Johnny Vegas

Johnny Vegas is an English actor, comedian, and TV presenter whose three-decade career has produced multiple defining late-1990s and 2000s English TV-comedy roles — particularly his 2001 ITV TV-comedy Bookies co-host position (with Caroline Aherne and Steve Coogan) and his 2007–2010 lead role on ITV's TV series Benidorm. He was born Michael Joseph Pennington on September 11, 1971, in St Helens, Merseyside, England, into a working-class English Catholic family. His father Laurence Pennington was a St Helens shipyard worker, and his mother Patricia Pennington was a homemaker. He acquired the stage name "Johnny Vegas" in his late-1990s comedy career across multiple Manchester-area open-mic-comedy venues.

His education at the Upholland Northern Institute (a Catholic seminary in Lancashire) — where he studied for the priesthood across 1985–1988 — preceded his late-1980s pivot to professional ceramics studies at the Middlesex University and the Liverpool Polytechnic (B.A. in Ceramics, 1994). His 1995 first Manchester-area open-mic-comedy performance and his subsequent 1996–1998 Edinburgh Festival Fringe stand-up-comedy career launched his late-1990s English stand-up-comedy public profile.

His 1997 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Perrier Comedy Award nomination at age 26 (for his Manchester-Liverpool-shipyard-and-Catholic-Northern-English social-comedy material) — and his subsequent late-1990s and early-2000s English TV-comedy career — launched his late-1990s English stand-up-comedy public profile.

His 2001 ITV TV-comedy Bookies co-host position with Caroline Aherne and Steve Coogan launched his early-2000s English TV-comedy public profile. His 2007–2010 lead role as Geoff Maltby on ITV's TV series Benidorm — across which he played a Liverpudlian holiday-maker on a Spanish-resort holiday vacation — produced his mid-to-late-2000s English TV-comedy public profile. His subsequent later 2010s and 2020s English TV-presenting career has produced multiple English TV-presenting positions — particularly his 2014 BBC Two TV series The Johnny Vegas Cooking Show, his 2016 BBC Two TV series Carry on Barging, and his 2020 BBC Four TV series Johnny Vegas: Carry on Glamping. He was previously married to Catherine Donnelly (2004–2008), and has been with English costume designer Maia Dunphy since 2008. He has two sons.

His name Johnny is the English diminutive of John (from the Hebrew Yochanan meaning "God is gracious"). Johnny has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names since 1880.