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ANNA FRIEL BIOGRAPHY |
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Anna Louise Friel was born on 12 July 1976 in Rochdale,
Lancashire. While at school she envisaged a career as a
barrister and, after passing 9 GCSEs, went on to study for her
'A' levels at a local college. Anna was bitten by the acting bug,
landing several minor TV appearances in soaps (Emmerdale and
Coronation Street) and a part as one of Michael Palin's
daughters in the acclaimed Alan Bleasdale serial GBH on Channel
4. By the time Anna followed this with the rôle of Beth Jordache
in the channel's soap Brookside, any thoughts of the Bar had
been put to one side. She became hugely popular. Beth's strength
of character was admired by mums and their teenage daughters,
and Anna's fresh beauty stirred lustful letching in dads and
their sons. Ratings grew steadily as the storyline developed to
reveal that Beth and her sister had been sexually abused by
their father, who got his comeuppance when Beth and her mother
killed him and buried the body under the patio. All good soap
opera stuff, if that's what blows your frock up.
True notoriety came however when it was revealed that Beth was
gay. The impact was quite amazing, partly because she was as far
as you can get from the stereotypical lesbian image of crew cut,
dungarees and Doc Martens. The gay community lapped it up (resists
temptation to insert smiley), and by the time the ground-breaking
first ever prime time lesbian TV kiss was aired Beth Jordache
had become a national lesbian icon. Although it was Anna's
decision to leave the show at the height of her character's
popularity, the haste of her departure and the way that she was
written out (a previously undiagnosed heart condition striking
her down while on remand for her father's killing) left
something of a sour taste in the mouth. The soap's ratings have
never before or since risen to the level that they achieved
during Anna's stint as Beth, but Anna's career has continued
apace.
Frankly, most of her work has been in relatively low-budget
movies that have achieved little critical or commercial success
so far, and are in stark contrast to the universal acclaim she
received on her Broadway début (see more on this below). She has
however been working non-stop and is inundated with theatre,
film and TV offers. Anna has recently (summer 2002) finished
filming her first big-budget movie, Timeline, in Canada. Anna
lived in London until recently, though work commitments meant
that she was rarely home. She bought a home in Windsor in summer
2000, where she now lives with her partner David Thewlis when
not at his London home or away working. David also has a small
part in Timeline, which gets its UK release next year.'' |
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