Susan Tully

Susan Tully is an actor-turned-director best known for her impressive 11-year run on the prolific BBC soap opera, "EastEnders." As a young teen, Tully effectively launched her career in the early years of another long-running BBC series, the realistic school-based drama "Grange Hill," where she appeared over four years, until 1984. Barely skipping a beat, in 1985 Tully entered the canon of English television history amongst the lead cast on the inaugural episode of "EastEnders" as Michelle Fowler, a willful and stubborn-minded teenager whose numerous liaisons led to her becoming pregnant by a married man at 16. Over the following decade Michelle got caught up in all manner of drama, including getting shot by a crazy friend of her best friend's husband, and the experience apparently amply sated Tully's appetite to the point that she acted in only one other project, the 1998 rugby comedy, "Up 'n' Under," before taking her career behind the camera. Indeed, her first gig was directing two episodes of "EastEnders," also in 1998, before moving on to numerous other series, most notably the crime drama "The Bill," from 1999 to 2004, and later back to her home base of the BBC for the autobiographical-based drama, "Lark Rise to Candleford," from 2009 to 2011. Tully remains close friends with her "EastEnders" co-star and on-screen best friend, Letitia Dean.