, with her family when she is not working in London. She previously resided in Berkshire.

Kelly's grandparents emigrated from Draperstown, County Londonderry.On 5 September 2006, on GMTV, she examined her own family tree.

She is a Dundee United fan and attends most games.

She believes and has stated that denominational (single-faith) schools are a cause of sectarianism in Scotland.

Bibliography

* Lorraine Kelly's Nutrition Made Easy (Virgin Books, due January 2009)
* Lorraine Kelly's Junk-Free Children's Eating Plan (Virgin Books, 2007)
* Lorraine Kelly's Baby and Toddler Eating Plan (Virgin Books, 2002/2004/2006)