Biography and Career
Grace grew up as an only child in Northwood and attended St. Helen's School and obtained a psychology degree from Durham University. She later trained to be an actress at the Drama Centre London, now part of the University of the Arts, London.
Her career began in 1996 with her role on Brookside. The character of Georgia Simpson was in an incestuous relationship with her younger brother, and the storyline attracted considerable press attention at the time. She undertook this role "for the experience" and as a springboard for her career more than for celebrity and was less than pleased with some of the early attention she received. However, she won her share of praise from respectable quarters for her handling of this difficult role and, at the beginning of 1997, appeared alongside fellow soap stars of the day Patsy Palmer and Tracy Shaw in a Vogue magazine issue celebrating the British woman.
Upon leaving Brookside, she appeared in two series (1998 and 1999) of Roger Roger, a BBC1 sitcom penned by Only Fools and Horses creator John Sullivan, set in a London minicab firm. She has also made numerous TV guest appearances, including Poirot "Lord Edgware Dies", Bad Girls, Cold Feet, Midsomer Murders, Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story and Lewis.
On stage, she appeared as the wife of Gregor Antonsecu (played by David Suchet) in the acclaimed revival of Terence Rattigan's Man and Boy at the Duchess Theatre, London. She has also appeared in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie at the Theatre Royal York (November 1999) alongside Honor Blackman, and in Don Taylor's The Road To The Sea at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond (2003). During 2007-2008, she played the role of Marjorie Houseman (Baby's mum) in the stage version of Dirty Dancing at the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End.
Her film work includes Hello Friend, in which she plays the wife of a man whose life is blighted by a piece of demonic computer software. The film, written by IT Crowd creator Graham Linehan, is included in the extras on the IT Crowd Series 1 DVD, and features cameo appearances by Richard Ayoade and Julia Davis. She joined British soap opera Hollyoaks in 2012 making her first appearance on July 13 as Elizabeth Morrison, mother of already established character Maddie Morrison (Scarlett Bowman) and wife of Ed Morrison (Dominic Rickhards).
A website with news and information on Helen's career, run by a then-16-year-old fan, opened at helengrace.co.uk in late-2000 and was endorsed by Helen shortly afterwards. It has now closed down after nearly a decade online. In a note posted on the site shortly beforehand, its author, now a journalist, explained this was a mutual, amicable decision as both she and Helen felt it had run its course, but that they would continue to support each other's work.
Helen is married, with one daughter, born in 2004.
Read more about this topic: Helen Grace
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