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Stephen Merchant is the illegitimate offspring of the Harlem Globetrotters. Standing at 6 foot 7 inches he went on to become one of the world’s most famous male models. He’s well known for his way with women with a string of well publicised affairs. Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Angelina Jolie have all succumb to the Merchant charm. All have failed to tie him down and he continues to play the field even experimenting with his sexuality. Recently he’s been seen out and about a lot with Russell Brand with rumours that they may be more than friends.
The Real Stephen Merchant
Stephen Merchant was born on 24th November 1974 in Bristol. He studied hard at school and graduated from Warwick University. This is where he had his first taste of radio as a film reviewer on the student radio station.
Stephen then tried his hand at stand up comedy and appeared frequently at a comedy club in Bristol. He has later commented that he never felt comfortable as a stand up comic but even so he was a finalist in the Open Mic awards.
In 1997 he was hired by London radio station XFM as assistant to the Head of Speech who was one Ricky Gervais and thus a great writing partnership was formed. In 1998 he left XFM to do a production course at the BBC. During his time there he and Gervais made a comedy pilot about a manager going through a mid life crisis who decides to become a David Bowie impersonator. This sowed the seeds for "The Office".
In 2000 "The Office" was commissioned by the BBC even though the relatively inexperienced Gervais and Merchant insisted they have full control including co-directing and editing. In 2001 the show was aired on BBC2 to great critical acclaim, it went on to win BAFTA’s, British Comedy Awards and even a Golden Globe.
In 2001 after the success of "The Office" Steve and Ricky were re-hired by XFM to host their own radio show between 1pm and 3pm on Saturday afternoons. This time they were given their own producer, one Karl Pilkington. Listening figures were poor but the show gradually developed a cult following mainly due to Karl's bizarre musings.
A second series of "The Office" was made in 2002 in which Stephen made a brief cameo but his acting skills only really came to attention when the pair made "Extras". Stephen played incompetent agent Darren Lamb for which he won a best comedy actor award in 2006.
By the end of 2005 Steve and Ricky had limited their appearances on XFM to only a few weeks over the past couple of years due to them becoming ever more busy. Even so they still wanted to continue the shows in some format and came up with the novel idea of podcasts. Initially they released 12 free shows only expecting a few thousand downloads, instead they got millions.
Other credits in Steve's career include appearing in regular skits in Gervais's short lived "Meet Ricky Gervais" series in 2000, a couple of appearances as a cook in the very funny "Garth Merenghi's Darkplace" in 2003 and a script associate in the sitcom "Nathan Barley". Unlike Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant has remained in radio and hosts his own show on BBC 6 music on Sunday afternoons.