6-20.txt - Excerpt From The Irish News - 12 July 1999 - Copyright original owner.
ITV finds its own brilliant creature on Page Three
A Staff Reporter
SHE has been described as the female Des Lynam but former Page 3 model Gail McKenna
is considerably blonder and considerably better looking.
What she does have in common with smoothie Des, however, is sports presenting. She
currently anchors Live and Dangerous for Channel 5, and while she may not have the
expertise of such sporting luminaries as John Inverdale or Steve Rider, she can more
than hold her own on most sports.
Liverpudlian Gail, 30, is only too aware that her looks have not exactly gone against
her during her TV career, first as a sports presenter for Live TV and then at Channel 5.
But it has taken a lot of guts and determination for this blonde mother-of-two to
break out of the modelling mould into serious sports presenting. Now she is beginning
a career in children’s television, hosting Brilliant Creatures, which begins a new series
on CITV on July 12.
Funnily enough, the powers that be are not too keen to mention her former career as a
topless model and she admits it may have hindered her progress in some ways. It might have stopped me getting through certain doors, she concedes. People might have said, ‘We’re not happy with that history’. But if you get over
that barrier, you almost get double brownie points for coming from where you came from.
On the other hand, had she not been a familiar face on Page 3, former Sun editor
Kelvin McKenzie would not have known her when she went for a job at Live TV,
which by then he was running. There had been no sport there at all when Kelvin McKenzie took over, so he said he
wanted sport with female presenters. I think you can see where he’s coming from!
I’d never done any presenting before but I went and did reasonably well. I knew a fair
amount about football, but it wasn’t very heavy duty. But if you sit down and read
the back pages of the newspapers every day, you learn pretty much about what’s
going on. Kelvin already knew me, although if I had not been able to do the job
it wouldn’t have gone any further.
Nowadays, McKenna is desperate not to be pigeonholed. Her first ambition was to be an
actress and she still hasn’t given up on that she is still a member of Equity
after getting her card doing panto in Stevenage a few years ago.
After that she appeared in sketches for Bobby Davro, she was Barry Grant’s girlfriend
in Brookside and then had a baby, before returning to the screen as a sports
presenter for Live TV. The daughter of a machine fitter, Gail grew up in Liverpool
and had always wanted to be an actress. I used to nag mum and dad to send me to stage school but they were probably quite
wise and wanted me to have a solid education.
She left school at 16 after passing eight O-levels and was signed up by a modelling
agency after having her picture taken by a photographer who was a friend of a friend.
She soon moved to London and the modelling career began, which gave her the opportunity
to live the high life and travel the world. It was only supposed to be a year off and my dad wasn’t thrilled about it. But I
went through no more of a wild period than anyone else.
She gave up glamour modelling at the age of 20 because she was bored and
turned instead to acting. She had just been offered a part in a touring play when
she discovered she was pregnant.
She had James, who is now nearly seven, although she split up from his father soon
afterwards. Gail has since found happiness with restaurateur James Rhodes.
They married two years ago, live in London and have a two-year-old son, Jack.
It hasn’t been easy maintaining a TV career and looking after her two sons, she admits,
but she believes the experience has done her good. Motherhood grounds you and settles you down a lot, but in a good way. If you were
running here, there and everywhere, looking for your direction in life, wondering
where you were going, it certainly grinds it to a halt, because you have to focus
on your kids and they become the most important thing to you. I used to be
ambitious to a point where I found it frustrating. I’d think, ‘Is it ever going
to happen? Am I doing the right thing? Am I good enough?’ All these silly
paranoias you get. Then you have a child and you realise it’s all rubbish anyway and it
doesn’t matter. You still have to achieve things for yourself, but in the greater
picture the important thing is your kids.
Gail is still ambitious, but not to breaking point. Her career is not the
be-all-and-end-all. And she would never return to modelling. I’m too old they wouldn’t have me. It’s something to do when you’re flitting around.
I think you should know when it’s time to call it a day. And it’s very boring and
brainless. You need no skills at all.
But she says she has no regrets about her topless days. I don’t regret it. I don’t think, ‘Oh, I wish I hadn’t done that’. Certainly it gave
me a lot of things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. But there is a
part of me that wishes that it hadn’t happened and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s
because then I wouldn’t have to justify it.
Brilliant Creatures starts on CITV on Monday July 12 at 4.45pm
I like this interview, and only wish I'd found it earlier. Gail deserves to do well
on television - I for one hope she gets into acting (not soaps, Gail, pleeeese!)
