Keith Floyd

With his Stranglers soundtrack and bottomless wine glass, the bad boy of cooking Keith Floyd revolutionised TV food programmes. Keith Floyd was one of the first professional chefs to make it on to the small screen. When his first series, Floyd on Fish, first aired in 1984, he'd already spent some 20 years in restaurant kitchens and opened five of his own (the first at the tender age of 22). After working as a journalist, tank regiment lieutenant, barman, dishwasher and vegetable peeler, he built up an empire of eateries in Bristol. He was then spotted by David Pritchard (who now works with Rick Stein). The pair worked together - and fought together - for many years to come on successful series such as Floyd on France and Floyd on Food. Pritchard's grand idea was to get Floyd out on location. It might not sound too ground-breaking now but watching Floyd cook on a trawler in a gale, being scolded by a French madame in the Pyrenees or flying in a balloon soon became a national obsession. For his 19 TV series and bestselling books across the 80s and 90s he was everywhere - Britain, Ireland, France, Australia, Italy, Africa, Spain, India, the Far East, America. During these travels he also unearthed two other future stars of TV cookery - Rick Stein and Gary Rhodes. But the producer's creativity wouldn't have mattered a jot were it not for Floyd's charisma. His bow-tie, his arguments with the cameraman, his constant moans to viewers about the shows' budgets and of course the wine made him one of TV's most colourful characters.