Arlene Phillips Biography
Arlene Phillips DBE is a former dancer and English choreographer, talent scout, television judge, presenter, and theatrical director.
How old is Arlene Phillips? – Age
She is 80 years old as of 22 May 2023. She was born in 1943 in Prestwich, United Kingdom. Her real name is Dame Arlene Phillips.
Arlene Phillips Family – Education
She has a brother named Ian and a sister named Karen. After completing the eleven plus test, she attended Broughton Preparatory School in Cheetham Hill, Manchester; Beaver Road Primary School in Didsbury; and Manchester Central High School for Girls. Phillips’ mother, who had been suffering from leukaemia, died at the age of 43, just before Phillips was to sit her exams.
Phillips originally aspired to be a ballet dancer and began taking lessons at the age of three, studying ballet and tap dance at the Muriel Tweedy School in Manchester after graduating from high school at the age of sixteen. Phillips was encouraged to pursue dancing professionally because her mother had always expressed a passion to dance.
How long has Arlene Phillips been married? – Husband
Phillips has been in a relationship with set builder Angus Ion since 1985. The couple first met on the set of the Freddie Mercury song “I Was Born to Love You” music video.
Arlene Phillips Net Worth
She has an estimated net worth of £ 6 million.
Arlene Phillips Books
Phillips published a series of children’s fiction novels in 2010. Alana Dancing Star is a six-book series in which the title character explores various dance styles. Ballroom dance, samba, hip-hop, Bollywood, Broadway, and tango are all covered in the series. Viennese Waltz, one of the books, was chosen for Richard and Judy’s Summer Children’s Reading List in the summer of 2011.
Arlene Phillips Britannia High
Phillips was named Executive Producer and Creative Director of the ITV series Britannia High in 2007. The show was a fictional drama about six pupils in a performing arts school in London. The series was advertised as the UK’s response to Disney’s High School Musical, based on an idea by Phillips and West End producer David Ian. Gary Barlow, the vocalist of Take That, composed and wrote the music for the show.
Arlene Phillips Strictly Come Dancing
Phillips served on the first judging panel for the BBC television show Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 to 2009, alongside fellow judges Len Goodman, Craig Revel Horwood, and Bruno Tonioli.
Phillips served as a judge on the BBC spin-off series Strictly Dance Fever in 2005 and 2006, which sought dancers interested in joining the chorus of a West End production. Later that year, in 2007, she developed and judged another BBC dance show, DanceX, which was meant to find a new commercial dance act.
Following the first audition procedure, the contestants were divided into two troupes of dancers, with Phillips mentoring one troupe and Bruno Tonioli, another Strictly Come Dancing judge, mentoring the other. Each week, the two troupes competed live on television, with Tonioli’s team eventually winning.
Why did Arlene Phillips leave Strictly?
Following the conclusion of the 2008 series of Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC announced that many adjustments will be implemented in order to revitalize the show in 2009. This sparked widespread speculation in the media that Phillips might be removed from the judging panel, but the BBC refused to comment. They ultimately confirmed the news during the presentation of their autumn schedule on July 9, 2009: she had been replaced by former Strictly Come Dancing winner Alesha Dixon. The news prompted widespread condemnation of the BBC for allegedly discriminating against older women on television; the BBC, however, categorically refuted this.
The replacement of Phillips prompted an extraordinary intervention from Harriet Harman, the then-Minister for Women and Equality. During a question and answer session in the House of Commons, Harman stated that she believed the decision to drop Arlene Phillips was motivated by age discrimination, and she urged the BBC to ensure that she would appear in the upcoming season. The BBC did not react formally to Harman’s request, but reiterated that the choice was not based on age.
Arlene Phillips Hot Gossip
Phillips rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as the director and choreographer of Hot Gossip, a British dance troupe she founded in 1974 with pupils she was instructing at the time. Hot Gossip spent two years performing in a London nightclub, where Phillips and her manager worked on the group’s dance routine.