Dale Winton, TV host

In the mid 1990s and early 2000s he was a household name, familiar from a clutch of quizzes and the weekly National Lottery draw, but more recently he had kept a lower profile.

Winton was born in Marylebone, London, on May 22 1955 to Gary Winner, a furniture salesman, and Sheree Winton, an actress. They had met when she was 17 and he was in his 40s, according to Winton’s 2002 autobiography.

They married months later and Sheree converted to Judaism and gave birth at 19 to her son.

In his book, Winton said his forename had been chosen because his mother enjoyed the cowboy series Tales Of Wells Fargo, which starred Dale Robertson.

His parents divorced when he was 10 and his father, with whom he shared a difficult relationship, died three years later.

A few days after he turned 21, Winton discovered that his mother, whom he adored, had taken an overdose and died. He would say she had suffered from depression, a condition that would return to haunt him.

His career in showbusiness began as a DJ on the London club scene, but he soon moved into radio and television.

He joined BBC Bristol in 1986, but it was with Supermarket Sweep that he made his national breakthrough. The series saw contestants racing around a supermarket, collecting items in a trolley in the hope of winning a cash prize.

Famed for his tanned appearance, Winton hosted the show from 1993 to 2001 and was involved in a 2007 relaunch.

The show was screened on weekday mornings but such was its success that he soon moved into prime-time, and went onto host his own Christmas specials and a raft of celebrity guest shows.

In 2001, he was the subject of This Is Your Life.

His other shows included 2003’s Celebrity Fit Club on ITV and 2008’s Hole In The Wall, the BBC Saturday night entertainment programme.

But in recent years he was seen only sporadically, and in an interview earlier this year said he had been keeping a low profile after several rounds of surgery.

In 2015 there had been concern for him when he failed to attend the funeral of Cilla Black, one of his closest friends. A year later, he appeared on ITV’s Loose Women and said he had been fighting depression after a difficult break up. He had “come out” as gay in his autobiography.

He said of his depression: “I always thought, ‘get over yourself’. But my mum died of it. It exists and anybody out there who has had it knows it exists. I didn’t want to put one foot in front of the other but for a couple of really good friends.”

Earlier this year he was back on TV, hosting Dale Winton’s Florida Fly Drive on Channel 5. One episode aired in February and the others are due to be shown in June.