Sue Jenkins

Susan Elizabeth Jenkins (born 31 July 1958, Liverpool) is an English actress and one of two daughters of Albert and Marjorie Jenkins. Sue has one sister, Pam.

Biography

Sue Jenkins became an actress at the age of eighteen having studied at drama college. She worked in repertory theatres across the UK for the first 11 years of her career, performing in over a hundred plays, playing everything from Alan Ayckbourn to Shakespeare. Alan Bleasdale wrote the lead female role in Having a Ball for Jenkins, which she played at the Theatre Royal, York.

She then started to work more on television including How We Used To Live and the cult TV programme, The Beiderbecke Affair. She first came to prominence in 1985 when she joined the cast of top rated British soap opera, Coronation Street, playing barmaid Gloria Todd in 238 episodes. She left the show in 1988 after becoming pregnant with her second child, Richard, who played Craig Harris in the soap from 2002 until 2006. She returned to television in the series Coasting with Peter Howitt and from 1991 until 2001 playing the part of the much loved Jackie Corkhill in the Liverpool based, and often controversial, Channel 4 soap opera Brookside.

Since leaving Brookside, Jenkins has continued to work steadily, in theatre and television, making guest appearances on British television, including In Deep, Holby City, Merseybeat, Dalziel & Pascoe, Midsomer Murders and Heartbeat. Jenkins also presented Loose Women in 2006. Jenkins has thoroughly enjoyed her return to theatre, playing at the Royal Court in London in the highly acclaimed The People Are Friendly, Esther in Arthur Miller's The Price at the Library Theatre and Maybe Tomorrow at the Royal Exchange Theatre. Last year, she appeared in the film, Blue Collars and Buttercups and is regularly heard on BBC Radio 4 afternoon dramas. She has recorded over 200 radio plays and radio adaptations of classic serials over the years, including Middlemarch, Villette and Wuthering Heights with Derek Jacobi. Sue is also a regular reader of Audio Books.

As a director, Jenkins wrote, produced and directed Night of Stars 1 and 2 at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, raising over £70,000 to build an orphanage in Thailand for orphaned children of the tsunami and to help children's charities in the UK.

She directed Aladdin at the Tameside Hippodrome Theatre in 2006, produced her son, Richard Fleeshman's first concert in 2006 at the same theatre and produced and directed yet another musical extravaganza Gala Night Of Stars there in March. Sue made her debut in Emmerdale on 25 August 2008 as Bonnie Drinkwater, an ironic name for the character as Bonnie was often found passed out from too much alcohol. Her most recent television appearances were a second guest lead in Heartbeat and as a celebrity guest on The Alan Titchmarsh Show. Sue was voted 'Woman of the Year' in 2008 for her Charity work and was honoured by This Is Your Life in 2001. Sue performed in Eve Enslers The Vagina Monologues at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool and in 2010 starred in the 3-month Autumn National Tour of The V Monologues, playing in 65 theatres across the country. Sue has recently recorded an episode of Doctors starring opposite her own daughter, Emily Fleeshman. Sue directed Snow White at Grimsby Auditorium, last year and is directing Cinderella at Southport Floral Hall Theatre, Southport for Christmas 2012. In 2013, she played Maureen in the BBC comedy-drama Being Eileen.^[1]

Sue is married to the actor David Fleeshman and they now have three children - Emily, Richard and Rosie. Sue and her eldest daughter Emily are founders of The Actors' Lab Ltd, a Drama Academy in Manchester.

References

External links

• Sue Jenkins at the Internet Movie Database