Frank Gallagher

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Shameless character
Frank
Frank Gallagher
Portrayed by David Threlfall
Series 1-
First appearance 1.1
Occupation Unemployed
Family Monica, Fiona, Lip, Ian, Carl, Liam, Nigel, Delia

Vernon Francis "Frank" Gallagher is a fictional character in the Channel 4 drama Shameless, played by David Threlfall.

Frank is an unemployed drunk. His first wife Monica left him and their six children and entered a relationship with another woman. He is the third (albeit not legal) husband of Sheila Jackson and they have two children; Nigel and Delia.

Contents

[edit] Personality and Relationships

Frank is one of the main characters of Shameless and in the early episodes comes across as a drunken bully, even headbutting Ian on one occasion for daring to ask if he was wearing one of Ian's t-shirts. He is father to Fiona, Lip, Ian, Debbie, Carl, Liam and later on, Delia and Nigel. Frank became an alcoholic shortly after his first wife, Monica left him for Norma. He then leaves the younger children in the care of Fiona, and later moves in with agoraphobic Sheila Jackson. Frank is often known to make a fool out of himself but shows signs of loving his children. He can occasionally offer some good advice, and even saved Liam from being taken into care when a parent was needed. When he was rendered completely sober by a new drug, Frank appeared reflective and even quite intelligent, wondering why Sheila would add to her problems by marrying a mess like him.

Most of his children initially hated Frank for his drunken bullying ways. Lip and Ian are never scared to show their hatred for Frank, and even physically attack him on a few occasions. However, his middle daughter, Debbie shows sympathy throughout the series when her father is either in serious trouble or presumed dead, something which has happened three times to date, although their relationship has cooled somewhat after he spoiled her first serious relationship. Most of the family now tolerate him on the grounds he isn't bothering them on a daily basis. He is also a friend to the Jockey barman Kev, to the extent that he was even the best man at Frank's wedding to Sheila.

Frank is fond of drunken rants on every conceivable subject, usually returning to how decent, hard-working people (among whom he mysteriously seems to count himself) are discriminated against. These rants, while incoherent, demonstrate a large and varied vocabulary and a good knowledge of history and current affairs. This, combined with his behaviour in his rare sober interludes, does generally suggest that Frank is fairly intelligent.

[edit] Series One

Frank begins to warm to local agoraphobic Sheila Jackson after his son, Lip starts to go out with her daughter, Karen, even leaving the house (much to Fiona's relief). Frank quickly takes advantage of her benefits and uses them to spend her money on beer. Frank then gets seduced on numerous occasions by Karen. This causes immense pressure between Frank and Lip, with Lip giving his father a vicious beating when he found out. Towards the end of the first series, the family have racked up debts which can only be cleared if Frank is dead. Bailiffs would discover Frank after used his full name and address to claim child support from his estranged wife Monica. With help from Monica and her new girlfriend, Norma, Frank fakes his death - the net effect of which meant he could no longer claim child support or unemployment benefits. Confronting Norma and Monica, Frank hit Norma with her guitar - and was promptly beaten up. He also discovered that Sheila was pregnant.

[edit] Series Two

On a particularly disastrous Christmas day, in which Chatsworth was quarantined by the army Sheila gave birth to the twins Nigel and Delia. Frank, predictably, was nowhere to be seen, instead stirring up riots against the army. He also had to contend with the return of his father Neville, who wanted his useless son to get a job and make something of himself. With help from Debbie he was able to fake it for a while, but was eventually caught out. His father suffered a heart attack, and Frank left him to suffer, in revenge for years of mistreatment of both him and his mother. Neville survived, but departed soon after. Frank continued to drink his way through the Jockey, stumbling through various crises such as inadvertently losing baby Delia, becoming a granddad when Ian (in reality Lip) got Mandy Maguire pregnant, claiming compensation from the shop after busting his lip on a door and actually helping out his kids by stopping a deranged care officer from taking Liam into care. After taking Sheila to a dinner hosted by the mayor, and being escorted home again (in a police van) he was left out of the loop when Fiona left.

[edit] Series Three

At the beginning of the series Debbie, to save Liam from school expulsion, lied he had cancer. Frank was again the last one to be let in on the truth. In a fit of rage, Frank ended up taking horse drugs and being rushed to hospital. He survived and finally made peace with his children. More disasters followed: taking Kev's prostitute sister Kelly-Marie into the house, surviving after Sheila cut off his food after forgetting her birthday and inadvertently wrecking Kev's attempts to make some money off a bet. However, he proposed to Sheila. Shortly before the wedding Frank discovered Sheila's big secret - she had murdered her first husband and buried him under the patio. Frank hid in the Jockey while Sheila went to turn herself in. However, the discovery that Sheila had opened a joint account for both of them prompted Frank into drastic action. He convinced Sheila not to go through with it and married her - even though he had never been legally divorced from Monica.

[edit] Series Four

In series 4 Frank has had to contend with the return of Monica on a permanent basis. This led to some tension between Sheila and Monica. After Frank started sleeping with Monica behind Sheila's back, she attempted to kill Frank with knives at their anniversary party. She soon calmed down, but demanded he choose between her and Monica. Frank chose sensibly for once and chose Sheila - but soon managed to make a mess of it by accidentally revealing that he and Monica were still legally married. Shiela soon left, and Frank did the only thing he could - raced round to his old house and told Monica he had chosen her. Frank also managed to wreck his relationship with Debbie. After being told she had had sex with her new boyfriend Luke (in reality they hadn't), Frank then found out his parents were strictly religious and gave half their money to church. A worried Frank managed to convince them that Debbie was inappropriate for their son - only to find out that Debbie had lied about the whole thing. When a furious Debbie found out she demanded money from her dad - which he was able to provide after being bribed to go away by the estate agent at Sheila's house. Nevertheless, this seems to have damaged their relationship.

[edit] Family

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