Trudy Monk
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Trudy Anne Monk (née Ellison) is a fictional character on the television show Monk. She is the late wife of Adrian Monk and daughter to Dwight and Marcia Ellison. Solving her murder is a main ongoing theme of the show. She was played by Stellina Rusich during first and second seasons, Melora Hardin during third season, and Hannah Contrucci as young Trudy during fourth season. Lindy Newton plays Trudy in a college flashback in the fifth season.
Trudy Monk was born in Los Angeles in 1962 ("Game Show"). She attended the Ashton Preparatory School, and graduated valedictorian in 1977 at the age of 15. She did not date very much while there, expecting to know who the right man would be once she found him ("Goes Back to School"). She graduated from Stanford University, and met her future husband Adrian while he was working as a detective ("Goes to the Ballgame"). In the 5th season episode Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion the first meeting of Trudy and Adrian was changed. In this new episode, Monk takes Natalie to the college library he was working in as an aide when he first met Trudy. Trudy asked for a book and was impressed when Monk found it by memory (he saw it days earlier) out of a large pile of books being moved upstairs. Monk tells Natalie he got Trudy's phone number by remembering the numbers written as someone used his back while they wrote Trudy's phone number down.
Adrian and Trudy married on August 8, 1990. Trudy was involved in a lawsuit with financier Dale Biederbeck (AKA "Dale the Whale"), an important adversary of Adrian's, in 1993, because she referred to Biederdeck as the "Genghis Khan of Finance". Biederbeck was unable to win the lawsuit, but the Monks lost their house paying for their lawyer. Adrian has an intense hatred for Biederbeck because of the pain it caused Trudy, although Adrian became satisfied when he proved Biederbeck was guilty of murder and he was put in jail.
She, in Adrian's words, enjoyed poetry, was often barefoot, and kept every promise she ever made. In Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan Adrian offers a glimpse into Trudy's mindset by turning Warrick Tennyson's morphine back on after he had turned it off.
She was murdered in winter 1997 by a car bomb built by Warrick Tennyson. Tennyson was hired by a six-fingered man whom he could not identify ("Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan"). Her last words to a paramedic were "bread and butter," a message to Adrian that she would never leave him, as this was something she always told her husband when they had to temporarily let go of each other for some reason or another.
In "Mr. Monk Bumps His Head", Monk attempts to find this 6-fingered man by purchasing a picture of him. The picture turns out to be a fake.
As of the middle of the fifth season, Monk has not found either the six-fingered man who hired Tennyson or his motive.
| MONK | |
| Current Main Characters | Adrian Monk | Natalie Teeger | Captain Leland Stottlemeyer | Lieutenant Randy Disher |
| Secondary Characters | Charles Kroger | Trudy Monk | Ambrose Monk | Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck | Julie Teeger |
| Former Characters | Sharona Fleming | Benjy Fleming |
| Related Articles | Episode List | Monk soundtrack | Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse | Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii | Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu |
| Official Website | Official site |
