Cheryl Barrymore

Cheryl Carlisa Barrymore (née Cocklin, 22 March 1950 – 1 April 2005) was an English dancer and talent manager. From 1976 to 1997, she was married to television presenter Michael Barrymore. Biography A trained dancer, Barrymore took work in the publicity department of EMI records between shows, where she met young PR man and lifelong friend Max Clifford. After her first marriage to Greg Smith failed, Barrymore took part in several West End theatre shows, during one of which she met entertainer Michael Barrymore in 1974. They married two years later. Wife and manager Cheryl and Michael married in 1976, although not until after he had paid off his mother, who threatened to reveal a previous 18-month-long gay love affair. She later claimed, without contradiction from her estranged husband, that they had had a "full" marriage, including connubial relations. With Cheryl as Michael's manager and the mastermind behind his meteoric rise, he won a 1979 edition of New Faces. He later became a panelist on Blankety Blank and the warm-up man for Larry Grayson on the Generation Game. From there Michael rose to fame presenting ITV entertainment show Strike It Lucky from 1986, followed by Kids Say the Funniest Things and My Kind of Music. He was voted the UK's favourite TV star several times, and became one of the highest-paid stars on TV. Cheryl later said that Michael had problems with alcohol, drugs, gambling and depression. As a result of her husband's physical assault on her at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, California, she was placed by British police on the "at risk" register.