Paul Donnelley

BORN in London, Paul Donnelley was raised in the tiny hamlet of Harold Hill in Essex and educated at a Jesuits boys' grammar school. Aged 15, he wrote a quiz for the late Jeremy Beadle on the London radio station LBC. Two years later, he was the biggest outside contributor to the best-selling Hunter Davies's Bigger Book of British Lists. On leaving school, he worked as a researcher for Jeremy Beadle for many years. His own first book - 50 Fantastic Hits - was published when Donnelley was 24. Donnelley have since written 21 books, often with a showbusiness theme. He is the author of biographies of Julia Roberts (2003) and Judy Garland (2007); a history of television scandal (TV Babylon in 1997); four editions of a best-selling encyclopaedia of film stars Fade to Black (2000, 2003, 2005 and 2010)and a guide to the films of Marilyn Monroe (2000) In the mid-1980s he wrote many of the questions for the television quiz show Pass the Buck (hosted by George Layton for Thames Television). Donnelley also wrote a number of unbroadcast shows. Of the shows that did make the air, he wrote for Jeremy Beadle's Today's the Day (TV-am), Today's the Day (BBC), Ultra Quiz (TVS) and University Challenge (Granada for BBC).