Steve Coogan Biography

Steve Coogan was born Stephen John Coogan, on October 14, 1965, in Middleton, Lancashire, England. While his mother, Kathleen, was a homemaker, his father, Anthony "Tony" Coogan, was an IBM engineer.

His 5 siblings include 4 brothers and a sister. His father was from Manchester, while his mother was from Mayo, Ireland. Both his parents are of Irish descent.

His younger brother Brandan Coogan grew up to be an MUTV presenter and was seen in shows such as Top Gear, while his elder brother Martin Coogan is the former lead singer of the rock band The Mock Turtles. Irish actor Aidan McArdle is Coogan’s cousin.

Coogan initially attended the St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Primary School and later joined the Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School. He once revealed that his parents fostered children for a short while.

While his parents wanted him and his siblings to become teachers, Coogan’s impersonation skills made him apply to drama schools. After failing to secure admissions to London drama schools in multiple attempts, he finally joined the New Music theater company. He later studied acting at the Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama.

Steve Coogan started his career as a comic and impressionist and was a regular performer in Ipswich. He then worked as a voice artist for TV commercials and the puppet show Spitting Image.

In 1989, Coogan performed sketches for the game show The Krypton Factor. In 1992, his performances with collaborator John Thomson won him the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Coogan, Thomson, and Caroline Aherne performed together in the sketch show The Dead Good Show.

While working on the Radio 4 comedy On the Hour, Coogan created the character Alan Partridge. Partridge was modeled on a radio presenter who had interviewed Coogan when he had just started gaining fame. Coogan apparently got the idea of creating a character on the presenter while mimicking him during the interview.

He later created various shows on the character, such as The Day Today (1994), Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge (1994-1995), and I'm Alan Partridge (1997-2002). From 2010 to 2016, he wrote for and performed on the parody show Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge.

In 2012, he starred in the specials Alan Partridge on Open Books with Martin Bryce and Alan Partridge: Welcome to the Places of My Life. He also wrote and acted in the 2013 film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.

In 2016, he wrote, executive-produced, and performed in the special Alan Partridge's Scissored Isle. The following year, he was featured in the TV documentary Alan Partridge Why, When, Where, How and Whom. In 2019, he began performing in the show This Time with Alan Partridge, which he also wrote.

Alan Partridge also formed the center of his stand-up tours such as Alan Partridge Presents: The Cream of British Comedy (2005), As Alan Partridge and Other Less Successful Characters – Live (2009), and Alan Partridge: Stratagem (2022).

He has also penned 2 books on the character, namely, I Alan Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan (2011) and Alan Partridge: Nomad (2016). In 2021, Coogan launched the Audible podcast From the Oasthouse: the Alan Partridge Podcast, which received a British Podcast Award nomination.

Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge won him a British Comedy Award. He later won another British Comedy Award and 2 BAFTA TV Awards for I'm Alan Partridge (1998), a third British Comedy Award for Cruise of the Gods (2003), and 2 more BAFTA TV Awards for The Trip (2011) and Alan Partridge (2013). He also received the 2017 BAFTA TV Award for Best Male Comedy Performance for Alan Partridge's Scissored Isle.

He is also known for his impersonations of countless celebrities, such as Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Michael Caine, Martin Sheen, Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan, Stephen Hawking, John Major, Al Pacino, and others. His role of Martin Sixsmith in the 2013 dramedy Philomena, which he had also co-written and produced, won him the 2013 BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay, 2 Academy Award nominations (Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay) and a Golden Globe nomination (Best Screenplay), among others.

His portrayal of comic Stan Laurel in the 2018 biographical comedy-drama Stan & Ollie won him a BAFTA nomination. He also won the 2019 Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy.

He has voiced Silas Ramsbottom in the Despicable Me franchise and in the 2022 movie Minions: The Rise of Gru. His other notable performances have been in the movies 24 Hour Party People (2002), Happy Endings (2005), Marie Antoinette (2006), and The Professor and the Madman (2019). He has also appeared in shows such as Saturday Zoo (1993), Coogan's Run (1995), Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible (2001), The Private Life of Samuel Pepys (TV film, 2003), Saxondale (2006-2007), and Happyish (2015). His production house, Baby Cow Productions, formed in 1999, produced many award-winning shows, including Alan Partridge and The Trip.

On December 10, 2002, Steve Coogan married socialite Caroline Hickman. Hickman is the great-niece of former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Basil Hume.

The couple were formally divorced on July 28, 2005, due to Coogan’s alcoholism, drug addiction, and womanizing ways. It is believed, their relationship had soured 8 months before they married, when they had broken up temporarily, and Coogan had brief flings with lap dancer Terina Newman and US gossip columnist Catherine Townshend.

He later joined rehab. Coogan has also been in a 3-year relationship with model China Chow. He has a daughter, Clare, from his previous relationship with solicitor Anna Cole. Reportedly, Cole broke up with him in 1996, after a 4-year relationship, because of his affairs.

In March 2011, as the guest editor for the lifestyle magazine Loaded, Coogan met and started dating model Loretta "Elle" Basey. They broke up in 2014.

Raised a Catholic, Coogan is now an atheist. An avid motor racing lover, he once owned many Ferrari cars.

In February 2016, Coogan was fined and banned from driving for about a month after being caught a speeding case in Brighton. In August 2019, Coogan was again fined and received a 2-month ban for speeding.

He has often been vocal about his fight against depression. In his 2015 memoir, Easily Distracted, he recalled how, in 1992, he had suffered a cocaine-induced panic attack. He revealed that he had turned to drugs to manage the stress of being a star and that it eventually led to sex-addiction.

He took action against Glenn Mulcaire in the News International phone hacking scandal in 2010-2011. He has also often endorsed Labour Party leaders.