PAULA YATESPaula Yates, who died aged 40 on 17 September 2000, lived the life of a party girl and tabloid favourite in the 1980s and 1990s, equally famous for her personal life as for her media career.She rose to national prominence in the early1980s when, with Jools Holland, she co-presented music programmeThe Tube, a flagship show of the newly-launched Channel 4.She went on to have a key role inthe same channel's morning showThe Big Breakfastand also published several books.Paula Yates was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales, on 24 April, 1960, to actress Heller Toren and TV presenter Jess Yates.After a troubled childhood, affected by her parents' break up, she moved to London in 1976, and met Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof through writing a rock column forRecord Mirror. In 1978 she posed forPenthousebefore landing her job withThe Tubein 1982.The couple married in 1986, before Ms Yates began working onThe Big Breakfast- a TV show produced by her husband and featuring him as a fellow interviewer. The couple had three daughters.Her section saw her coquettishly lying on a double bed with guests, her naturally attractive personality coaxing celebrities to often reveal intimate details about their lives. 'On The Bed' was hugely successful. In 1995 Michael Hutchence of the band INXS appeared as her guest, andthe couple fell in love. When Mr Hutchence died in1997, a distraught Ms Yates was unable to accept the coroner's verdict of suicide. Ms Yates' depression was worsened by the discovery that her biological father was not Jess Yates, but another TV presenter, Hughie Green.Her death was the result of an alcohol and drugs overdose.In the 1980s and 1990s, Ms Yates' fame was such that Geldof, whoalso organised Live Aid, was once known as 'Mr Paula Yates'.While a large part of her fame stemmed from her lifestyle, she remained a loving mother to her four daughters (youngest Tiger Lily was her daughterwith Australian Hutchence) and indeed she ended her affair with Mr Hutchence before his death because she could not bear to be away fromher daughterswhilst touring with him in Australia .Her talents were neatly summed up by journalist Muriel Gray, who said: "At a time when television's version of womanhood was either brainy and plain, or pretty and dumb, Paula Yates broke the mould by being precisely what she wanted to be. She was frighteningly clever."
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