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 Michelle Collins
Michelle's starred in a number of popular BBC dramas, most notably Two Thousand Acres Of Sky and Sunburn. She first found fame as Cindy in EastEnders, and her next role is alongside Trevor Eve in The Family Man, a new drama about the fertility industry.
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Michelle joined the cast of EastEnders as Cindy in 1988. In three spells on the show, her character endured a rocky marriage to Ian Beale, and had affairs with his two half-brothers, Simon and David Wicks. Following Michelle's departure from the soap, her character died off-screen while in prison for attempted murder.
Since quitting Albert Square in 1998, Michelle's career has gone from strength to strength with leading roles in dramas such as Real Women*, Sunburn*, and Daylight Robbery*.
She starred alongside Paul Kaye in three series of the much loved drama, Two Thousand Acres Of Sky between 2001 and 2003. Single, in which she starred in 2003, proved less popular with ITV1 chiefs moving it to a graveyard slot after episodes due to low ratings.
In 2004, she appeared with another former EastEnders star, Martin Kemp, in Can't Buy Me Love. It told the story of a man who cons his friends and family into thinking that he's won the lottery. Her other one-off dramas include The Stretford Wives, with Fay Ripley and Claire Rushbrook, and another drama about fertility treatment, Ella and the Mothers, with Juliet Aubrey and Sean Gallagher, both in 2002.
In 2006's The Family Man, she plays Gillian, a forty-something career woman who's found love too late to enable her to become a mother naturally. Impatient to get things moving, she finds an egg donor on the internet. The drama also stars Waking The Dead's Trevor Eve and North and South's Daniela Denby-Ashe.
Her guest appearances include Sea Of Souls, The Last Detective. Before she joined EastEnders, she guested in Bergerac and The Bill*.
From April 2006, she's set to appear in a new musical based on the songs of Boney M at London's Shaftesbury Theatre. She made her West End debut in 2004 in the play Rattle Of A Simple Man, alongside Stephen Tompkinson.
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| Did you know? |
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Michelle released the theme tune of to Sunburn as a single in 1998. It reached No.28 in the charts.
She underwent hypnosis to give up smoking.
Michelle's a big supporter of Oxfam*.
In a 2003 interview with The People newspaper, when asked what her best traits were, she replied, "I don't take myself too seriously considering what I do. I think I'm a kind person, good fun and adventurous. I'm a free spirit." And in a man, she revealed she looked for, "A good sense of humour. Someone who can send himself up, has humility and is honest."
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| Personal Details |
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Michelle was born in May 1963 in Hackney, London. Until she hit 40, she admits to lying about her age to TV executives and journalists.
She has a daughter Maia, who was born in 1996. She split from Maia's father, Italian-born Fabrizio Tassalini, soon after their child was born.
Michelle has never married. In October 2005, her engagement to media tycoon Parry Cockwell was called off. However, more recent reports suggest the pair have got back together.
It wasn't the first time she's narrowly missed out on nuptials. She almost wed nightclub owner Nick Fordyce in 1992. But following a heavy night out, she overslept and missed the 9am ceremony.
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