GERVAIS
Ricky

• 1. Family background
• 2. Early life
• 3. Career
• 3.1. Music
• 3.2. Radio

Ricky Dene Gervais is an English comedian, actor, director, and writer. He is best known for co-creating, co-writing, and acting in the British television mockumentary sitcom The Office (2001–2003). He has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the Rose d'Or twice (2006 and 2019), and has been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2007, he was placed at No. 11 on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups, and at No. 3 in their 2010 list. In 2010, he was included in the Time 100 list of World's Most Influential People.

Gervais initially worked in the music industry. He attempted a career as a pop star in the 1980s as the singer of the new-wave act Seona Dancing, and managed the then-unknown band Suede before turning to comedy. He appeared on The 11 O'Clock Show on Channel 4 between 1998 and 2000, garnering a reputation as an outspoken and sharp-witted social provocateur. In 2000, he was given a Channel 4 spoof talk show, Meet Ricky Gervais. He achieved greater mainstream fame the following year with his BBC television mock documentary series The Office, followed by Extras in 2005, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with Stephen Merchant, and in which he played the lead roles of David Brent (The Office) and Andy Millman (Extras). He starred in the 2016 comedy film David Brent: Life on the Road, which he also wrote and directed.

Gervais began his stand-up career in the late 1990s. He has performed five multi-national stand-up comedy tours, and he wrote the Flanimals book series. Gervais, Merchant, and Karl Pilkington created the podcast The Ricky Gervais Show, which has spawned various spin-offs starring Pilkington and produced by Gervais and Merchant. Gervais has also starred in the Hollywood films Ghost Town, the Night at the Museum trilogy, For Your Consideration, and Muppets Most Wanted. He wrote, directed, and starred in The Invention of Lying and the Netflix-released Special Correspondents. He hosted the Golden Globe Awards in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, and again in 2020. Gervais also appeared on the game show Child Support. He is also the creator, executive producer, director, and writer of the Netflix comedy series After Life, where he plays the lead role of Tony Johnson.

Family background

Ricky's father, Lawrence Raymond "Jerry" Gervais (1919–2002), a Franco-Ontarian of French Canadian and Iroquois descent better source needed from Pain Court, Ontario, emigrated to the UK whilst on foreign duty during the Second World War. He worked as a labourer and hod carrier before he met Gervais's English mother, Eva Sophia (née House; 1925–2000). They met during a blackout and settled in Whitley in Reading, having four children over a sixteen-year period. Eva died at age 74 of lung cancer. Gervais, the youngest child, has three older siblings: schoolteacher Larry (1945–2019), Marsha, a pedagogue for special needs children (1948–), and painter–decorator Bob (1950–). Gervais has spoken of his appreciation and love for Bob in particular, to whom he credits his dry and controversial sense of humour.[citation needed] Their shared comedic tastes were both influenced by their mother, Eva Gervais. Ricky has made an example of this by reminiscing in various interviews about when, as an 11-year-old, he asked why his siblings were so much older than he was, she bluntly told him he was a mistake.

Early life

Gervais was born on 25 June 1961 at Battle Hospital in Reading, Berkshire. He was brought up in the Whitley suburb of Reading, with a sister, Marsha, and brothers Larry and Robert. Prompted by Robert, Gervais began to question the existence of God from about age 8.

Gervais attended Whitley Park Infants and Junior Schools and received his secondary education at Ashmead Comprehensive School. After a gap year which he spent working as a gardener at the University of Reading, he attended University College London (UCL) in 1980. He intended to study biology but changed to philosophy after two weeks, and was awarded an upper second-class honours degree in the subject from University of London in 1983. During his time there, he met Jane Fallon, with whom he has been in a relationship since 1982.

Career

Music

In 1983, during his final year as a student at University College London, Gervais and his best friend Bill Macrae formed the new wave pop duo Seona Dancing. They were signed by London Records, which released two of their singles—"More to Lose" and "Bitter Heart". The songs failed to make the UK Singles Chart.[25] Despite not being successful in the UK, Seona Dancing did manage to score a hit in the Philippines with "More to Lose". Gervais also worked as the manager for Suede before they became successful in the 1990s.

In 2013, Gervais performed a live tour as David Brent along with his band Foregone Conclusion, Brent's fictional band in The Office. He and the band performed songs written under the Brent character, including "Equality Street" and "Free Love Freeway". Gervais also produced a series of YouTube videos, 'Learn Guitar with David Brent', featuring acoustic guitar versions of nine songs.

In 2016, as part of the Life on the Road film promotion, Gervais published the David Brent Songbook of 15 songs, which he also recorded for the album Life on the Road as David Brent and Foregone Conclusion.

Radio

Gervais worked as an assistant events manager for the University of London Union (ULU), then was head of speech at the alternative radio station Xfm. Needing an assistant, he interviewed the first person whose curriculum vitae he read: Stephen Merchant. In 1998 Gervais's position was made redundant when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group. Around this time he was also a regular contributor to Mary Anne Hobbs's Radio 1 show, performing vox pop interviews in unlikely locations.

After the first series of The Office, Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in November 2001 for a Saturday radio show, where they began working with Karl Pilkington, who produced the shows and later collaborated with them on their series of podcasts.

In October 2017, Gervais began hosting the weekly radio show Ricky Gervais Is Deadly Sirius on Sirius XM, which ran until 2019.