Michael about his life

... marriage

"I don´t think I´d regret not getting married. It doesn´t seem necessary - my commitment to Cathy is obvious. We´re both really comfy and happy"

"... to all intents and purposes we are married. She is the most important person in my life."

... stalkers

"I have one really freaky one actually, just before I went to New York, onto Broadway and I was talking to my girl-friend on the phone. I just got back to the flat after doing the show at night and as I´m talking ... I´m closing all the curtains in the house, listening and talking about 20 minutes, put the phone down, it rang again. And this girls´ voice went: ´ Why have you closed all the curtains in your flat? I can´t see you now! `Argh"

... helping fans

"Oh yeah in London, Cathy and I, the night before the album release, we wanted to go and see the pictures in the window, excited ... we drove past, and we saw these two lovely girls, sitting outside in Michael Ball t-shirts at one o´clock in the morning with their sleeping bags, and all their things around them, surrounded by some very dodgy characters in Picadilly and they were obviously terrified. So we just snuck in and put them in a hotel around the corner. Bless them and they were still there at six o´clock in the morning. (Question: There aren´t many people who would do that Michael.) Oh, I imagine anyone would do it. If they saw two ladies in a predicament like that. I hope they would. They wouldn´t be very nice people, if they didn´t."

... fan attack

Michael faced death a second time, when he was starring in Aspects of Love in London, when a female fan turned up and produced a large carving knife from her handbag. It was a woman who had sent him letter after letter and had tried repeatedly to reach him by phone.

"One day she turned up at my agent´s office and we had to call the police. I thought that was the end of it, but one Saturday she came to the theatre saying she had to see me urgently." According to Michael the woman screamed: "If I don´t see him I will kill him and then kill myself." He says he was "cowering in a corner, scared stiff" as her bag fell open and the knife appeared. Once again the police were called and the woman was taken away.

... cooking

"Cooking is my therapy. I do all the cooking at home and I cook just about every day. I love all food and I love making food for friends. It´s another form of entertaining. There´s that same satisfaction of producing something that people can relish."

... starting to sing

"I always used to sing along to records and the radio, and everyone used to tell me to shut up. It´s amazing to think people now actually pay to listen to me!"

... outward appearance during his youth

It may be the influence of his girlfriend Cathy. It may be the result of an impressive weight loss .It may be no more than the consequence of his high public profile. Whatever the reason ,Michael Ball, the singer who conquered London and Broadway courtesy of Andrew Lloyd Webber, has turned into something   of a clotheaholic.

' Because I was a fat kid', explains Michael, 'I used to be Mr. Oxfam.I remember on one occasion I was walking down Farnham High Street and I really thought I was the business. I had on these baggy dungarees and bright red hennaed hair. In fact, I looked so ludicrous that my mother crossed the road to disown me.'

... his gold ring

"It´s my grandmother´s Welsh gold wedding ring. She promised it to me when I was about seven, and my mother gave it to me at her funeral in 1983. It hasn´t been off my finger since, although I did lose it on holiday in Portugal. I was on the beach and because it was covered with suntan oil, I decided to take it off and put it on the towel next to me. Later I stood up to go, picked up the towel and then remembered the ring. I really freaked out. My friends and I did this search around where we´d been sitting and after four hours we finally found it. I feel as if it´s my lucky charm and I still feel my grandmother is watching over me."

... parachute accidant

While at drama school he made a near-fatal parachute jump. It was an accident that almost ended his career and just about everything else. Michael had taken brother Kevin´s place in a parachute charity jump. "The jump went wrong. the parachute failed to open and I plummeted to the ground." In hospital doctors told him his back was seriously damaged. "They said I was mangled and cut up inside and I had to have lots of delicate operations. I was in and out of hospital and getting very depressed. I had set my heart on becoming an actor and thought my career was over before it had begun." He discovered that Diana Dors was in the same hospital and asked to meet her. "She was brilliant with me and gave me encouragement and sympathy even though she knew she was close to death. Michael recovered from those bad injuries, as you all know and can see, but it took several years until he was fine again.

... presents

"I think two really nice ones of the Fan Club I got. Two years ago they named a star after me. And then they got together by the internet and all the rest of it and everybody in the Fan Club sent a post-card from wherever they lived, wherever it was in the world. So I got this enormous box. All put in the files and every place in the world where someone knows me."