Graham Norton reveals 'nightmare' Hollywood guest who passed out drunk on stage
Graham Norton is the chat show king that nearly every star in the world hopes to meet.
In a new look at the success of his 26-year-old talk show, the Irish comedian revealed that he owes much of his global success to three iconic divas: Cher, Joan Collins, and Dolly Parton, who helped make his BBC One series a worldwide sensation.
The ladies helped establish Graham's presence on television by taking a chance on appearing in early episodes when he first launched his career on Channel 4 in the late 1990s.
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Despite now having these three global icons on speed dial, Graham admits it's his 92-year-old mother, Rhoda, who is the first to call him with a candid review of his weekly chat show after it airs on Friday nights, reports the Mirror.
Living in fear of his Irish mother's no-nonsense opinion, he admits: "My mother watches the show every Friday and every Saturday I get her review.
"There are only two of them. One will go, 'Saw the show last night...I thought it was alright.' That is the good review.
"If it is a bad review, she will say, 'Saw the show last night...How do YOU think it went?' So with parenting like that it is no surprise I seek the validation of strangers. It is as if there is a queue outside her house with people waiting to tell her how s**t her son's show was."
Graham's mother will be ready by the phone when her son's highly anticipated, BAFTA-winning show returns to BBC One on Friday, September 27.
This season's premiere will feature an impressive line-up of Hollywood A-listers, including actress Demi Moore, making her debut to discuss her role in the critically acclaimed horror film The Substance.
Pop superstar Lady Gaga will also join the show to talk about her upcoming role alongside Joaquin Phoenix in Joker: Folie à Deux, while actor Colin Farrell will be on to promote his new Apple TV series The Penguin.
No matter what unfolds, Graham is well-prepared after handling countless awkward moments over the years, including the infamous 2013 episode when a tipsy Mark Wahlberg jumped on his lap.
Revealing secrets from his chat show green room, Graham says: "It is very hard to get drunk on the show. We do give people a drink, yes. They get one and if there is a break between filming they might nip in and top up your glass and that is it.
"The most you get is two, maybe three, drinks in a show. If you want to be drunk on the show, and apparently some people do, you really need to arrive pre-liquored up.
"I remember one time I was outside as Hollywood star Mickey Rourke arrived in his car and he stepped out holding a bottle of Jack Daniels. More worryingly it was half empty. It suddenly became clear where that Jack Daniels had gone. It was a nightmare.
"But the famous one was Mark Wahlberg, I guess. He was fine when he came on the show. There was not a hint of it and then about 20 minutes into the show it caught up with him. Oh it was bad. At one point Mark was asleep on the couch in front of the audience."
Graham let former Calvin Klein underwear model Wahlberg get away with his riotous behaviour, admitting he had a secret crush on the actor when he was younger.
"What made the experience weirder for me was when I was younger I had a copy of Vanity Fair magazine and there was a photo of Mark Wahlberg in it taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz," gushes Graham.
"To me, this was the most erotic image I had ever seen. Imagine telling my younger self that one day that man would sit on my lap, play with my nipples, and I’d find it annoying!"
Thankfully, Graham's husband, filmmaker Jonathan McLeod, will be around this season to fend off any overly affectionate A-list guests.
The couple tied the knot in a lavish ceremony in Graham's hometown of West Cork in July 2022, with 120 guests in attendance, including his beloved mother. The celebration took place at the four-star Bantry House, where singer Lulu reportedly performed, and drag queen Panti Bliss took over the DJ decks.
Although 61-year-old Graham tends to keep his private life out of the spotlight, he admits that finding love has helped him slow down. He recently quit his Virgin Radio show to reclaim his weekends.
Reflecting on his new work-life balance, Graham said, "The chat show used to have a longer run, but I cut it back because, well, I’m getting older. I also gave up radio after 13 years, which is a lovely thing. When you're single, it's fine, but when you're married, it's hard to say, 'By the way, I'm busy every weekend.' So it was the right thing to do."
Today, Graham can generally secure almost any star he wants for his show.
He admits that there is still a wish list of guests, including the notoriously private Brad Pitt, some "young members of the Royal Family," and the remaining members of The Rolling Stones. However, he remains mindful of the challenges he faced in the early days when booking guests was much harder.
Graham recalls, "When we started out on Channel 4, it was tough to get people to come on. I remember one time we had Sharon Gless from the American series *Cagney & Lacey*. When she arrived in London, the passport control officer, who was a big fan, asked why she was in the UK. When she said she was doing our show, he asked, 'Oh, why are you doing that?'
" Sharon had a panic attack and decided not to do the show. I had to take her out for dinner, paid a huge bill, and then the taxi helper outside saw me and said, 'Ugh, you’re not doing his show, are you?' That was a waste of a fancy dinner. But I’m grateful to stars like Cher, Dolly Parton, and Joan Collins who took a chance on us early on; they changed how bookers and agents viewed our show."
Graham also recounts a letdown involving Irish crooner Daniel O'Donnell, who unexpectedly canceled his appearance on the racier late-night version of the show. "When we booked Daniel, I was thrilled. We even got it into the newspaper listings. But the Friday before his appearance, someone from his team must have watched the show and decided he was too busy. Unfortunately, it was too late to remove his name from the TV listings. He was supposed to appear with Madame Pee Pee, whose act involved a brandy glass! On Monday, the Channel 4 duty log had complaints, including one woman who wrote, 'For God's sake. I am supposed to be taping this for the nuns.'"
Looking back, Graham names Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and Miriam Margolyes as some of his best guests, with Margolyes earning the title of "TV gold."
One of Graham's proudest moments was having his late father, Billy, a former Guinness sales representative who passed away in 2000, in the audience of his show. Both his parents traveled across the Irish Sea to see their son achieve a major milestone when he landed the sensational singer Grace Jones on the early days of his Channel 4 show, So Graham Norton.
The memory of their support brings Graham to tears as he recalls the pride and joy in their eyes as they witnessed him reach his dream of becoming a TV star.
Reflecting on their unwavering support, he says, "Growing up, all I wanted was to be on television, believing it would solve all my problems. That’s why the show with Grace Jones on Channel 4 is so special to me. It was the only time my dad was able to be in the studio audience. By then, his Parkinson’s disease was quite advanced.
"My dad wasn’t one for many words, but thinking back on the effort it took for them to travel from Bandon to Cork, fly to London, and for my mother to handle all the logistics, it means so much to me. It showed how proud they were of me having my own show. Oh, I’m getting emotional. Sorry. They were there to see the show really take off, and they kept me grounded. After the show, I took them to the green room and asked my dad, 'Would you like to meet Grace Jones?'"
"He looked across the green room and there was Grace still wearing a big Philip Treacy head dress, drinking red wine and eating sausage rolls, and he just went, 'no'.
"Now if someone had told me back then I would still be doing this job after 20 years I would have thought they were crazy."
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