Janet Ellis

Janet Ellis (born 16 September 1955) is an accomplished presenter and actress who shot to fame as the presenter of Blue Peter, where, for four years, she did everything from jumping out of planes to singing in Last Night of the Proms. Sticky-backed plastic was also involved.

Since writing and pesenting BBC Radio 4 series on topics as diverse as hula hoops and children's authors, Janet is currently researching Mermaids In Fiction for the channel and she's just appeared in the second series of Inspector Steine, by Lynne Truss. She continues to be a regular on Five's, the Wright Stuff. She's a contestant on ITV's Best Celebrity Dish, and is involved with the BBC's Celebration of Fifty Years of Blue Peter.

She presented a fourteen part series of holistic house makeover shows called Housebusters for Five and a series of programmes called Lifeblood for the National Blood Service, which also went out on Five. She presented UKTV's MUM's weekend in 2004. In 2005, Janet also recently hosted Channel 4's 62 part series, Great Garden Challenge.

She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Her first role was that of a Princess who got changed into a pot plant. She subsequently played a wide variety of parts in both Theatre and Television, including The Sweeny, Dr Who, Playhouse and four key series as the presenter of the BAFTA award-winning children's programme Jigsaw.

Janet is an accomplisehd voice-over artist - including seven series of Toyota World of Wildlife, numerous advertisements including the current Barret Homes campaign and is the voice of several Mexican gerbils in El Nombre for BBC Education.

She has also written for The Daily Mail, Closer, Best, Tatler, Woman and Home, The Observer, The Telegraph, Mother Magazine and co-authored 'How to Get Married Without Divorcing Your Family' with Caron Keating (published by Harper Collins).

Janet has three children, the singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor (born 1979), Jackson Ellis-Leach (born 1987) and Martha-Rose Ellis Leach (born 1991).