[1] His Scottish parents, Major John Douglas Kerr and his wife[2][3] were hoteliers at Dorset Arms Pub and Inn[4] in East Grinstead West Sussex, England,[1][5] then, at Alexandra Hotel, 32, 33 & 34 Eversfield Place, St Leonards-on-Sea, Borough of Hastings, East Sussex, England.
[1][5] Kerr became trainee manager at the Roebuck Hotel in Forest Row, East Sussex, England, when he was 15 years old.
After five years in the British Army, rising to catering adviser,[citation needed] he became general manager of the Royal Ascot Hotel.
In 1959, he began hosting the television show Entertaining with Kerr, in which he appeared dressed in military uniform.
[1] His recipes were also delivered on radio and in magazines, and the first edition of a related book, Entertaining with Kerr, was sold out in eight days.
Kerr signed on as Miller's first management client, and the relationship proved enormously important and financially rewarding to both men.
The show quickly became a huge national success, leading to daily radio spots, newspaper and magazine columns, personal appearances, and lucrative product endorsements.
Miller soon scored another coup when he signed the multinational food company Nestlé as Kerr's first major sponsor.
In the mid-1960s Union Carbide, the manufacturers of Glad Wrap, approached Miller with a lucrative offer for Kerr to become its national endorser.
Sensing the huge potential of the new product, Miller cannily negotiated for a multiyear contract in which Kerr was to receive a royalty of about 0.5c on every unit sold instead of a flat fee.
The title was echoed in the opening of each episode, where Kerr entered the stage area by running in and leaping over a chair in the dining room set (a stunt conceived by Treena).
A famous line of Kerr's on the show was his response to someone's criticism of his cooking: "Madam, you could go outside and get run over by a bus, and just think what you would have missed!"
"[8] The show was dubbed in French and aired on Télévision de Radio-Canada starting 6 September 1971, under the title Le Gourmet farfelu.
[13] After his wife Treena's stroke, then heart attack in 1986, Kerr was prompted to create a new style of cooking that he dubbed "Minimax."
This new method of food preparation minimised ("Mini-") fat and cholesterol while it maximised ("-max") aroma, colour, texture, and taste.
Minimax led to The Graham Kerr Show, originally produced at KING-TV in Seattle and later syndicated to local stations during the 1990–91 season, followed by a run on the Discovery Channel.
[1] Since the late 1990s, Graham Kerr appeared in a series of radio and television features for the 5 A Day programme of the National Cancer Institute, called Do Yourself a Flavor, emphasising the use of fruits and vegetables in recipes.
Kerr's earlier series, including The Galloping Gourmet, has aired in the U.S. on Food Network and Cooking Channel.
Kerr included videos shot on location on a worldwide voyage aboard the ship Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2).
In 2003, he received an honorary doctorate for culinary arts and nutrition from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.
[19] He is a Christian[20] In addition, seven volumes of Television Cookbooks, featuring recipes from The Galloping Gourmet series, were published from 1969 to 1971 by Fremantle International, the show's syndicator.