Chris Evans

Evans was born in Warrington, England, the youngest child of bookmaker and health authority wages clerk Martin Joseph Evans (12 November 1921 – 25 April 1979), and Minnie Beardsall (1926–2018), who managed a corner shop.

His siblings are brother David (born 1953) and sister Diane (born 1963).

He started his schooling at St Margaret's Church of England Infants and Junior School, and later the Junior School in Orford, Warrington.

Evans' father died of colorectal cancer, and his mother was a breast cancer survivor.

He passed the Eleven-Plus exam and started at Boteler Grammar School, Warrington.

Christopher James Evans (born 1 April 1966 ) is an English television presenter, radio DJ and producer for radio and television.

He started his broadcasting career working for Piccadilly Radio, Manchester, as a teenager, before moving to London as a presenter for the BBC's BBC Radio London and then Channel 4 television, where The Big Breakfast made him a star.

Soon he was able to dictate highly favourable terms, allowing him to broadcast on competing radio and TV stations.

Slots like Radio 1 Breakfast and TFI Friday provided a mix of celebrity interviews, music and comic games, delivered in an irreverent style that attracted high ratings, though often also generated significant numbers of complaints.

After the death of his father on Wednesday, 25 April 1979, the 13-year-old Evans took part-time work at an outlet of T. J. & B. McLoughlin's newsagent–tobacconist in Woolston, and ran an alternative tuck-shop at Padgate High School, which was a comprehensive school he attended for the final three years of his secondary education.

Evans left secondary school aged 16 after moving into the sixth form, and then had a number of dead-end jobs in and around Warrington, including at a private detective agency and, notoriously, as a "Tarzan-ogram".

Evans began his professional career at Piccadilly Radio, Manchester, in 1983, where he had previously had unpaid schoolboy work.

Until 1984 Evans had three jobs: as an assistant to Timmy Mallett, and playing a character on his show called 'Nobby Nolevel' ('No 'O' Level'); acting as a disc jockey in the evenings at local pubs when he was not at Piccadilly Radio; and still working at the newsagents, opening up daily at 5 a.m. to sort out the newspaper deliveries.

Evans switched to a full-time position at the station in 1984, his new role including being driven around the Manchester area in the radio car to turn up at listeners' houses.

In addition he was producer to presenter James H. Reeve.

Following this he presented a weekday graveyard slot with competitions and segments where listeners had opportunities to sell their belongings on air.

After working as a producer on Richard Branson's service The Superstation, where he produced material for Jonathan Ross, Evans went on to work at the newly launched BBC Greater London Radio, first as a producer on Emma Freud's mid-morning show, then on Weekend Breakfast with Danny Baker.

Owing to his success working on both shows, Evans was offered a producer role at BBC Radio 1, but was persuaded to stay at GLR after station controller Matthew Bannister gave him the chance to present his own show, taking over Saturday afternoons in early 1990.

Three months later, he started presenting The Greenhouse, a Monday-to-Thursday evening show; he remained in this slot until the end of 1990.

In early 1991, as a result of his first regular TV hosting work presenting the Power Up breakfast show on The Power Station for British Satellite Broadcasting, Evans moved to presenting Round at Chris's, every Saturday morning from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., which he continued to present until April 1993.

In addition to his Saturday morning show on GLR, in March 1992 Evans began presenting a Sunday afternoon show on BBC Radio 1, replacing Phillip Schofield.

His show, Too Much Gravy, was broadcast from 14:30 to 16:00 and ended in September 1992.

His move to Radio 1 was short-lived but seen as a huge success, with controller Johnny Beerling later admitting he wished he'd offered Evans a full-time show there and then.

At the time, however, Evans objected that Radio 1 had attempted to constrain his style, preventing him from using the "zoo" format, allegedly because Steve Wright was already doing that on the station.

Evans' departure from radio was in part so he could devote his time to the new Channel 4 breakfast television show, The Big Breakfast, from 28 September 1992.

He co-hosted the show with Gaby Roslin.

In April 1993, Evans left GLR and joined the new Virgin Radio, to host a Saturday morning show.

Evans left The Big Breakfast on 29 September 1994 and formed his own television production company, Ginger Productions.

Its first major programme, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, was broadcast between 1994 and 1995.

The original concepts proved to be lucrative for Evans as its format was sold to numerous foreign broadcasters.

In April 1995, Evans returned to radio to host the flagship Radio 1 Breakfast Show.

By 2000 he was the UK's highest paid entertainer, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

In 2005, he started a new career on BBC Radio 2, hosting his long-running Drivetime programme in April 2006, before moving in 2010 to host The Chris Evans Breakfast Show every weekday morning.

He presented The One Show on Fridays between 2010 and 2015.

Between 2011 and 2018, he co-hosted Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park.

In 2015, Evans signed a three-year deal to lead a new Top Gear line-up and presented a revival series of TFI Friday.

On 4 July 2016, he announced that he would be stepping down as presenter of Top Gear.

In the tax year to April 2017, he was the BBC's highest-paid presenter, earning between £2.2m and £2.25m annually.

On 3 September 2018, he announced that he would be leaving The Radio 2 Breakfast Show on Christmas Eve, and would be going to Virgin Radio UK to present its breakfast show.

He moved from BBC Radio 2 with most of his regular team.