Holly Samos
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Holly Samos (born 1971 Guildford, Surrey), also known as Holly Hotlips, is a Radio Researcher and Presenter. A former member of Chris Evans Zoo Squad, she now is the Formula 1 Pitlane reporter for BBC Radio Five.
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[edit] Career
Born of Greek immigrant parents in Guildford, Samos grew up in London, Athens, and Oklahoma. Samos's mother bought her a portable radio cassette player for Christmas in her early teens, and she used to record the Top 40, then playback and talk over the DJ pretending to be him - but in an American accent. She gained 9 O Levels, before studying in Northampton for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Design and Media Management [1].
Her first ever job was a Saturday job working on a market stall as a teenager selling winter coats. Aged 19, she under took summer work for GLR in London as a runner and switchboard operator, where she worked on the Greenhouse show presented by Chris Evans (he was 24). She finished her degree and then her first fulltime job in radio, which she admits falling into, was at the age of 22 for Virgin Radio in the Programming Department when the station launched.
[edit] The Chris Evans period
In 1995, Chris Evans moved to the BBC. To pay him the amount of money he wanted, Radio1 controller Matthew Bannister agreed that Evan's company Ginger Media Group could produce the Breakfast Show. Evans, at the time a media genius, plotted a "zoo" format with a group around him - including Producer John Revell, Engineer Dan McGrath - and Researcher Samos. The format worked well dragging back 500,000 listeners within the first 6months - around £5/listener including all costs.
The first big falling-out came when Evans failed to turn up before Christmas 1995. He had taken his radio team and staff on a 17-hour pub-crawl which ended just two hours before he was due on air. He was fined £7,000 - one day's pay. In 1996 the broadcasting watchdog investigated a horde of complaints against Evans, about which Radio 1 refused to comment throughout and for which Evans never apologised. These included humiliating Samos by repeatedly asking her about her sex life - and on one occasion, getting her to admit that she and Evans had slept together [2]
In November 1996, Evans span out of control, announcing he was medically unfit to be on the radio - not surprising as he was constantly photographed in pubs with the Zoo Squad by the tabloids. In a last attempt to accommodate and retain Evans, Bannister renegotiated his contract to double his holiday to twice that of other Radio 1 DJs, and let Evans start his show at 7am instead of 6.30am. Predictably, it was not enough, and Evans and his team were sacked in January 1997 [3]
A short period afterwards, the Broadcasting Standards Council found against Evans on "numerous" issues. In all but one, the council said that Evans humour was "juvenile but did not go beyond acceptable limits". However, his jokes about violence to women and inviting his team to join him in apparently kicking Samos went too far [4]
In September 1997, Evans and his team made a return to Breakfast Radio - and a return to Virgin Radio. But this time, Evans was not satisfied with the commercial returns of just producing an entire show - he bought Virgin Radio in January 1998. He also instantly solved the problem of how he prepared his TFI Friday programme for Channel 4: he handed it to his on-air team of Samos, Revell and McGrath [5]
Evans was at the height of his powers, and the loyalty of his team led to Revell presenting his own Virgin show at weekends, and researcher Samos earning a contract to model bras for Gossard. The team performed consistently, reducing their partying and drinking considerably. Things got even better in 2000, when Evans sold Virgin Radio to Scottish Media Group for £255M, and signed a long term contract which paid him £1.7M per annum. And then he met and proposed to Geri Halliwell, which resurfaced Samos's earlier relationship with Evans, after they were subsequently caught canoodling in the toilets of the Sugar Reef club.
Evans extracted himself from Halliwell, but then met Billie Piper in May 2000 [6], and then married her in Las Vegas the following year. As a result, Evans's team were covering more of his shows alone - and relationship with SMG were deteriorating quickly. In May 2001, Evans was officially signed off sick from his show - Virgin staff previously last saw Chris at a large scale party to celebrate the station's eighth birthday, on Monday 30th April. Evans and his team didn't turn up for his show the following morning and no-one knew where he was. Station bosses said he was ill, but didn't say what was wrong with him. By the middle of the month, he'd been reported to have sacked his team of Revell, McGrath and Samos and replaced them with Louise Pepper and Matt Pritchard in the hope of saving the show amid audience figures which showed 100,000 listeners had re-tuned in the previous three months. Evans' show reportedly had 5million listeners less than Sara Cox over on Radio 1 [7]
By June 2001, Evans and Virgin had parted company after Evan's and the team failed to turn up for work five days in a row. Evans, but not his team, was sacked - he said he was ill, but was pictured at a pub with his now-wife Billie Piper during his absence.
Evans sued SMG for £8.6m worth of SMG share options owed to him as a result of Virgin's sale. SMG counter-sued, alleging breach of contract - all the members of Evans's team were called to the Defence, ie the side of Virgin/SMG. The Court case began in May 2003 after two months of legal argument, and on 26 June Evans lost his claim and High Court judge - costs were awarded to Virgin/SMG, which it is estimated to have reduced Evans personal fortune from £55million to £10million [8]
[edit] After Evans
During the period from May 2001 to June 2003, all members of Evans's team had their contracts more than honoured by Virgin/SMG. Samos ended up presenting a show for a while, but without Evans the spark was gone and she like Revell and McGrath were eventually well paid announcers and minor technicians - they were after all the previous management team.
Samos then left Virgin for the short lived TalkSPORT TV, but eventually ended up on the Century FM network presenting The Confessional and then the late night love show LoveLines [9] As a result of Jeremy Kyle taking over the late night weekly slot with Late Night Love, Samos was moved to an earlier evening slot in the weekends presenting '‘Hairbrush Divas'’ in late 2003 [10]
Samos also undertook a lot of commercial work, her Gossard contract having come to an end, presenting for the Formula One Jordan team, the BBC's Holiday program on various assignments, and hosts of fashion and beauty shows. Her distinctive tones also make her a voice over artist with impact, and she is most accomplished and employed continually in that line of work [11]
After Capital Radio took over Century Network [12] Samos moved to London's Heart 106.2 to present the Saturday breakfast show with Toby Anstis [13]
In March 2006, it was announced by BBC Radio Five that Samos had joined their Formula One team, and will report the latest news and gossip live from the pit lane and the paddock at each grand prix [14]
[edit] Personal life
Chris Evans supposedly had an on-off sexual relationship with Samos. The pair verbally sparred on many a morning back in the mid 90s on Virgin and Radio One, and there was always mystery surrounding their relationship [15] As Evans broke up his relationship with Geri Halliwell, Samos and Evans were caught canoodling in the Gent's toilets at the Sugar Reef club in London [16]
[edit] Triva
- Has a sister, Lisa, an Art Gallery director.
- Her favourite album is Edie Brickell's Picture Perfect Morning
- Describes her best on air moment as: Chris Evans giving me absinthe at 7am on our BBC Radio1 breakfast show. I lost the plot completely and laughed for about 10 minutes.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.geocities.com/cbradiobabes20/hollysamos_questions.html
- ^ http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=531&id=710962003
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1997/01/17/neva117.html
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1997/01/30/neva30.html
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1997/12/19/ndj19.html
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1318007.stm
- ^ http://www.community-net.co.uk/members/aircheck/aircheck_UKLondon.htm
- ^ http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/judgmentsfiles/j1825/evans_v_smg_tv_and_others.htm
- ^ http://www.durham21.co.uk/archive/archive.asp?ID=1917
- ^ http://www.drdb.org/article.php?id=130&from=hom
- ^ http://www.virginradio.co.uk/djsshows/djs/samos.html
- ^ http://www.geocities.com/thehotw/aircheck_UKCheshire.htm
- ^ http://www.jgpm.co.uk/news.htm
- ^ http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-8-2006-90706.asp
- ^ http://www.sky.com/showbiz/picture_gallery/0,,50001-1186573-4,00.html
- ^ http://allpop.canoe.ca/AllPop-HalliwellGeri/991111_trouble.html
