- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJohn Robert Parker Ravenscroft
- Nickname
- Peely
- John Peel was born on August 30, 1939 in Heswall, Wirral, Merseyside, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Goodies (1970), Five Seconds to Spare (2000) and Wild About Harry (2000). He was married to Sheila Mary Gilhooly and Shirley Anne Milburn. He died on October 25, 2004 in Cuzco, Peru.
- SpousesSheila Mary Gilhooly(August 31, 1974 - October 25, 2004) (his death, 4 children)Shirley Anne Milburn(1965 - 1973) (divorced)
- Children
- RelativesAlan Ravenscroft(Sibling)
- His deadpan delivery
- He was a lifelong passionate supporter of Liverpool Football club.
- He was a DJ for BBC Radio 1 since it started in the late 1960s. He also presented the BBC Radio 4 magazine programme Home Truths from 1998 until his death.
- As a young DJ working in Dallas, TX, he was admitted to the conference where Lee Harvey Oswald was presented to the press, shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Peel can be seen in archive footage).
- His favorite song was "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones. After the announcement of his death, the song was played on the radio, and by many, many bands (who owe their careers at least partly to him) who had gigs that night.
- First worked as a DJ as "John Raven Croft" on Radio KOMA in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- I used to go and see Genesis, and after about three minutes I'd think, "Oh, I wish this would stop!".
- Everything changed when I heard [Elvis Presley]. Where there had been nothing, there was suddenly something.
- When I was younger I watched a lot of cartoons, mostly of seafaring folk.
- I gave up cycling after being victim of a hit-and-run en route from Broadcasting House to my mum's house in Notting Hill. It involved Darth Vader, men from the Middle East and bodily fluids--all of them mine.
- [on the music of the late 1960s] My favorite LP of that era, really, was and remains Country Joe's [Country Joe and the Fish] "Electric Music For The Mind And Body", and I couldn't understand why it wasn't in the charts, 'cos everybody I knew had a copy of it. But, of course, it was actually that everybody who had a copy of it was somebody that I knew.
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