See also Biography Index (G) :: Filmography Index (G) :: Discography Index (G)

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE, (born 8 November 1966) is a chef, television personality and restaurateur.[1] He has been awarded a total of 14 Michelin Stars,[2][3][4] and in 2007 became one of only three chefs in the United Kingdom to hold three Michelin stars at one time.[5] Ramsay currently ranks 3rd in the world in terms of Michelin Stars behind Joel Robuchon and Alain Ducasse.[6]

Ramsay is known in the United Kingdom for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as Hell`s Kitchen and The F-Word. He is best known in the United States as the host of FOX`s Hell`s Kitchen, which premiered in May 2005, and of Kitchen Nightmares, which premiered in September 2007, based on his successful British show Ramsay`s Kitchen Nightmares.

Ramsay`s father was, at various times, a swimming pool manager, welder, shopkeeper, and aspiring country and western singer, and his mother and sister were nurses.[7] Ramsay has described his early life as "hopelessly itinerant", as his family moved constantly due to the aspirations and failures of his father. In 1976, they finally settled in Stratford-upon-Avon where he grew up with an allotment nearby. In past public interviews, Ramsay has declined to describe his father as an alcoholic; however, his autobiography, Humble Pie,[7] describes his early life as being marked by abuse and negligence from this "hard-drinking womanizer".[7][8] At the age of 16, Ramsay moved out of the family house to a council flat in Banbury[9] with his elder sister. Ramsay played football, was first chosen to play under-14 football at age 11, and was chosen to play for Warwickshire at age 12. His football career was marked by a number of injuries, causing him to remark later in life, "Perhaps I was doomed when it came to football".[7] In the summer of 1984, Ramsay was being actively scouted by Scottish club, Rangers, the club he supported as a boy,[10] when he seriously injured his knee, smashing the cartilage during training. [11] Ramsay continued to train and play on the injured knee, tearing a cruciate ligament during a squash game. He never fully recovered from the double injury and was told by Rangers that he would not be signed, suggesting that he could sign with a club in a lower division. By this time, Ramsay`s interest in cooking had already begun, and he chose to take on this new challenge, rather than be known as "the football player with the gammy knee".[7] After weighing his options, without enough O levels to join either the Royal Navy or the police force, Ramsay enrolled at a local college, sponsored by the Rotarians to study Hotel Management. He describes his decision to enter catering college as "an accident, a complete accident".[7] In September 2005, Ramsay expressed an interest in moving into football again as an owner with the proposed takeover of Greenock Morton football club.[12]

After his professional football career came to an end at age 19, Ramsay paid more serious attention to his culinary education. In the late 1980s, he worked as a commis chef at the Wroxton House Hotel, then ran the kitchen and 60-seat dining room at the Wickham Arms, until his relationship with the owner`s wife made the situation difficult.[7] Ramsay then moved to London, where he worked in a series of restaurants until being inspired to work for the temperamental Marco Pierre White at Harveys.[7]

After working at Harveys for two years and ten months, Ramsay, tired of "the rages and the bul

Post a Comment | View All Comments (4)