Emmerdale star dies of cancer at 55
Leah Bracknell loses three-year battle
‘The universe had other plans’
EMMERDALE actress Leah Bracknell, who wrote an intensely moving blog after being diagnosed with lung cancer, has died of the disease at the age of 55. The star, who played Zoe Tate on the ITV soap for 16 years, always insisted that she did not want to be seen as just another cancer ‘statistic’ and sought to raise funds for alternative treatment after her targeted biological therapy stopped working in 2017. Miss Bracknell had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer the previous year. She wrote on her blog: ‘I was feeling perfectly well. Teaching yoga classes and workshops, it was a time of new beginnings: preparing to move house, youngest child fleeing the nest, and excited to be starting rehearsals for a comedy play. ‘But the universe had other plans. Life was about to be unexpectedly turned on its head. ‘I began to feel breathless climbing stairs... My abdomen suddenly ballooned – and within a matter of a few days I looked heavily pregnant.’
She added: ‘I could barely walk or breathe. Then, one Saturday night at the beginning of September I ended up in A&E.’
A year later, the actress revealed that her NHS-funded treatment had stopped working and that she had been relying on expensive alternative treatments. Her boyfriend Jez Hughes launched a Go Fund Me page to raise money for treatment in Germany, due to a lack of options in the UK.
After thousands of fans contributed £50,000 for immunotherapy, she said she ‘did not expect or feel deserving of such interest and kindness’. In February she said that she had been taking a new type of medication to prolong her life.
Miss Bracknell has previously said that telling daughters Lily, 28, and Maya, 24, was the hardest part of her diagnosis. ‘Any mother will know how I felt, she told the Daily Mail in 2016. ‘It’s the worst thing you can imagine.’
John Whiston, head of ITV in the North, said: ‘Everyone on Emmerdale is very sad to hear of the death of Leah. [She] was a hugely popular member of the cast for over 16 years.’ Bracknell left the series in 2005 in an episode voted the best exit at the British Soap Awards the following year.
She also had roles in Judge John Deed, A Touch of Frost, The Royal Today and DCI Banks. Last night a family statement thanked those who had supported her. ‘Leah continued to embrace life and faced her illness with positivity,’ it said.