10 Facts About… Kellie Bright (Eastenders’ Linda)

1 Kellie was born on 1 July 1976 (sharing her birthday with alter ego Linda!)

and has been performing since she was 11 years old. After some early stage success, she won a place at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School – with Denise van Outen, Luisa Bradshaw white, Keeley Hawes and Emma Bunton among her contemporaries.

2 She made her debut as Linda Carter in December 2013 –

introduced alongside husband Mick, son Johnny, daughter Nancy and their bulldog Lady Di as the new publicans of the Queen Vic, after Phil sold the boozer to Mick. Linda’s most memorable story so far has been her horrifying rape at the hands of her husband’s brother, Dean, with the landlady falling pregnant shortly after. Luckily, baby Ollie was eventually revealed to have been fathered by Mick, not vile Dean.

3 In real life, Kellie married her long-term partner Paul Stocker in 2014,

having met him at the age of 11! She’d given birth to their first child Freddie back in 2011, and a second son, Gene, followed in November 2016. Shortly after Gene’s birth, she admitted: “It’s such a cliché, but it really is a love like nothing else.” She also said that she wants to have baby number three – so fingers crossed! 4 If you’re of a certain age, you might remember a very young Kellie on your screens back in the 1980s, when

she played Sally Simpkins in two series of T-bag on CITV. She also

had roles in Maid Marian And Her Merry Men, The Bill, The Upper Hand and Brush Strokes

– all before she turned 18!

5 Although we’re now used to seeing her behind the bar of the Vic, Kellie could have been the face of another

Eastenders legend. She’d previously auditioned for the role of Tanya Branning back in 2006. We can’t quite picture her getting it on with Max – can you?

6 Lovely jubbly – Kellie is Del Boy’s mum!

Although she never appeared in legendary sitcom

Only Fools And Horses itself (in which the character of Joan Trotter had long since passed away), Kellie took on the role in prequel drama

Rock & Chips for three episodes, including a feature-length opener. She is seen embarking on an affair with Freddie ‘The

Frog’ Robdal, played by Nicholas Lyndhurst – a liaison that results in the birth of young Rodney!

7 Kellie made her bigscreen debut in the 2002 movie Ali G Indahouse,

playing ‘Me Julie’. Kellie features in some very hot snogging scenes with the saucy gangster rapper – quite a contrast to homely Linda!

8 Even though she admitted that she hadn’t danced since she was 16, Kellie proved she’d not lost any of her skill – waltzing her way to the runner-up position in the 2015 series of Strictly Come Dancing with partner Kevin Clifton.

We still think she should have won, though – and clearly so did the judges, awarding her 119 points out of a possible 120 in the final!

9

Kellie revealed that her most embarrassing moment on the Eastenders set was when she lost one of her fake boobs!

“I have a little bit of help in the breast department to play Linda,” she recalled in 2015. “There was a scene where one of my chicken fillets fell through my bra and landed in the road as I was running, and I just had to pick it up and carry on going. Afterwards, I was crying with laughter!”

10

Helped along by her costars Danny Dyer (Mick), Linda Henry (Shirley) and Luisa Bradshaw-white

(Tina),

Kellie took part in ‘Veganuary’ – a charitable venture encouraging people to try being vegan for a whole month. The actress said she enjoyed it so much that she and her husband decided to carry on being vegans for good – so maybe it’s time for a change to the Vic menu, too?