Kara Tointon

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Kara as Dawn in EastEnders

Kara Tointon (born August 5, 1983 in Basildon, Essex) is a British actress, best known for playing Dawn Swann in the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders.

Tointon is 5ft 5in tall. She was born in Basildon in Essex but shortly afterwards moved to Southend. Her younger sister Hannah is also an actress.

Tointon began her acting career at age seven. She had speech and drama lessons at school. She also took part in LAMDA examinations, entering local musical festivals performing poetry recitals. Her first proper acting experience came when she played the part of Brigitta in The Sound of Music at the Cliffs Pavillion, where she met ex-Busted member James Bourne, who played Kurt. The couple dated on-and-off for seven years. Tointon was said to have dumped Bourne when Busted split up, apparently because Bourne was no longer in a band but both parties have denied this, stating they had split up five months previous. Shortly after that, her first paid job was as one of the children in the pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her first appearance on television was as an extra in EastEnders in 1994 when she played a school friend of Sonia Fowler.

As well as being an actress, Tointon is also highly trained in dance, specializing in aerobics, ballet, choreography, contemporary, jazz and tap. She also enjoys cabaret singing. In her spare time she enjoys painting, shopping, swimming, skiing and spending time with her friends and family, particularly her mother and younger sister Hannah, who recently moved away from Essex to London to be closer to her.

In 2004, Tointon appeared in Mile High and in December returned to her former Dream Team role as Gina Moliano until May 2005. It is on the sets of Dream Team that she met her former boyfriend Terry Kiely, who played Karl Fletcher in the show. The couple announced their split in the summer of 2006.

Almost a month to the day that her last Dream Team episode aired, it was revealed to the press that she would be joining the BBC soap EastEnders as a new character, Dawn Swann.

In April 2006 she featured as number 27 in the list of 100 sexiest women in the world, voted for the by the readers of FHM magazine. In September 2006 she was voted sexiest female at the Inside Soap Awards. [1]

Biography information credit to *karatointon.net