Kevin O'Sullivan
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Kevin O'Sullivan, born in Toxteth during the Blitz, is an entertainment columnist for the British tabloid newspaper the Sunday Mirror.
Famous for his witty barbs[citation needed] and frequent appearances on primetime talk show Richard and Judy, O'Sullivan is considered - especially strike, read "only" by Kevin O'Sullivan - to be one of the country's foremost television critics.
O'Sullivan began his career as Big Brother critic for the Wimbledon Echoin 1959. He has gone on to hold the same post at a number of other publications, before landing his incredibly-widely read strike, read "widely used as cat-litter" column at the top-selling[citation needed] Sunday Mirror in 2006, prompting a tearful send-off from his colleagues at the Mirror features department[citation needed].
His famous blue black toupe is preserved for all time in the editor's office, alongside his "Highly Condemned" award in the Amnesty International Journalist Awards.
An only child (his father Harry Champion was a towering star of music hall during the forties, with hits such as Any Old Iron and I'm Henery the Eighth, I am), O'Sullivan got an early taste of fame as the angelic poster boy for Pears Soap. This success at the age of six was followed by walk-on roles in several relatively successful radio shows of the late forties, culminating in his role as Tiny Tim in Laurence Olivier's production of A Christmas Carol for BBC Radio, 1949. An unfortunate misunderstanding involving misuse of Sir Larry's favourite cigarette holder effectively ended his acting career at the tender age of thirteen and, having been expelled from Stage School for reasons never explained, he turned his attention to journalism, gaining employment as personal runner boy to Jeffrey Bernard at Queen magazine.
Married three times (Philomena Velasquez 1970-1971, Dorothy Squires 1972-1975 and Hortense Grimaldi of the Grimaldi circus family 1975-1981), he found happiness in later life with landscape gardener Terence Sydney who he met while out walking one evening near his Watford home. They settled in Frinton.
Together they purchased a small finca in Lanzarote, which they restored in the Greco-Romano style, complete with lyre-shaped swimming pool in which they would indulge their mutual passion for banana daiquiris well into the small hours - much to the consternation of the village's elderly mayor who unsuccessfully campaigned to have the pair evicted. Gambling debts forced the sale of the property in 1989, though O'Sullivan would often make solo return trips back to the isle to renew his acquaintance with the Mayor's young grandson, Alonso, with whom he had formed a close bond.
It was around this time that O'Sullivan was spotted by a member of the Norte del Valley drug cartel from Colombia as having a striking resemblance to their boss Diego León Montoya Sánchez, alias "Don Diego". He developed a lucrative sideline as a stand-in for Don Diego at many bit "sit-downs" with leading cartel bosses and from his experiences developed the as-yet unproduced screenplay "Twin Freaks".
O'Sullivan - of Scottish extraction - was a big Bay City Rollers fan, having been romantically involved with one member of the band[citation needed]. Shang-A-Lang, one of the band's hit records, was inspired by O'Sullivan's catchphrase 'shang-a-lang-a-ding-dong', which he would drawl lasciviously on being introduced to young men in the late night haunts of London's Soho district.
The artist Francis Bacon, a fellow reveller, famously described the distinctive greeting as "meaning everything - and yet meaning nothing, rather like Kevin himself.." Their always tempestuous friendship ended in fisticuffs in the hot summer of 1976 in a dispute over a glass of iced Campari.
[edit] Charitable Work
In 1977, O'Sullivan famously refused to give up his seat to a senior citizen on London's underground rail service, The Tube. The woman consequently fell in the aisle, fracturing her hip, an injury from which she never recovered. Filled with remorse, O'Sullivan detailed the incident in his Sunday Mirror column the next week - taking the unusual step of using the platform of a national television critic to launch the Give Up Yer Seat! campaign. Despite O'Sullivan's initial worries that "no-one gives a hoot about these heroes anymore", the campaign developed into a national cause celebre. Indeed, in the UK today, giving up your seat to an old person on a train or bus, is known as "doing a Sully". For his role in the campaign, O'Sullivan was nominated for a CBE, though Government papers released to the public in 2007 reveal the Prime Minister of the day, James Callaghan, wrote the single word "never" across the application.
In March 2006, trustees from the Kiss O'Life Foundation, a charitable body set up in accordance with O'Sullivan's last wishes, announced an annual bursary to the London International College of Fashion, in memory of the donor's notorious fetish for stiletto heels.
In March 2007 a controversial statue of O'Sullivan erected on Hampstead Heath was crudely vandalised. Although the perpitrators have not been caught, British Sunday newspaper, The Sunday People, received an email claiming responsibilty from a group calling themselves The Hairs (sic) of Jonathan King. The group has also claimed to have been behind damage caused to a number of London statues, including that of Lord Baden Powell in Queensgate.
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