 |
|
 |
|
 |
| |
BIO (Work in Progress) |
|
|
|
Holly was born in 1981 and brought up in the seaside town of Brighton. Her father Brian works as a manager for a double glazing company, her mother, Lyn, worked as an air stewardess to look after Holly and her elder sister, Kelly, who now works in music management.
|
At the age of 14 she was spotted on a school trip to the Clothes Show Live exhibition, and was signed up by the Storm model agency and within months she had become the queen of teen magazines. "I was young-looking and skinny and I had this image that appealed to magazines such as Mizz, Just Seventeen and More!." says Holly.
|
| By 17, in a world of super-skinny models and celebrities Holly is a wholesome size 12. What's more, she's happy with it. "I was delighted when I developed hips and boobs," she says. "At school I was always known as 'flat-chested Willoughby' and then wham! My body turned into my mother's. If my model agency had told me to diet back down I would have just quit. I like womanly figures. To me the sexiest women of our times have to me Marilyn Monroe Sophia |
 |
| Loren and Brigitte Bardot, and non of them were stick thin. I love food. I love buying it, preparing it, cooking it and eating it. I wouldn't be happy if I had to avoid something that is actually a very big part of my life. I'd already decided that if this meant I couldn't do modeling I'd take up a place at university to read psychotherapy. That was what I wanted to do." |
|
 |
Her model agency had other ideas: underwear modeling.
She was put up for the converted Pretty Polly campaign and secured the job. "A load of girls were herded into this one room with heap of bras and told to put one on." says Holly "There was a pile of larger bras and a pile of small ones. All the small ones went, and I was the only girl that needed a larger one. I was probably the only model there with a normal body shape."
|
|
| The chances of her going to university seemed more and more unlikely as she went to audition with a friend, who was trying out as a TV presenter, and landed the job herself. Her debut was part of S Club TV "I loved it from the start," says Holly. "I did it for a year and after that I knew i wanted to stay in television. I went up for loads of other jobs but I didn't get any." "The truth is that I was absolutely useless. On S Club |
TV we rehearsed all day for a 15-minute segment. Everything was scripted, it was more like acting than presenting and not too far removed from my work on commercials. I'd go up for interviews and they'd give me an ear-piece. I'd hear instructions [from show's producers] in my ear - but then talk out loud back to him!" She puts her head in her hands. "I was so embarrassing. At some auditions they'd put me through the mill because they could see I was so green. It really taught me a lesson."
|
 |
|
After S Club TV she landed a job as a receptionist at a TV production company, before working as a runner on the shopping channel Auction World TV. Holly then moved into a seedy flat in west London and worked her backside off.
"Whenever I worked I'd ask questions non-stop and try to absorb everything. I wanted to know how things worked, what everyone did, from the production secretary to the floor manager. I was only doing shifts, so I also took on cleaning jobs, bar work and learnt how to manicure and pedicure for extra cash, and I started an Open
|
 |
University course in psychotherapy. I spent two years learning as much as I could. I finally found a job as assistant floor manager, and then I persuaded a friend to make a showreel for me with a camcorder and sent it off to as many places as possible." The showreel secured her an agent, and within months her career began in earnest at the BBC when she was taken on as CBBC presenter for such shows as the long running Xchange, science show X-periMental and CBBC Does Fame Academy
|
|
| 2004 saw Holly move to ITV to co-present the latest CITV saturday morning TV show, Ministry of Mayhem. Cat Deeley had decided to call it a day at CD:UK after an amazing 6 years, Holly stepped in as a guest presenter along side Dave Berry. But with Dave Berry being a guest presenter too, he soon left leaving Holly alone. ITV had to move the show onto Sundays to fit around her M.O.M. schedule. CD:UK has now returned to it's Saturday slot with 3 new presenters leaving Holly to Present her new show about phobias starting soon on CITV |
|
|
| |
Her dream now is to move into 'grown-up' television, despite the experience on Bring It On, which was canned midway through it's run. "It was so disappointing because I loved the show and everyone who worked on it," she says. "I was shocked they pulled it. But you never now what is going to take off" Holly herself is more of a sure bet. Bright, hard-working, good company and pretty to boot, there is clearly more of Ms Willoughby to come! |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
: Pictures
: Clips 