Gary Rhodes’ future was sealed when his dad ran off with neighbour and he stepped up to feed the family
SPIKY-haired chef Gary Rhodes had just one hope for his legacy.
He said: “When I pass away, I’d like to think if my name ever came up in a conversation, all I’d want to hear people say is, ‘He can cook’.
“And I’d look down and think, ‘I did all right’.”
The 59-year-old may well be doing just that after he died suddenly on Tuesday while filming a TV series.
The Sun understands the man known as “the first rock star of cooking” suffered a fall and passed away with his wife Jennie by his bedside in Dubai, where they had moved eight years ago.
Local police said Gary, worth a reported £9million, “died of natural causes”.
His shock death has devastated family, friends and millions of fans.
Jamie Oliver wrote: “Gary was a fantastic chef and an incredible ambassador for British cooking. He reimagined modern British cuisine with elegance and fun.”
Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith added: “Gary was the first rock star of cooking, making it cool for boys to cook. Spiky haircut, tight trousers, full of energy. And a great chef.”
Gary did much more than all right in his career.
He earned his first Michelin star at the age of 26, authored more than 20 recipe books, opened eight restaurants and was awarded an OBE.
But it frustrated him that he could never escape his TV image.
In an interview in 2011, he said the biggest misapprehension about him was: “That I’m a spiky-haired cheeky chappie. It implies that I’m a clown and a two-bit cook. I’ve been in the industry for 35 years and have received six Michelin stars, yet that is often forgotten.”
A South London lad who grew up in Gillingham, Kent, Gary was aged six, and one of four siblings, when his father, Gordon, a caretaker, ran off with a neighbour.
LOST SENSE OF SMELL
With his single mum, Jean, at work as a secretary, Gary stepped up to feed the family and wash their clothes. He knew he had cracked it at 13 when he perfected a Sunday roast and a lemon sponge pudding.
At 14 he was captivated by George Orwell’s novel Down And Out In Paris And London — about living in poverty as a restaurant dishwasher — and decided to become a chef.
He studied catering at Thanet Technical College, in Broadstairs, Kent, where he met Jennie, with whom he would go on to have sons Samuel, 31, and George, 27.
But after graduation, disaster struck within days at his first job, at the Amsterdam Hilton in Holland.
On his first night out after an initial 13-day stint, he was running for a tram and looked the wrong way while crossing a road.
He said: “I was hit by a transit van, which sent me across the road and smashed my head into the kerb.”
It left him needing major brain surgery and wiped out his sense of smell — a catastrophe for a chef.
But it gradually returned and, six months later, he was back in the UK and back in the kitchen.
With his trademark hairstyle — which he took to after a pal had offered to “spike it up” for him in his early twenties — he worked his way around top London hotels, as well as a stint in Taunton, Somerset.
Then, in 1987, he was picked to appear on TV series Hot Chefs.
In 1994 he fronted his own TV series, Rhodes Around Britain, and went on to join MasterChef in 2001 after Loyd Grossman quit in objection to a revamp.
Despite attracting great reviews, his stint at the helm of the BBC show was cancelled after just one series, infuriating Gary.
He never felt at ease with being a “celebrity chef”, once dubbing it a “horrible term”. He said two years ago: “When I started in kitchens in the Seventies, the salary was a pittance and never did we have any sort of celebrity status, or aspire to great financial success.
“You had to love it and, you know, I still love it. So money’s always been secondary.”
Such was his fame, he featured on ITV’s Spitting Image. A fan of the show from his twenties, Gary bought the puppet for £3,000 when the show ended in 1996.
He had little time for peers who “get a little bit lost” in showbiz, saying: “What I don’t like are the many chefs who sit in a little corner with their entourage and their bouncers and say, ‘After 6pm, no one comes anywhere near me’.”
Nor did he really understand the appeal of Nigella Lawson, who had given him a good review when a food writer but turned on him when he got Rhodes About Britain.
Gary said: “She absolutely ripped me to bits, and claimed she would never go into television. Then bingo, there she was trying to create this big-boobed, gorgeous lady that suddenly every builder in the UK was in love with.”
On Wednesday though, Nigella tweeted an affectionate condolence.
She wrote: “I’m so sad to hear of Gary Rhodes’ death. His poor family. He was such a talent, nothing to do with the showbiz aspect.”
To Gary, his work was his life, to the point of “obsessiveness”, according to restaurant critic Jay Rayner.
He would get up at 4.30am, do 250 press-ups before work and return home around 10pm.
He went on his very first holiday in 1997 and before that had only taken time off to look after Jennie after a Caesarean section with one of their boys.
By his own admission he was a shopaholic, with a wardrobe of more than 60 suits, and was fanatical about ironing, even pressing clothes that had been dry cleaned.
Tributes for Gary
FELLOW telly cooks led the tributes to Gary on Wednesday.
Gordon Ramsay wrote: “We lost a fantastic chef today in Gary Rhodes. He was a chef who put British cuisine on the map.”
Tom Kerridge, once Gary’s sous chef, tweeted: “I’m deeply shocked and hugely saddened to hear the tragic news about Gary Rhodes.”
James Martin told fans: “Hugely influential in my life and the life of the British food scene. Gent and genius . . . I can’t believe you’re gone.”
John Torode said: “He was such a young man, really really talented, an advocate of British food, he was the one who said, ‘Stop going to France, stay here and eat British’.”
Ainsley Harriott added: “He was a real inspiration to a generation of chefs who learned their trade in professional kitchens and, like him, went on to share their passion and skill through television, books and live appearances.
“He was the first to make cookery the new rock’n’roll and will always remain a true icon for all of us.”
Bake Off winner Candice Brown tweeted: “So so sad to hear about Gary Rhodes. His banana and syrup loaf was the first thing I baked all on my own. The pages are stuck together with syrup.”
Telly presenter Holly Willoughby added: “From everyone here on This Morning, we’re sending all our love to Gary’s family.”
And tennis player turned TV anchor Andrew Castle, who appeared alongside Gary in Strictly, said: “A charming man, kind and thoughtful.”
PEAK OF HIS SUCCESS
At work he barely ate. He felt he could not be seen to be dining in his own restaurant, as customers might think he was slacking off.
There was a brief return to TV in 2008 when he appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with former pro dancer Karen Hardy. He was eliminated on week three.
He did it for Jennie, saying: “After 30 years of being together and 30 years of me never dancing to any song at a party, I wanted to learn enough to take my own wife in my arms and be her partner.”
It was clear he adored Jennie. He said: “Sometimes, if I get up at 4.30 and she is still asleep, I’ll write a little note to her and leave it beside the bed with a drink. It gives me a real lift to think of her waking up, reading it and smiling.”
In 2011 he moved his family to the United Arab Emirates, running a restaurant in Abu Dhabi then focusing on his own Rhodes W1 and the steakhouse Rhodes Twenty10 in Dubai.
In his typical determination not to do what everyone else was doing, he had left London at the peak of his success, saying: “I love walking out when I’m at the top. It was a great move, the right move.”
In his new home he continued working with schools, giving children life skills in the kitchen, something he had begun in the UK.
This week he had been working on a new series for ITV.
A spokesman for the production company said on Wednesday: “Gary was taken ill very suddenly at home during a break in filming and died a short time afterwards.”
It is not known exactly when his health first faltered but his son George posted a heartbreaking Instagram picture the day before Gary died of them at George’s wedding three years ago with a blue heart emoji.
On Wednesday, Gary’s brother Chris wrote: “I have not only lost a brother but a best friend too.
“Gary, you will always be by my side in my thoughts but most of all in my heart.”
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