Denise van Outen

Denise van Outen is an English television presenter and actress. Her most notable roles to date were as a presenter on The Big Breakfast, and as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago on both the West End and on Broadway.

Biography

Born as Denise Outen in Basildon, Essex, her father is a security guard and her mother a child carer. Denise is the youngest of three siblings; her sister is a doctor's assistant and her brother is a hairdresser.

At the age of seven she began modelling for knitting patterns, and showed an early flair for performing. This resulted in her attending the Sylvia Young Theatre School. As a student, she appeared in the chorus of Les Mis?rables with fellow Sylvia Young student Melanie Blatt, and then as Eponine - the role paid her school fees; the Anthony Newley directed production of Stop the World - I Want to Get Off, and A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Early career

As a teenager she had brief roles on a number of television dramas including Kappatoo, when her stage name was Denise Douglas. She also sang in a "girl group", by which time she had become Denise van Outen. She also did backing vocals with Melanie Blatt for the band Dreadzone.

Success was not forthcoming, and she turned to being a glamour model . Van Outen has retained her distinct looks, being voted both Rear of the Year in 1999, and top of a poll to find the most desired "bikini body" in a 2007 poll of readers of Grazia magazine. Television

During 1995, van Outen started her television career on Saturday morning ITV show Scratchy and Co's mini youth programme Massive! Van Outen joined The Big Breakfast on Channel 4 as a weather and travel reporter in 1996 and landed the main co-presenting role in 1997. It proved to be her big breakthrough, with her cheeky "Essex Girl" personality and sexy clothing playing off well against the quick wit of Johnny Vaughan, and together they recovered audience figures to respectable levels