Early Life and Career
Norton was born in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, but grew up in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland. His father's family were from County Wexford, while his mother is an Ulsterwoman, being from Belfast. He was educated at Bandon Grammar School, in West Cork, and then University College, Cork (U.C.C.), but did not complete his studies.
In 1992 his stand-up comedy drag act in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a tea-towel clad Mother Teresa of Calcutta made the press when Scottish Television's religious affairs department mistakenly thought he represented the real Mother Teresa.
His first appearances in broadcasting were in the United Kingdom (rather than his native Ireland), where he had a "spot" as a regular comedian and panellist on the BBC Radio 4 show Loose Ends, when the show ran on Saturday mornings, in the early 1990s. His rise to fame began as one of the early successes of Channel 5, when he won an award for his performance as the stand-in host of a late-night TV talk show usually presented by Jack Docherty. This was followed by a comic quiz show on Channel 5 called Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment, which was not well received as a programme, but did further enhance Norton's individual reputation as a comic and TV host. In 1996, Norton co-hosted the late-night quiz show Carnal Knowledge on ITV with Maria McErlane.
In 1996, Norton played the part of Father Noel Furlong in three episodes ("Hell", "Flight Into Terror", "The Mainland") of the Channel 4 series Father Ted, which was set in the West of Ireland. Father Noel Furlong was often seen taking charge of a small youth folk-group. Norton gained particular fame in his native Ireland for this role.
Read more about this topic: Graham Norton
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“We passed the Children’s Bureau bill calculated to prevent children from being employed too early in factories.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)