GARRY Bushell is best known for his hard-hitting, award-winning newspaper columns which have been published in the national press for 29 years. But before that he wrote for rock weekly Sounds where he covered and discovered hundreds of bands.
A fireman's son from Woolwich, south east London, Garry did his journalist training under Paul Foot on the Socialist Worker before joining the rock press in 1978.
He was the first to write about such legendary bands as the Specials, U2, Bad Manners, Secret Affair and Twisted Sister. He wrote Iron Maiden's authorised biography Running Free and co-wrote Ozzy Osbourne's first authorised biography, Diary Of A Madman. He managed the Cockney Rejects and The Blood. He fronted (and still fronts) his own band, and notched up a Number One single with the all-star charity record Let It Be - a project he conceived and organised.
Garry's Bushell On The Box TV column has appeared in The Sun, The Daily Star and The People. His own TV show of the same name Box ran for two series on ITV, attracting more than one million viewers at midnight and attaining an audience share high of 68per cent. He has appeared on more than 2,000 other TV shows, including some of television's biggest prime time hits; and many radio shows.
Garry is an outspoken broadcaster who has written novels, appeared in gangster movies and featured prominently in the acclaimed documentary films East End Babylon, Casuals and Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed. He has worked with and befriended legends of British comedy, including Benny Hill, Bob Monkhouse, Bradley Walsh, Joe Pasquale, Bobby Davro and Jim Davidson. Harry Hill has said his TV Burp was inspired by Garry's column; guests on his TV series included Lilly Savage, Vic & Bob, Craig Charles and Penn & Teller.
He has campaigned consistently for TV talent shows (when executives insisted the format was dead) and for variety shows.
Garry's column is currently published weekly in the Daily Star Sunday.