Born Carol Jean Voderman
24 December 1960 (1960-12-24) (age 49)
Bedford, England
Occupation Broadcaster
Years active 1982–present
Spouse(s) Chris Mather (1985–86) (divorced)
Patrick King (1990–2000) (divorced)
Parents Tony Vorderman (father) (deceased)
Edwina J. Davies (mother)
Children Katie and Cameron King
Notable works and roles
Co-presenting: Countdown (1982–2008)
Vorderman was born in Bedford to a Dutch father and Welsh mother. Her parents broke up three weeks after her birth, and her mother took the family back to her home town of Prestatyn, North Wales, where Vorderman and her siblings grew up in a one-parent household. In 1970 their mother married an Italian national.
Vorderman was educated at the Roman Catholic comprehensive Blessed Edward Jones High School in Rhyl, followed by Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1978, where she studied Engineering. She obtained a Third in all three years of her degree.
Vorderman did not trace the Dutch side of her family until 2007 (as part of the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are?). It was only at this point that she discovered that her father Anton had been an active member of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation. He died whilst the programme was being filmed. Her great-grandfather Adolphe Vorderman played a key role in the discovery of vitamins.
Vorderman initially found employment as a graduate management trainee in Leeds, and in her spare time was briefly a backing singer in the Leeds-based pop group Dawn Chorus and the Blue Tits, fronted by radio DJ Liz Kershaw during the early 1980s. They recorded songs such as a version of The Undertones' hit Teenage Kicks (coincidentally, one of the tracks Vorderman had to identify during the "intros round" when she appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in December 2009). During 1984/85 she made regular appearances on the Peter Levy show on Radio Aire, appearing mid-morning to read a story for any pre-school children who might be listening with their mothers.
Countdown
1982 – June 2005
Vorderman's mother noticed a newspaper advertisement asking for a woman with good mathematical skills to appear as co-host on a quiz show for the fledgling fourth terrestrial channel and submitted an application on behalf of her daughter. Thus, at the age of 21, Vorderman made her name on Countdown with Richard Whiteley from the show's inception in 1982 until Whiteley's death in June 2005. Initially Vorderman's only contribution to the show was the numbers game and she formed part of a five person presentation team. However, over the coming years the team was pared down and Vorderman's contribution increased. In latter years she was a joint main presenter, co-host and face of the show. Simon Nicol's musical album Consonant Please Carol (1992) takes its title from the customary dialogue in a show.
After Richard Whiteley
In October 2005, Des Lynam replaced Whiteley and co-hosted with Vorderman. In January 2007 Des O'Connor replaced Lynam; Vorderman continued to co-host the show. Vorderman was a new type of game show hostess, revealing her intellectual ability by carrying out fast and accurate arithmetical calculations as part of the game. Her lasting success on the show led to her becoming one of the highest-paid women in Britain, earning £1 million per year, from all sources.
On 25 July 2008, after her 26 unbroken years with the show it was announced that Vorderman was stepping down from Countdown. She later said she had resigned after failing to agree terms with Channel 4 for a new contract, and it was reported that she had been asked to take a cut of some 90 per cent of her previous salary, estimated as £900,000.[10] She had considered leaving the show when the original show's host Richard Whiteley died in 2005, but remained on the show when Lynam took over, and until 2008 when his eventual replacement O'Connor announced he was also to step down as the show's host. Vorderman later said that she had "put on a stone from the stress of being 'sacked' from Countdown". Vorderman and O'Connor both left the show in December 2008.
