Heather Peace

Heather Peace
Born	(1975-06-16) 16 June 1975 Bradford, England
Occupation	Actress, musician, director
Years active	1996–present
Television	Waterloo Road (2012–14) Emmerdale (1996–1997)
Partner(s)	(wife) Ellie Dickinson (2013 - present) children - Annie Mary Peace (April 2015)
Website
www.heatherpeace.com/home/

Heather Peace (born 16 June 1975) is an English actress, musician, and director from Bradford, England.

Early life

Heather Peace was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. She has been playing piano since she was six years old, and guitar since her teens. Peace decided to be an actress at an early age and credits her parents for the encouragement they gave her to achieve that goal.^[1]

Acting career

Peace studied acting at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she obtained a BA (Hons).

Peace's break into television came when she joined Emmerdale, playing the character Anne Cullen from 1996 to 1997.

Her first professional stage role was in the 1997 Harrogate Theatre production of My Fair Lady, playing Eliza Doolittle. She subsequently has played Miranda in Shakespeare's The Tempest and the same character in the actor-musician spoof Return to the Forbidden Planet.^[2]

After leaving Emmerdale, Peace took parts in The Bill and Dangerfield, before being cast as the only female fire fighter, Sally "Gracie" Fields, in the ITV1 series London's Burning from 1998 to 2002.^[3] During this time, Peace made a TV movie called Thunder Road, in which she played Sonia.

Between 2003 and 2005, Peace played minor roles in television series including Casualty and Where the Heart Is. She then played Special Air Service Trooper Becca Gallagher in the 2005 series Ultimate Force alongside Ross Kemp. She then starred in Kay Mellor's TV series The Chase as single mum Fiona Jones.

She then starred in television series including Coronation Street, Heartbeat and Holby City. She also starred in the film 31 North 62 East as Jill and Kimberly Mandelson. In 2008, Peace appeared as the secretly abusing wife in the "Private Sins" episode of Blue Murder.

In 2010, Peace was cast as Detective Sergeant Sam Murray in the BBC Three TV series Lip Service, written by Harriet Braun about the loves and lives of group of aged-30-something lesbians in Glasgow, Scotland. The only openly lesbian cast member, filming of the second series finished in July 2011 with a transmission date of spring 2012.^[4]

In 2011, Peace was cast as Head of English, Nikki Boston before being appointed Deputy Headteacher in 2013 for the BBC One school-drama Waterloo Road.^[5] Following a tour of her debut album, she returned to the series for the second part of Series 8. She also featured in Series 9, which screened on BBC One in September 2013. She took another break from Waterloo Road at the end of series 9 Spring Term but has hinted that she may return in Series 11. However, it is unlikely she will return, due to the show's tenth season being its last.

Singing career

Peace was classically trained at piano since she was six years old, and later learned guitar.^[6] Heather has said she would give up acting for music if the situation arose.^[7]

She held a jazz residency at Velvet while she attended drama school.^[8]

In a 2000 episode of London's Burning, Peace's character sang a version of the Bette Midler classic The Rose. Subsequently released by BMG, it reached no. 56 in the UK charts. She decided to put her music career on hold to concentrate on acting but in 2011 she reignited her love of music with her first sell out UK tour and release of an acoustic album of covers and some original songs.

She recorded her full debut jazz album Fairytales with producer Nigel Wright.^[9] Following release on 21 May 2012, it achieved number 43 in the UK Albums Chart and number 9 in the independent albums chart, supported by a UK tour. Heather's Fairytales UK tour culminated with a concert in London, where Heather shared a duet with Alison Moyet.^[10]

In 2013 she released a new single, a Jack Guy remix of "Fight For" available on iTunes, and a special edition of her debut album "Fairytales". She has toured Australia twice,^[11] where she has taken part in the Sydney Mardi Gras performing on stage as well as hosting the event for the SBS TV.^[12]

On the 9th of June 2014, the single "We Can Change", and her second studio album "The Thin Line" were officially released. Heather launched the new single with Europe´s first rainbow crossing, in Brighton.^[13]

All the songs in "The Thin Line" (as well as her previous studio album, "Fairytales") are written by Heather. Some of the tracks, however, are the result of a joined work with other songwritters. Such is the case of the single "We Can Change", written by Peace and Shelly Poole, or the song "Lily" (freely available to download from her official website), a co-write by Heather and her guitarrist Michael Clancy.^[14]

Heather worked in this new album with producer James Lewis, both having a "duty of care" on it.^[15] Her focus on her music (she took a break from acting), as well as the extensive work on the album, that did not finish until they both (musician and producer) were perfectly satisfied with it, concluded in "The Thin Line", an album she is incredibly proud of.^[16]

Following the release of the album, Heather performed in a number of festivals over the summer. The Thin Line tour where Heather and her band performed the songs from the new album took place in October 2014.^[17] An acoustic tour will follow in March / April 2015.^[18]

Personal life

Peace came out as a lesbian to her mum when she was 19 years old, just after her first girlfriend broke up with her. Peace entered into a civil partnership with her longtime partner Ellie in 2013 ^[19] which was converted to marriage as soon as it became possible.^[20] In 2015 they were happy to announce the arrival of their daughter.^[21] On 17th April, heather announced on twitter that Ellie had given birth to a baby girl at 1:46pm.[22] They named their daughter Annie Mary Peace.[23]

Heather is a patron of Manchester Pride, and has recorded a video for Stonewall's It Gets Better campaign.^[22] She is involved in a number of charities, including Diversity Role Models ^[23] and The Albert Kennedy Trust^[24]

In 2010 she was number 40 on the Independent on Sunday‍ '​s Pink List, but shot to number 10 in 2011.^[25] She was also voted number 18 on US website afterellen.com's 2011 Hot 100 list. She is also the only woman to have ever appeared twice on the cover of Diva Magazine in the space of six months.^[26]

Discography

Albums

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions
		UK [27]
Fairytales[28]	Released: 20 May 2012 Labels: Kaleidoscope Records Formats: Digital download, CD	43
Live at The Jazz Café[29]	Live performance: 27 October 2013 [30] Labels: Kaleidoscope Records Formats: Digital download, CD	—
The Thin Line[31]	Released: 9 June 2014 Labels: Kaleidoscope Records Formats: Digital download, CD	56
Live in Brighton[32]	Live performance: 31 November 2014 Labels: Kaleidoscope Records Formats: CD	—

Singles

Year	Title	Peak chart positions	Album
		UK [27]
2000	"The Rose"	56	N/A
2012	"Better Than You"	—	Fairytales
2013	"Fight For" (Jack Guy Remix)	—
2014	"We Can Change"	—	The Thin Line
	"—" denotes a single that did not chart or was not released.

References

External links

• Heather Peace at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• Heather Peace's channel on YouTube