FACTBOX: From TV cook to PM - Thailand's Samak

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's parliament elected abrasive People Power Party (PPP) leader Samak Sundaravej prime minister on Monday as the country returns to a democratically-elected government after a 2006 coup.

Here are five facts about the pugnacious 72-year-old politician:

-- Born in Bangkok on June 13, 1935 into an aristocratic family, Samak earned a law degree from Bangkok's prestigious Thammasat University and worked in various jobs as a clerk, tour guide and journalist.

-- Samak ran a radio campaign against pro-democracy student activists in the mid-1970s and supported a bloody crackdown on them in October 1976 which led to a coup. He served briefly as interior minister in the military-appointed government.

-- He was elected Bangkok governor in a landslide in 2000 but left office four years later with low approval ratings. He still faces graft probes into projects started while he was in office.

-- Samak was elected to the Senate in 2006, but lost his job after the September 19 coup abolished the constitution. He stayed in the public eye as host of a television cooking show.

-- The political knife fighter was elected PPP leader in August last year and vowed to fight "military dictatorship". After a tussle with journalists during the election campaign, cartoonists played on his bulbous nose and portrayed him as an uncouth pig.

(Compiled by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Michael Battye)