Malandra Burrows Biography

Malandra Burrows born Malandra Elizabeth Burrows, is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her long-running role as Kathy Glover in ITV soap opera Emmerdale.

Her mother encouraged her at an early age to begin dancing. She appeared on Yorkshire Television’s Junior Showtime at the age of six. Her interest in music continued throughout her early adolescence, and at age 13 she won the 1978 BBC Merseyside Songwriter of the Year award.

She attended King David High School in Childwall. She joined the Everyman Youth Theatre in Liverpool, did classes at Liverpool Theatre School and also did productions with a local amateur dramatics company at St Peter’s, in Woolton, whilst continuing to perform musically. After leaving school with eleven O-levels, she enrolled in a Liverpool drama school, where she remained for two years learning her future trade of acting — changing her surname to Burrows for registration with Equity, the British actors’ union.

Even before leaving drama school, Burrows played several roles on television, appearing in The Practice and Fell Tiger, as well as taking two parts in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside – firstly Lucy Coflins’ schoolfriend, Sue, and then Lisa Morrissey, the girlfriend of Pat Hancock, in 1982.

Malandra Burrows Age

Malandra Burrows was born on 4 November 1965, Woolton, Liverpool, Lancashire. Her first name, Malandra, is a portmanteau of her parents’ names, Malcolm and Sandra.

Malandra Burrows Husband

Kathy is remembered for being one of the most-often married characters in the soap and had a reputation for having “the kiss of death” on her men. First husband Jackie Merrick accidentally shot himself in 1989; her second marriage to Chris Tate, who uses a wheelchair, ended in 1995 when he admitted to an affair; in 1996 Kathy’s third husband Dave Glover died saving a baby he thought to be his own from a house fire as he was about to elope with his mistress Kim Tate. Poor Kathy was even dumped at the altar by her fourth fiancé Biff in 1999.

Malandra Burrows Wedding – Malandra Burrows Married

In 1989, when she and husband Jackie were having financial problems, he forced her to take a job at Hotten abattoir, which she hated: Jackie rescued her after a week.

Her relationship with Jackie lasted for several years before they finally decided to marry, his impulsive nature in marked contrast to Kathv’s easy-going style. When they broke up during 1987, she went out with Tony Marchant, a rich relative of NY boss Christopher Meadows. This made Jackie so jealous that he smashed up his van and pleaded with Kathy to go back with him. She agreed and they became engaged, marrying in February 1988.

The wedding was almost ruined when a burst water tank in the Bates’ cottage destroyed Kathy’s dress, the night before. The day was saved when Annie, Dolly and Caroline Bales altered Annie’s own wedding dress – an Edwardian one worn by her own mother – which Kathy wore instead. Kathy and Jackie went on honeymoon to Tunisia and, despite unexpected adventures, enjoyed themselves.

The Merricks began married life in the attic at Emmerdale Farm and were delighted when Joe offered them Demdyke in December 1988. They were always struggling financially, however, on Jackie’s meagre wage, supplemented by Kathy’s earnings as part-time barmaid at the Woolpack. Her hours clashed with Jackie’s so she gave it up.

Malandra Burrows Emmerdale

Three months after leaving drama school, she auditioned for the role of Kathy Bates in the popular ITV soap opera Emmerdale (then known as Emmerdale Farm) and got the part. The role has been her most prominent to date. She became one of the programme’s longest-running characters, remaining in the show from 1985 to 2001 and returning briefly in 2005.

During her 16-year stint, Kathy was kidnapped by a diamond-thieving lord, knocked down by a horse-stealing conman, targeted by a double wife murderer who tried to drive her over a cliff, trapped in the wreckage of a bus hit by a lorry, and imprisoned for protesting against the local haulage company. Reportedly one of the soap’s highest-paid stars of the time on a reputed £80,000pa, she paid the price of celebrity when a fanatical mental patient escaped from custody threatening to kill her; she had police protection for two months.

She appeared in soap opera for seventeen years, turning down many parts including one written for her in Willy Russell’s film version of Shirley Valentine, but was axed from the soap as part of ITV’s revamp of the programme. Burrows returned for three episodes for Seth Armstrong’s funeral in 2005. In 2009, Burrows was asked to return to Emmerdale for Jack Sugden’s funeral episodes in February, but was unable due to working in pantomime during Christmas 2008 and January 2009, which prevented her from making a return.

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Emmerdale is 45 today… and look who’s back in the Woolpack

Yorkshirepost UK | 16th October, 2017

Emmerdale Farm, it said, aimed to present “an honest and accurate look at modern life” through the prism of everyday Yorkshire folk.

Its real purpose was to help fill the afternoon viewing hours which had, after years of lobbying by the broadcasters, been freed by Edward Heath’s Conservative government from the ghetto of schools’ programmes. Today, exactly 45 years after the opening episode went out, its first star recalled how little confidence in its longevity there had been.

“My first contract was for just 12 episodes,” said Frazer Hines, then a veteran of Doctor Who, who had signed on as Joe Sugden, younger brother to Jack, the returning roué who had inherited the farm. “It was just another job, really. But after a few weeks, one of the production assistants told us she had just seen the script for episode 26 – and all of a sudden we knew it could run.”

But he added: “Even then, the contract was still only for two years. They realised some of the companies could just take it off.” In the days when ITV regions screened many programmes on different days, or not at all, the new afternoon schedule in 1972 was a rare example of co-operation, with drama, chat shows and the country’s first regular lunchtime news.

“Each weekday company,” Thames Television’s director of programmes, Brian Tesler, told TV Times, “has provided a programme that is appropriate to its own area. These are aimed at the daytime audiences, which are predominantly female.” But Emmerdale – the only programme from the schedule to survive beyond the 1970s, quickly found a broader audience and began to migrate, one region at a time, from afternoons to the peak-time evening schedule.

Today, the franchise is one of the most valuable in ITV, with six episodes a week instead of just two, and two visitor attractions in Leeds. Mr Hines and his former co-star, actress Malandra Burrows – both of whose characters were written out long ago – were at one of the tourist centres yesterday, the former car showroom on Burley Road in Leeds in which interior scenes used to be filmed.

Today, the franchise is one of the most valuable in ITV, with six episodes a week instead of just two, and two visitor attractions in Leeds. Mr Hines and his former co-star, actress Malandra Burrows – both of whose characters were written out long ago – were at one of the tourist centres yesterday, the former car showroom on Burley Road in Leeds in which interior scenes used to be filmed. A scale model of the fictional Emmerdale village has been built there, along with a life-size reproduction of the Woolpack pub and other sets from the series.

Mr Hines, a native of Hors­forth, Leeds, who now breeds racehorses in Lincolnshire, said he had landed the role that was to dominate his life, on and off, for the next 22 years, on the recommendation of his former girlfriend, the actress Liza God­dard, whose father, David, was Emmerdale’s first producer.

“I was having Sunday lunch with her family, and he said he was going to do a 12-part series in Yorkshire for the housewives,” Mr Hines said.

“He was looking for someone to play the younger son, and Liza said, ‘He’s sitting right opposite you,dad – and if you don’t cast him, mum and I are leaving home’.” After two years, the popularity of the show had risen to such an extent that when Joe Sugden married his fiancée Christine, it finally became headline news in TV Times.

Emmerdale has been filmed at various locations in Yorkshire, including the villages of Leathley and Esholt, but its present 300-acre exterior at Harewood is the biggest ever built in Britain. The site is open to visitors at weekends, alongside the full-time “studio tour” in one of the buildings near ITV’s main studio centre in Leeds.

Actress Malandra Burrows, who joined Frazer Hines there to celebrate the show’s 45th anniversary, last appeared 12 years ago, by which time she had seen three husbands killed. Mr Hines said he had been invited back after the end of his first marriage in 1984. “You’re not having much luck with real women so come back and join your other family,” he said he had been told.