Paul O’Grady: The ultimate outsider who became a national treasure

The roof-raising riot, who combined warm compassion with outrageously spiky wit, has died unexpectedly aged 67. Michael Hogan looks back on his glittering career

Paul O’Grady (Oliver Dixon/Shutterstock)

British entertainment has lost a truly unique talent. From drag to dogs, gameshows to the gay scene, trailblazer Paul O’Grady was one of our very best. Millions of us who’ve savoured his effervescent screen presence over the past 35 years have been left heartbroken by the news that he has died aged 67. O’Grady’s versatile career as a comedian, TV presenter, radio DJ and theatre performer means that there are few Britons whose lives he hasn’t touched. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that he attained national treasure status.

I first became aware of O’Grady – although I didn’t know that was his name back then – on the stand-up comedy circuit during the Nineties. As his drag queen alter ego Lily Savage, he was a roof-raising riot. With near the knuckle gags (“Me and my husband have an open marriage. I’m hopin’ he’ll f*** off one of these days”) and a penchant for cheerfully insulting the crowd, Savage was a subversive blend of old-skool stand-up and alternative cabaret. At the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe, O’Grady was nominated for the Perrier Award alongside Eddie Izzard, Jack Dee and eventual winner Frank Skinner. Some company to be in.

Paul James O’Grady was born in 1955 to a working-class Irish immigrant family in Merseyside. In 2015, he told a reporter that despite his wealth, he still felt “very much” working-class, saying, “I know that probably sounds strange. Mentally, I still am. I’m still thinking, have I got the rent for Friday?” His mother’s maiden name was Savage, which inspired his act. So did other female relatives and clients he met during his early career as a social worker. He performed as Lily in a solo show that ran for eight years at South London’s famed Royal Vauxhall Tavern and became renowned for speaking out about LGBT rights, notably the Aids crisis, police harassment and Section 28. He combined warm compassion with outrageously spiky wit – a rare combination that stood him in good stead throughout a glittering, eclectic career.

Rather than dressing in Hollywood-style super-glam like most drag acts of the era, O’Grady consciously made Lily a streetwise everywoman. “I gave her cheap clothes, visible roots, a tattoo and a lovebite,” he later recalled on Michael Parkinson’s chat show. “Her heels were scuffed and she had holes in her tights. She was a divorced ex-prostitute with two children and a fondness for booze and drugs. Next thing I knew, she was on primetime telly. What happened there?”

Most Lily fans were equally but pleasantly surprised when he parlayed such a risqué act into a mainstream TV career. Some of his early fans grumbled that he’d sold out, to which O’Grady replied, "I’ve done nearly 10 years on the factory floor. Now I feel I deserve a shot in the office.” His screen debut came, incongruously, on cop drama The Bill, playing a transvestite sex-worker-turned-police-informant named Roxanne. He later made a similar cameo on his beloved Brookside.

After Lily built a TV fanbase on late-night comedy showcases, O’Grady’s drag queen took over The Big Breakfast’s “On the Bed” celebrity interview slot from the inimitable Paul Yates (also gone far too soon). Ignoring the usual publicity circuit material, he instead disarmed guests with personal questions and intimate banter. Lily became a shoo-in for her own chat series but 1998’s The Lily Savage Show on the BBC didn’t quite work. O’Grady found the non-spontaneous nature of the programme restrictive, preferring to ad lib.

By 2004, now in middle age and tired of dressing as high-maintenance Lily, he retired her to “a convent in Brittany”. O’Grady decided to try to make a career out of drag – first on ITV travelogues, then on teatime vehicle The Paul O’Grady Show. ITV’s controller of entertainment, Mark Wells, said, “Paul is one of the funniest people on television – he deserves to be on it far more than he is.” The buzz of presenting live recaptured his stage days, while the show’s freewheeling mix of unscripted chat, camp humour and audience interaction proved a winner.

O’Grady’s biographer, Neil Simpson, wrote that the series was “a riotous, endearingly kitsch romp with no pretensions to be anything other than pure entertainment. In some ways it was pure vaudeville. There were novelty acts, talking dogs, whistling goldfish, extraordinary stories. His audience laughed like drains at his anecdotes and were brought right into the heart of the action.”

With a furry friend on ‘The Paul O’Grady Show’ (ITV)

The Paul O’Grady Show built such a devoted cult following that hundreds of fans had to be turned away from filming. It was scheduled against Richard & Judy, a rivalry dubbed the “Chat Wars” by tabloids, and O’Grady won the ratings battle. It ran on-and-off for more than a decade on ITV and Channel 4.

In later years, O’Grady became synonymous with Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, an organisation for which he was an ambassador. ITV’s popular Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs followed staff at the rescue charity and often ended with O’Grady adopting a dog himself. Through the series, he formed an unlikely friendship with actor Tom Hardy, a fellow dog lover. One of O’Grady’s final TV appearances was last year’s one-off special with Camilla, Queen Consort (which has just been added to ITV’s schedule for tonight).

Such was O’Grady’s charisma that he could host almost anything and make it engaging. He was one of few presenters with the standing to revive such stalwarts as Blankety Blank (previously hosted by Terry Wogan and Les Dawson) and Blind Date (filling his friend Cilla Black’s shoes for a Channel 5 reboot). He was also hired to front a revival of The Generation Game and made two pilot episodes but, ever the perfectionist, wasn’t happy with the results and departed the project.

I always thought he’d be perfect for Strictly or Eurovision but the stars never quite aligned. Yet O’Grady still paved a way for a generation of TV talent: the likes of Graham Norton and Rylan Clark owe him a debt, as does RuPaul’s Drag Race and its myriad spin-offs. Danny Beard, winner of Drag Race UK’s fourth series, has hailed O’Grady as “the most important person in British culture for drag and the queer community”. Campaigner Peter Tatchell described him as a “much admired campaigner for LGBT+ equality and animal rights”.

Lily Savage / Paul O’Grady as Widow Twankey in ‘Aladdin, A Wish Come True’ in 2012 (Bettina Strenske/Lnp/Shutterstock)

O’Grady’s husband Andre Portasio described his passing as “unexpected but peaceful”. He’d suffered health problems for two decades, including three heart attacks, but lately seemed in fine fettle. He’d recently been on tour playing Miss Hannigan in the musical Annie, a role he first inhabited 25 years ago. He was set to present a show on Boom Radio over Easter weekend and had other projects in the pipeline.

An indication of O’Grady’s immense charm – both on and off-camera, behind the mic or off it – has been the outpouring of tributes from fans and colleagues alike. Ken Bruce told The Independent: “It was an honour to work alongside such an amazing talent, He lit up any room and had time for everyone.” Penny Smith added that O’Grady was “one of life’s joys. A delightful, delicious, gossipy, glorious man”. Zoe Ball said he was “so loved by Radio 2 listeners and all of us here”. Amanda Holden added that he was "strong, funny, opinionated, no-nonsense, brilliant”.

Carol Vorderman told Radio 4’s Today programme that O’Grady “made every part of you feel like you were alive”. “He never judged the vulnerable, weak nor misunderstood,” she said. “He fought for them like a lion.” Sandi Toksvig said that “working with Paul O’Grady was one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Funny, fearless and full of rage. The best. The world seems a little less bright.”

O’Grady won a Bafta, a British Comedy Award and two National Television Awards over his career. In 2008, he was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to entertainment. Last year, the Ashford resident was appointed one of the county of Kent’s deputy lieutenants. The ultimate outsider had become a pillar of the establishment. O’Grady himself would have been more amused by that than anyone. We will never know another like him. Rest in peace, our kid.