Max Cunningham
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| Max Cunningham | |||||||||||
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| Hollyoaks | |||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Ben Sheriff 1995–1997 Matt Littler 1997–2008 |
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| First appearance | 1995 | ||||||||||
| Last appearance | 2008 | ||||||||||
| Created by | Phil Redmond | ||||||||||
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| Date of birth | March 20, 1982 | ||||||||||
| Occupation | Co-Owner of MOBS | ||||||||||
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Max Cunningham is a fictional character in the long-running British Channel 4 television soap opera Hollyoaks.
He has been in the series since 1995 and was played by actor Ben Sheriff from 1995 until 1997, when his role was taken over by current actor Matt Littler.
[edit] Max
Max is sensitive and at times hot-headed, but his business instincts and penchant for mischief-making have been tamed by a variety of life-changing events over the past few years, including the deaths of his father and stepmother, raising his brother Tom, his disastrous marriage to Clare Devine, and the departure of his longtime best friend and business partner O.B.
[edit] Beginning
Max started off as a duo comedy act with best friend OB and saw his fair share of tragedy, with his sister Dawn dying from leukaemia and sisters Jude and Cindy fleeing the country. However, Max managed to maintain his humour and, whilst he refrained from going down the college route with OB, Max was keen to make his first million. Max and OB planned a money making scheme, to make a single called "Get Down with that Thing", with Max's dad Gordon doing the vocals. The single was first played at The Loft, where people liked it, however the CD failed to shift copies.
Max started working at the College, and he had another tragedy when stepbrother Lewis Richardson committed suicide. Max then started looking at life in a different way, and knew he had to make the most of it, after Lewis death. Max grew up as an individual and spent less time with OB, while Max opened his burger van. Max went on to date Jodie Nash but something had always seemed to get in their way.
[edit] Relationship with Anna Green
Max revealed his sensitive side in his affection for Anna Green, helping her during the difficult stages of her pregnancy. Max and Anna both admitted their feelings to each other and they slept together in Max’s van. Anna told boyfriend Alex Bell, and she had moved in with Max with baby Charlie. Max then found it difficult staying with Anna, as he never really had any time for social life.
Another horrific experience for Max came when he, O.B, Ben Davies, Kristian Hargreaves, Jamie Nash and Theo Sankofa all went Potholing. The trip resulted in a disaster when there was a rock fall and Theo and Jamie had ended up dead. Max would never forget that experience, and he felt lucky to be alive. Max soon ended it with Anna as she moved out and Max discovered having a baby was a big responsibility and he was not ready for it.
[edit] Tragedy
OB had surprised Max, when he told him that Max’s step-mum Helen was having an affair with Tony Hutchinson. Max had felt angered by Helen and Tony’s actions towards his father, and Max warned him that if their affair continued, he would tell Gordon. However, Helen and Tony still continued, and Max knew they were making a fool of his father and he told Gordon. Max father felt devastated and even more when Helen left him for Tony. Max supported his father through this and also helped step sister Mandy who was shocked to hear her father Dennis is released from prison.
When the Burton twins arrived, Max went on a date with Mel Burton, but realised he preferred her sister Sophie. Max and Sophie dated while OB and Mel became an item. Max and Sophie split up but remained amicable. However Max and Mel would later become enemies when Mel was the only person to see through Max's new love Clare. They made up shortly before Mel died.
However, Max's world was to take a huge turn around when his father Gordon and stepmother Helen died after being involved in a car crash. Luckily Max's half-brother Tom survived; though his father's will stated that Mandy would have custody of Tom, Mandy refused and so Max took care of Tom. Mandy supported Max as did his best friend OB in raising Tom. Max devoted most of his time to taking care of Tom, soon joined by OB.
Max lost his family home when Tom accidentally burned the place down while playing with firecrackers in his room. Social services paid a visit and Tom overheard Max telling Mandy that Tom may have been better off away from them. Tom ran away for days and left his family frantic. After they found him near Gordon's and Helen's grave, they learned the insurance company wouldn't help them out on rebuilding the house. Instead Max, Tom, and O.B. moved into a new flat beside Mandy and Tony.
[edit] Owning the Loft
Tony became Max's brother in Law when he married Mandy and he made OB and Max the managers of The Loft, after the pair worked hard to show Tony they were responsible enough to look after the club and Tony eventually gave it to them as a Christmas present. Max and OB's first be decision for the club was to hire entertainer Clare Devine. Both Max and OB fell for Clare but she eventually chose Max.
[edit] Relationship with Clare Devine
Max and Clare's relationship went well and Max asked her to move in with him, OB and Tom. But OB's on/off girlfriend Mel caught Clare having an affair with Sean Kennedy. She tried to tell Max but Mel was having difficulty with alcohol so nobody believed her except OB. This caused a wedge between OB and Max and the two stopped being friends and OB dedicated his time to trying to expose Clare. OB suspected Clare of cheating on Max and also using him for his inheritance he received from his father’s will.
Despite OB's allegation, there was little evidence as Max got engaged to Clare and soon after the pair got married. When OB reveals to her that he knew her father is still alive (as he overheard her on the phone to her dad), Clare starts to panic. When OB goes to find Max to tell him of this phone call, Clare rushes to the loft safe where she takes a packet of drugs, stops OB, and slyly plants them in his pocket. He leaves, she calls the police, and OB is put in prison. He misses Max's stag night, and Clare leads him to believe OB can't accept their marriage and will not be attending the wedding. Max agrees, and Clare once again has prevented OB from unravelling the truth.
On his wedding day, in the middle of the wedding, OB bursts into the church and tells Max that he is making a huge mistake. OB tries to convince Max one last time that Clare had planed an escape route with his money, and that she had purchased a one way plane ticket to Malaga. However, once again Clare managed to convince Max that OB was just trying to ruin their Wedding day. When OB shows Max the ticket, Clare tells him the ticket was supposed to be a double return for their honeymoon and the airline had sent her the wrong ticket. She told Max that OB's jealousy had almost ruined the surprise and the wedding, and Max thumps OB and vows never to speak to his best friend ever again.
Max was initially happy with Clare, but her business practices and neglect of Tom began to alienate him. When Max wanted to start a family with her, Clare first faked a pregnancy and miscarriage, then when Max suspected the truth, lied that she would have a difficult time bearing children because of sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Max felt terrible for doubting her. When they were supposed to go to New Zealand to see a fertility doctor, Clare drugged Tom's food to make him sick and keep Max at home, so she could figure out a way to leave town with Max's money.
Max found out that Warren and Clare were taking cocaine, an argument followed and Max went in the office and also used the drug. Later that night in the club Max was talking to Warren and Clare when he collapsed from a heart attack and was taken into hospital. OB rushed to visit Max and assumed Clare had something to do with his heart attack. Max returned home from hospital and was bedridden whilst he was recuperating. Clare was looking after him, however she started tampering with his medication, in the hope it would trigger another heart attack.
OB's suspicions that Clare was trying to kill Max was heightened once again as she took Max and Tom to a secluded country cottage for Christmas. Max slowly suffered as Clare waited hopefully for his death. Whilst she was playing football outside with Tom though, Max crawled over to his pills and discovered they were all empty. Max was then tricked by Clare into jumping into a freezing lake in Cumbria by saying that Tom had fallen in. Max began to drown, though OB came to his rescue and the paramedics arrived soon after, along with the police who arrested Clare.
When Max came to in the hospital, OB came to visit him and Max apologised for not believing OB, but OB was still sure that Max was willing to throw away their friendship for Clare. After Max was released from hospital, he was put into the care of Tony and Dom. Max found Tom's Christmas Wish List which read that he wanted Max and OB to be friends again, and Max and OB vowed to fulfil his wish.
Although it was difficult at first the pair managed to move on and be friends again and the future was looking brighter, however a dark cloud dampened their mood as they learnt that the police had let Clare go free. Clare had terrorised Max's life by threatening to report him to child services if he didn't give her the deed to The Loft. After a long feud between them, Max finally gave over the deeds and Clare finally left him alone.
[edit] Tom's Modelling
Max tried to raise money for Tom's school trip to the science museum. He and O.B briefly took over Dog's Dinners outside Tom's school. But after being harassed by paparazzi for selling junk food to kids, they stopped the business as Max "doesn't want to be responsible for a generation of fat kids". After a modelling agency spotted Tom's photo in the papers, Tom became a model. At one point Max and OB pretended to be a couple to help launch a "gay dads" campaign. Tom was successful, but when his school attendance dropped, Max ended his modeling career.
[edit] MOBS
Max and O.B in spring 2007 started a new business in the village - a juice bar called MOBS (Max and OB's.) On the first day Clare Cunningham demanded that Max pay her £10,000 to pay Mercedes Owen who recently sued the Loft, claiming to make Max and OB's lives hell if they refused. Max told her that she would receive no more money from him. The opening was also marred by Micheala McQueen getting drunk on gin she was adding to the smoothies, which resulted in Max and OB barring her as they didn't have a license for alcohol.
[edit] Who Pushed Clare?
Max became one of five named suspects for the attempted murder of Clare Cunningham. Max was recently questioned about the push of his evil wife; the police released him though he was told not to leave the area. Initially many of the other residents believed that Max may have attacked his ex-wife as revenge for her attempt to kill him a year earlier, and also because Tom was put into Foster Care after Clare manipulated both him and Social Services. On the night she was pushed, Max ran into The Loft and publicly threatened to kill Clare, although Warren intervened and asked Max to leave. It is unlikely that Max pushed Clare, however, as he was seen by Tony and Dominic watching videos of Tom in his flat around the time of the incident. But when Clare returned from hospital he tricked her into letting him enter her home, and manipulated her condition in order to intimidate her into admitting to Social Services that her story about Tom's alleged abuse at the hands of Max and O.B. was a lie, and force fed Clare and threatened to poison her food with his heart medication, in doing so gaining some measure of revenge for Clare's attempt on his own life the previous year. It was around this time that Clare also admitted to Max that she had never been abused by her father at all despite her previous claims to the contrary. Clare subsequently contacted Social Services to tell them the truth, and Tom has now been released from foster care back into Max's guardianship.
[edit] Clare Kidnapped Katy
After Clare found out that Justin Burton had pushed her off the balcony, she kidnapped his girlfriend, and Warren's little sister Katy Fox. Justin and Warren went to Max for help finding his ex-wife and they soon caught up with her, and a dangerous car chase ensued. Clare's car sped off a cliff into a quarry and sank into the water. Warren and Justin jumped in and saved Katy, but Clare remained in the water. Despite his heart condition, Max bravely jumped into the water and tried to rescue his ex-wife, despite her repeated attempts on his life. At first, he could not reach her, and he went up for air. Second time round, he saw her struggling and left her to fall deeper into the water. The following day, Max admitted to Warren that he was finding it hard to live with his feeling of guilt and remorse at having left Clare behind, although Warren and O.B. both reassured him that they, and Katy, all recognise that he was not to blame for the incident, with Warren insisting that Clare "only got what she deserved".
Two days later it was revealed that Clare had survived and was last seen looking for a new target in an airport lounge.
[edit] Relationship with Steph
Steph Dean began helping with Tom, and Max found himself becoming attracted to her. Tom had told Steph he'd like her as a mother, so when Max asked Steph for a date, she turned him down, saying she wasn't ready to become a mother. As Max blamed himself for the havoc Clare wreaked on so many people, Steph invited him over for a few drinks and tried to make him feel better. A vulnerable Max then tried to kiss her. Soon afterwards, he decided to swear off women for a while, but he still had feelings for Steph. He did not realise that Steph also had feelings for him, which led to various crossed signals. He has now entered into a relationship with Steph, although this caused some friction between him and Tom.
[edit] Max and O.B. Break Apart
Max began spending more and more time with Steph, which made O.B. feel left out. He befriended Simon Crosby, a lifeguard who gave Tom swimming lessons. Max never felt very comfortable with Simon, and after a few months he grew suspicious of his actions. When Gilly Roach came to Max with his belief that Simon was a pedophile (he had seen a child leaving Simon in tears and later broke into his home and saw photos of boys in swimming trunks). Max went into Simon's home and saw an immaculately preserved bedroom for a young boy. Max was furious and punched O.B. for letting Simon into Tom's life. As Simon was in the park with Tom at the time, Max then went to confront him, punching him until the police arrested Max for assault. A day later, Simon's ex-wife Gemma came to town and told them Simon loved children so much because his own son had drowned, the room had been their son's room, and he only had photos because he gave them to parents as gifts when their children graduated from his swimming class. Unfortunately, by that time, Gilly and Jake Dean had gathered up a lynch mob to confront Simon at his home. O.B., Max, and Gemma tried to fight off the mob while they made their way into the house. They were horrified to discover that Simon had taken an overdose, lying unconscious on the floor holding a photo of his son. Although Simon survived, he told O.B. there was no way he could stay in town. O.B. was devastated at what had happened to his friend, and blamed Max. Max tried to make amends, but O.B. told him their friendship was always about Max and he felt that he had lived in Max's shadow for too long. The next day, at Tom's urging, O.B. made up with Max, but the strain was still evident.
Max was very supportive when O.B. was facing a difficult decision concerning moving to London with Summer, which went some way towards healing this rift. Max and O.B. moved all of Tony's furniture outside and even stole the sign to Drive'n'Buy. Reminded of times when their lives had been much more fun, O.B. decided to stay, but when he saw how close Max had become to Steph, he realized moving to London was the best idea. Max and Tom bade O.B. a sad farewell and as Steph moved into the loft, Max had to deal with life without his best friend of over a decade.
[edit] Proposing to Steph
Recently, after a talk with Tom, Max has decided he is going to propose to Steph however with recent events concerning Steph and her family the right moment hasn't occurred yet. Will Max ever find the right moment? Max finally popped the question in a hospital waiting room after his brother Tom swallowed the ring. It is unknown if OB will return for the wedding but it is known that one of his living sisters will return Cindy comes back for his wedding with daughter Hollie.
[edit] Splitting up with Steph
Max recently broke up with Steph, and as she sought comfort in Niall he realised how much he truly loved her and tried to win her back over and over again. The first time, he was interrupted by someone giving Steph flowers from a 'secret admirer,' (Niall.) The second time, he went around to Steph's room to apologize for punching Niall and calling her a liar, but Steph turned him down. Max slyly invited Dominic Reilly to a pint at The Dog, hoping he would see Steph and have a chance to tell her how she really felt, but as he listed off her faults to Dom he didn't realise Steph was behind the door, listening. However, Steph left before Max could say how much he loved those faults.
[edit] Exit
On 9th May 2008, Matt Littler announced his departure on the Hollyoaks website, after 11 years in the soap, which will have something to do with the brief reappearences of O.B (Darren Jeffries), Mandy Richardson (Sarah Jayne Dunn), Cindy Cunningham (Stephanie Waring), and Hollie Cunningham.
Max's last appearance is on the 27th of June which is also his wedding day. He goes to hospital with chest pains, but will the wedding end in tears for OB, Steph, Mandy, Tom and Cindy?[1]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Max Cunningham on the Hollyoaks website
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