Gillian Louise Kearney was in Liverpool on the 9th of May 1972, one of four children born to Gerard, a retired civil engineer and Barbara (née Allerston) Kearney, a school care worker. Growing up in Aigburth, she attended St. John Almond RC High School, Garston where her interest in acting began. After repeatedly being overlooked for the lead roles in school productions, she decided to join the Liverpool Playhouse Youth Theatre and was there from 12-18, where she featured in plays including 'All Flesh is Grass', as Ema. It was there, in 1986, that she was spotted by members of the Mersey Television production team which resulted in her being asked to audition for the role of Debbie McGrath in Channel 4's soap opera 'Brookside' (1986-89), the girlfriend of Damon Grant, played by Simon O'Brien. When Simon decided to leave 'Brookside', he requested that his character be killed off so he wouldn't be tempted to return to the show. Because Damon was so popular, particularly with younger viewers, it was decided to create a 'soap bubble' in which the character would meet his demise: the result was 'Damon and Debbie' (1987) which became Britain's first mini-series spin-off from a soap opera. She was still at school when she left 'Brookside' as she was only 15, so she had to do her O-Levels and A-Levels and got them all, 9 GCSEs and four A-levels, then, when she was 20, she trained at the Rose Bruford College in South London where she graduated in 1995 with a BA Hons after a three year Theatre and Performance degree.
A year after filming her final scenes, Gillian was asked to return to the 'soap' for a few episodes, and so in Christmas 1988 made make unexpected return to visit Damon's mother, Sheila Grant, arriving with her baby, Simon – Damon's son.
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| Damon and Debbie |
When she was sixteen she played the young Shirley in Willy Russell's award-winning 1989 film 'Shirley Valentine' after which saw her never short of work including 6 episodes of ''Waterfront Beat' (1991) and 3 episodes of 'The Tide of Life' (1996) before her big TV break playing singing twin Ellie Brooks in the BBC acclaimed six-part television pop drama mini-series, 'Sex, Chips And Rock 'n' Roll' (1999). Other notable roles were 11 episodes in 'Liverpool 1' and 10 episodes playing the bushy-tailed English teacher Kitty Burton in the second series of the school staff room drama 'Hope And Glory (2000), alongside Lenny Henry. Since then she's been in BBC1's 'Clocking Off' (2001-2002) before landing the role of June Forsyte in the ITV1 adaptation of John Galsworthy's classic novel 'The Forsyte Saga' (2002 - 2003). She later reprised the role for the second series. Following the success of 'The Forsyte Saga', her next role brought her back onto the ITV screen in its newest medical drama 'Sweet Medicine' (2003), cast as Dr Deborah "Deb" Sweet.
In 2005 she landed a role in Channel 4's hit series 'Shameless' (2005-07), playing the role of Marty Fisher's girlfriend Sue Garland. She had a number of television roles following this before, in 2008, she landed the role of Jessica Harrison in 'Casualty' (1991-2010) and appeared in 93 episodes in all. Playing Louise Scanlon in 'Justice' (2011) was her first acting role after becoming a mum to baby John Gerard with her partner Bristol medical student Eddie Foo who she met through 'Casualty', their mutual friend Chris being a medical adviser on the series.
As of the 2nd of January 2015, she began appearing in the ITV soap opera 'Emmerdale (2015-17), as Emma, the mum of Pete, Ross, and Finn Barton, and estranged wife of James Barton. She was tracked down by son Finn years after abandoning her family. She then went on to kill her ex-husband James Barton and by the following year her crime had caught up with her and she went into meltdown. As she tried to run away from the village, she accidentally shot her son Finn dead, before she was pushed from a viaduct by Moira in October 2017. She received critical acclaim for her performance. particularly when it came to the 'No Return' week which saw the character hold James hostage and cause a huge crash that endangered the lives of seven Emmerdale residents; after Emma accidentally pushed James off the bridge, he later died. She was nominated for Best Serial Drama Performance at the 2016 National Television Awards. After 'Emmerdale', Gillian swapped acting for directing, having directed the drama series 'Clink' in 2019 and an instalment of the BBC series 'Moving On' in 2020. But she hasn't left acting altogether; Gillian appeared in the much-loved ITV drama Vera (2024), portraying Deborah McSwain opposite Shaun Dooley. Her character, Emma Barton also "returned from the dead" in dramatic scenes in September 2024 as Moira Dingle hallucinates and starts seeing her old nemesis.
Gillian has continued in theatre work throughout her career and is well known to Liverpool and Manchester theatre audiences from roles in 'Macbeth' and 'Hedda Gabler' in Liverpool's Everyman and Playhouse and in 'King Lear', 'The Rivals', and 'Your Home in the West', all at the Royal Exchange. In 2013 she played Rita onstage in 'Educating Rita' with the Library Theatre Company at The Lowry in Salford which she described as "an honour. It has such great writing from Willy Russell who has always been one of my icons. I was very lucky to have worked with him when I was sixteen – I played young Shirley in the film Shirley Valentine (which he wrote) and so I got to know him and his family very well."
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/12/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians.html
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