Julie Dawn Cole

Julie Dawn Cole (born 26 October 1957) is an English television, film and stage actress who has been active for some 40 years. She began as a child performer in what remains her best-remembered film, 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, playing the spoiled Veruca Salt. She has two children.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

A native of Guildford, Surrey, Julie Dawn Cole was twelve when she was cast in the iconic role during the project's pre-production phase in the first half of 1970 (she celebrated her 13th birthday eight weeks into the film's 11½-week filming schedule in Southern Germany's sprawling production complex, Bavaria Film Studios, on the day she performed her song "I Want It Now"). The film debuted in New York on 30 June 1971 and in London the following week, with Julie chosen to present a bouquet of flowers to Princess Margaret at the Royal Premiere. She and Willy Wonka's other pre-adolescent "leading lady," American Denise Nickerson (Violet Beauregarde), both had crushes on Peter Ostrum (Charlie Bucket), also an American, and alternated days spending time with him while there were breaks in filming.^[1]

After Willy Wonka

Cole played trainee nurse Jo Longhurst in the first season of the British drama Angels, in the mid-1970s. (She was also first runner-up for the title role in the movie Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which went to her Angels co-star Fiona Fullerton.) Other credits include a 1982 episode of Tales of the Unexpected.

In the mid 1970s Cole appeared on episodes of the Dutch-produced detective show Van Der Valk starring Barry Foster. In the second season of Poldark, in 1977, she played 15-year-old Rowella Chynoweth, seducing her sister's portly husband.

In 2002 she developed Centrestage, a children's acting drama school.

In her long career, she's accumulated a number of theatrical credits as well as pantomime and voice-over work. After qualifying in 1998 as a fitness instructor, she worked in the 2000s on various projects, including the 2005 ITV series Fat Families as fitness advisor to one of the title families. In 2006, she was seen on the popular soap Emmerdale. Currently, she works as a psychotherapist.^[2]

In August 2010 Cole co-starred in an Edinburgh Fringe show entitled "Willy Wonka Revisted: The Veruca Salt Sessions", where she plays a semi-fictional version of herself discussing Veruca, life, and obsessive fans with her unseen therapist, while her co-star plays an Australian fan describing his obsession with Veruca to his unseen therapist.

Cole loves being asked about her two children. "Whenever Holly (her daughter) said or did anything brattish, I'd just go, 'Is there a problem, Veruca? Can I help you?' That always snapped her out of it. But I didn't call Barnaby (her son) anything because there was no need; he never gave me any such trouble."^[1]

References

External links

• Julie Dawn Cole at the Internet Movie Database
• Julie Dawn Cole filmography as compiled by the British Film Institute
• Julie Dawn Cole interviewed for the 40th anniversary of the Willie Wonka film (CNN)