32 Facts About Cheryl Baker

Rita Maria Stroud, known professionally as Cheryl Baker, is an English singer and television presenter.

Cheryl Baker was a member of pop group Bucks Fizz, which won the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest and, following legal disputes, now performs under the name the Fizz.

Cheryl Baker's own show Eggs 'n' Baker, featuring cooking and guest musical performers, ran for five years from 1988.

Cheryl Baker has appeared in several pantomimes, and in a musical theatre production of Footloose.

Cheryl Baker was born as Rita Maria Crudgington on 8 March 1954 in Bethnal Green, London.

Cheryl Baker's father Ted worked as a cobbler, and her mother was called Doll.

Cheryl Baker joined a band called Bressingham Spire when she was 17, but they soon disbanded and she joined another group, which included Mike Read.

In late 1980, Cheryl Baker was contacted by Nichola Martin, a producer, music publisher and singer who was setting up a new group to record "Making Your Mind Up" which was one of the eight songs shortlisted for A Song For Europe, the winner of which would become the UK entry for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest.

Cheryl Baker was one of the few artists to take part in Eurovision to win at their second attempt.

Cheryl Baker has said that she does not like the song, as it is "not her kind of music at all".

Cheryl Baker refers to the group as "not, after all, a band formed on trust and personal admiration half as much as it was a band formed by the goals of money and success" and therefore prone to infighting and jealousies.

On 11 December 1984, Cheryl Baker was involved in a serious crash in Newcastle upon Tyne, while on tour with the group, when the tour bus crashed into a lorry.

Colleague Mike Nolan suffered serious head injuries, prompting Cheryl Baker to help establish the HeadFirst charity which supports crash victims, specifically those with head injuries.

Cheryl Baker left the group in 1993 to focus on developing her career in television.

Around Christmas 2004, some of the band members, including Cheryl Baker, reunited for live performances.

In 1985, Cheryl Baker was one of several celebrities that each hosted Children's ITV for a month.

Cheryl Baker eventually left the show in 1997, after 10 years.

Cheryl Baker presented The Saturday Six O'Clock Show with Michael Aspel, and had guest appearances on the game shows Blankety Blank and Surprise, Surprise.

In 1988, Cheryl Baker presented her own TV show Eggs 'n' Cheryl Baker, featuring cooking and guest musical performers, which ran for five years.

Cheryl Baker presented series of six short programmes about food safety, The Survival Guide to Food, in 1992.

Cheryl Baker broke her ankle during a landing on Drop the Celebrity.

Cheryl Baker released the solo singles: "If Paradise Is Half as Nice" and "Sensuality", although neither of these found chart success.

Cheryl Baker was confirmed as the second celebrity to take part in the tenth series of Dancing on Ice in October 2017.

Cheryl Baker appeared in a special episode of the BBC One soap opera EastEnders to celebrate the Eurovision Song Contest 2023; the episode was broadcast on 11 May 2023, the night before the Eurovision semi-final.

Cheryl Baker made her acting debut in the title role in a television production of Cinderella on ITV at Christmas 1986.

Cheryl Baker's stage acting debut was in Babes in the Wood, the 1987 pantomime at the London Palladium, alongside Cannon and Ball, Marti Webb and John Inman.

Cheryl Baker played Maid Marian, and Peter Hepple of The Stage called her "a new and highly promising recruit to the pantomime ranks".

The Stage critic Pat Rusch praised Cheryl Baker's 1991 turn as Cinderella, writing that she "looked good, played the part with gusto" and sang well, but lamented that the lack of musical numbers in the show meant that she was not able to stand out as much as she could have done otherwise.

In 2006, Cheryl Baker took her first musical theatre role, as Vi Moore in Footloose, based on the 1984 motion picture of the same name, on tour and at the Novello Theatre.

Cheryl Baker married Steve Stroud, the bass player in Cliff Richard's band, on 25 January 1992.

Cheryl Baker is the vice-president of the stillbirth charity Abigail's Footsteps, became an Ambassador of Festival4Stars talent competition after she judged a national final in 2008.

On Record Breakers Cheryl Baker set a world record for the longest rope slide, descending from Blackpool Tower, and was part of the world's largest Jazz ensemble and the longest Riverdance line.