Susan Tully
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| Susan Tully | |
| Born | October 20, 1968 (age 38) Highgate, London, England |
| Notable roles | Suzanne Ross in Grange Hill, Michelle Fowler in EastEnders |
Susan Tully (born 20 October 1968 in Highgate, London) is a British television producer, director and former actress.
She is still widely remembered for her role as the single mother Michelle Fowler in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Tully played one of the show's original characters, appearing in the first episode on 19 February 1985 and remaining central to the series for over a decade. Tully gave up acting to work behind the camera and has directed and produced various British television programmes.
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[edit] Early life
Tully has a working class background — her father was a watch-case maker, her mother a housewife and she was brought up on a London council estate.[1]
Tully attended school in Barnsbury, Islington. While at school she took up acting as a hobby and attended the Anna Scher children's theatre, which turned out to be a fast track into television work.[1]
[edit] Career
At the age of nine she hosted the live television children's programme, Our Show, and she later went on to work on The Saturday Banana with Bill Oddie.[2]
She was then cast in the BBC children's television serial, Grange Hill. She played schoolgirl Suzanne Ross for four years (1981-1984). She had left Grange Hill and was about to go to sixth form college when she got her next big acting break.
At the age of 16, Tully secured a major role in the fledgling soap opera EastEnders. She played Michelle Fowler from the show's inception in 1985 to 1995. During her time on the show, her character was famously made pregnant at the age of 16 after an affair she had with the 39-year-old adulterer, Den Watts. Since quitting the soap in 1995, Tully has allegedly been made several offers to return, but has so far turned each offer down, including the latest offer to return for her on-screen mother Pauline's funeral.[3]
In the late 1990s Tully began concentrating on directing for television. She has worked on some episodes of EastEnders and London's Burning, and in recent years she has directed episodes of other BBC series such as 55 Degrees North (2004), The Bill (1999-2004) and Funland (2005).
[edit] Personal life
Tully is a supporter of The Meningitis Trust and she has also been involved in the Comic Relief fundraising event.
Tully is close friends with Letitia Dean, who played her best friend Sharon Watts in EastEnders.[4] Tully was a bridesmaid at Dean's wedding to Jason Pethers in 2002.[5]
Tully once dated the actor Martin Ball — the former fiancé of Letitia Dean.[6]
She is a football supporter and supports Norwich City.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "After 10 years as TV's most famous single mother, Susan Tully ", The Independent. URL last accessed on 2007-03-14.
- ^ Kingsley, Hilary (1990). The EastEnders Handbook. BBC books. ISBN 0685529576.
- ^ "Pauline's soap snub", Supanet. URL last accessed 2007-02-11
- ^ "LIFE AFTER SHARON", Sunday Mirror. URL last accessed on 2006-09-18.
- ^ "EastEnd Letitia's diamond geezer", Sunday Mirror. URL last accessed on 2006-09-18.
- ^ "Lost her Bottle", LetitiaDean.co.uk. URL last accessed on 2006-12-20.
