Ricky Grover

Rickie Joseph Grover (born 24 December 1961[1]) is an English actor and comedian. His stepfather was an armed robber and his mother a hairdresser.[2] His first cousin is Jimmy Doherty. Grover became a ladies' hairdresser and a champion boxer,[2] with the nickname Ricky 'Goodnight' Grover due to his big punching power. He then became a stand-up comedian, actor and occasional television presenter. He is best known for his role as Andrew Cotton in EastEnders. Grover is dyslexic and could not read or write until his early thirties.[3]

Ricky Grover
Born
Rickie Joseph Grover

(1961-12-24) 24 December 1961
West Ham, Essex, England
OccupationActor, Comedian

Early life

Grover was born in West Ham, Essex. He started boxing at the age of 6 and started boxing professionally at the age of 22. He finished his career at the age of 36 with a record of 89-3 with 75 knockouts.

Acting career

Grover has appeared in television programmes including Red Dwarf,[2] Fist of Fun, 'Orrible,[4] The 11 O'Clock Show,[2] Honky Sausages and Black Books. He also provided the voice acting for the character of Yangus in the English language version of the PlayStation 2 game Dragon Quest VIII.

His 1996 short film Punch won the Silver Bear Award[4] at the Berlin International Film Festival.[5]

In 1998 he featured in the music video for the England song Vindaloo by "Fat Les".

In 2000, he won the Best Actor award at the Brest European Short Film Festival for his performance in Hungry (1998)[6] One of his most regular characters is "Bulla", a violent offender who originally featured on The 11 O'Clock Show and was interviewed by Michael Parkinson. He had a guest appearance in Top Buzzer. In 2011 he starred and co-wrote the feature-length film Big Fat Gypsy Gangster with his wife, Maria Grover.

He has appeared in adverts for Virgin Mobile and Beagle Street Insurance.

Since July 2009 he has played the part of Matron Hilary Loftus in the BAFTA award-winning BBC Four medical 'docu-sitcom' Getting On, directed by Peter Capaldi. He had a role in the vampire film Dead Cert[7] and in the horror drama Tony.[8] which was released in UK cinemas on 5 February 2010[9]

Ricky Grover also had a role in an episode of Not Going Out in 2011, playing a drug-dealing butcher.

Grover reprised the role of Yangus in the 2015 videogame Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below.[10]

Presenting career

In 2006, Grover presented the documentary F*** Off I'm Fat as part of BBC Three's first "Body Image" season. In 2007 he presented a peak-time Tonight With Trevor McDonald report on obesity and a BBC Two episode of Grandad's Back in Business in which he mentored two stand-up comedians.

Writing

From July 2003, Grover wrote a column, "Raging Bulla", for the monthly magazine Loaded until its final issue in 2015.

Filmography

Video game roles

Books
  • Sit-Down Comedy (contributor to anthology, ed Malcolm Hardee & John Fleming) Ebury Press/Random House, 2003. ISBN 0-09-188924-3.
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gollark: Well, SoCs, anyway.
gollark: They already make CPUs.
gollark: x86 with extensions for 64-bit use.
gollark: Or ÁMD64.

References
  1. "Ricky Grover". IMDb. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
  2. "Scotsman, 11th August 2002". Retrieved 16 April 2008.
  3. "Daily Mirror, 8th April 2012". Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  4. "Ricky Grover". Where I live. BBC Hampshire. 18 September 2002. Retrieved 16 April 2008.
  5. "Phuket Gazette, 25 January 2008". Archived from the original on 31 January 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2008.
  6. "List of awards for Hungry". IMDb.com. Retrieved 23 September 2007.
  7. More cast, new poster for vampire film DEAD CERT Archived 12 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  8. Slamdance '10: 'Tony' Makes Friends the Gruesome Way Bloody Disgusting, 18 December 2009
  9. First Stills from Revolver Entertainment's 'Tony' Bloody Disgusting, 4 January 2010
  10. @RickyGroverUK (25 February 2015). "Ricky Grover on Twitter: "@yellowmage correct blimey yes!"". Twitter. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
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