Hannah Waterman
Encyclopedia
Hannah Waterman-Groves is an English
actress, daughter of Minder
star Dennis Waterman
and his second wife, actress Patricia Maynard
.
and Saint Felix School
, Southwold and Putney High School
, and a graduate of the University of Warwick
, Waterman joined the cast of BBC
soap opera EastEnders
as Laura Beale
in February 2000 and left the show in 2004. Before playing Laura, she appeared as a HIV
patient in 1997. Her character became the third wife of Ian Beale
(played by Adam Woodyatt
) but the marriage was not a happy one as the paternity of Laura's son Bobby was disputed. Laura died after falling down the stairs in her flat after tripping over a toy when going to answer the door. Janine Butcher
(played by Charlie Brooks
) was wrongly accused of murdering her after a receipt was found in Laura's flat following a bust-up. Waterman's mother Patricia Maynard
played Laura's mother in EastEnders for a couple of episodes in 2001, and her one-time step mother Rula Lenska
had also made a guest appearance in the series during Laura's run playing Frank Butcher
's girlfriend in the Spain episodes in 2002.
Since her departure from EastEnders, Waterman has appeared in episodes of the BBC
medical dramas Doctors and Holby City
, The Bill
and a recurring role in New Tricks, which also starred her father.
On stage she has appeared in The Vagina Monologues, Soap at The Stephen Joseph theatre and Tom, Dick and Harry and Calendar Girls in the West End.
On 7 January 2007 she won the second series of the BBC
's Just the Two of Us game show singing with Marti Pellow
.
She has been seen in an episode of the Afternoon Play series on BBC1, in an acclaimed run of Alan Ayckbourn
's Round and Round the Garden
at the Theatre Royal, Windsor
and as a contestant on Sky One
's Cirque de Celebrité
.
In 2010 she toured alongside Brigit Forsyth
in a production of "Carrie's War
" playing the part of Auntie Lou.
On 22 December 2009 she appeared on Channel 4
in a Christmas
special edition of Come Dine With Me
alongside David Gest
, Diarmuid Gavin
and Sherrie Hewson
. The programme was repeated on 12 December 2010.
Waterman married another former EastEnders
co-star Ricky Groves
, who played Garry Hobbs
. They announced that the relationship was over in January 2010. It has been alleged, by the press, that their relationship broke down due to Waterman's substantial weight loss and subsequent fitness promotions and DVD.
In 2009 she released an exercise DVD called Hannah Waterman's Body Blitz. The exercise regime promoted in the video was criticised as "unhealthy" and "unrealistic" by television presenter Coleen Nolan
who has herself released several exercise videos and believed Waterman's dramatic weight loss would be difficult to maintain. Waterman was also criticised by former Eastenders colleague Natalie Cassidy
, who herself released an exercise video after losing weight, and said that Waterman had "gone too far with her weight loss" and looked "too skinny.". However, defending herself in an article for the February 2010 edition of Closer Magazine, Waterman said, "My own doctor said she was worried about me at the time because, at and , I was risking my long-term health. I'm much healthier now at - well within the healthy range of BMI recommended by the government - and I feel much better about myself. [...] I lost weight because being fat was making me miserable and threatening my health. I'm not sure why anyone would criticise me for that."
In January 2011, Waterman announced she was expecting a child fathered by Huw Higginson, a former Bill star. Higginson left his wife of 14 years and mother of his 2 children. She gave birth to a son in July 2011.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
actress, daughter of Minder
Minder (TV series)
Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...
star Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...
and his second wife, actress Patricia Maynard
Patricia Maynard
Patricia Maynard is a British actress. She was the second wife of actor Dennis Waterman, and they have two daughters, one of whom is the actress Hannah Waterman...
.
Career
A former pupil of Norwich High School for GirlsNorwich High School for Girls
Norwich High School for Girls is an independent fee-charging school with selective entry in Norwich, Norfolk, England. It was founded in 1875 and is now one of the twenty-nine schools of the Girls' Day School Trust. The school has one of the best academic records in Norfolk...
and Saint Felix School
Saint Felix School
Saint Felix School is an independent school in Southwold, Suffolk.-Notable former pupils:* Jane Benham MBE - played a significant role in preserving Thames sailing barges* Natalie Caine - woodwind player...
, Southwold and Putney High School
Putney High School
Putney High School is an independent all-girls school in Putney, London. It is run by the Girls' Day School Trust, a union of 26 schools with 19,500 students and 3,500 staff.-Location and information:...
, and a graduate of the University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...
, Waterman joined the cast of BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
soap opera EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
as Laura Beale
Laura Beale
Laura Ellen Beale is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Hannah Waterman.Laura only ever wanted a happy marriage, but was always made to feel inferior and unattractive by her husband, Ian Beale...
in February 2000 and left the show in 2004. Before playing Laura, she appeared as a HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
patient in 1997. Her character became the third wife of Ian Beale
Ian Beale
Ian Albert Beale is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Adam Woodyatt. He is the longest-serving character and the only remaining original character to have appeared continuously since the first episode on 19 February 1985...
(played by Adam Woodyatt
Adam Woodyatt
Adam Brinley Woodyatt is an English actor and media personality, best known for his role as Ian Beale in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders...
) but the marriage was not a happy one as the paternity of Laura's son Bobby was disputed. Laura died after falling down the stairs in her flat after tripping over a toy when going to answer the door. Janine Butcher
Janine Evans
Janine Butcher is a fictional character from the British soap opera EastEnders, currently portrayed by Charlie Brooks. Rebecca Michael originally portrayed the character from 1989 until 1993, when the role was given to Alexia Demetriou for three years. Brooks took on the role in 1999...
(played by Charlie Brooks
Charlie Brooks
Charlene "Charlie" Brooks is a Welsh actress, best known for playing Janine Butcher on the BBC soap opera EastEnders.-Acting career:...
) was wrongly accused of murdering her after a receipt was found in Laura's flat following a bust-up. Waterman's mother Patricia Maynard
Patricia Maynard
Patricia Maynard is a British actress. She was the second wife of actor Dennis Waterman, and they have two daughters, one of whom is the actress Hannah Waterman...
played Laura's mother in EastEnders for a couple of episodes in 2001, and her one-time step mother Rula Lenska
Rula Lenska
Rula Lenska is an English actress. Best known for her work in the United Kingdom, she is remembered in the United States for a television advert that presented her as a celebrity, even though she was not widely known in the US at the time the advert was produced.She has appeared extensively on...
had also made a guest appearance in the series during Laura's run playing Frank Butcher
Frank Butcher
Francis Aloysius "Frank" Butcher is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by the late Mike Reid. Frank made his first appearance on-screen as a guest character in 1987 but, due to a positive viewer reception, he was reintroduced in 1988 as a regular. Reid took a long...
's girlfriend in the Spain episodes in 2002.
Since her departure from EastEnders, Waterman has appeared in episodes of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
medical dramas Doctors and Holby City
Holby City
Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...
, The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
and a recurring role in New Tricks, which also starred her father.
On stage she has appeared in The Vagina Monologues, Soap at The Stephen Joseph theatre and Tom, Dick and Harry and Calendar Girls in the West End.
On 7 January 2007 she won the second series of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Just the Two of Us game show singing with Marti Pellow
Marti Pellow
Marti Pellow has been the lead singer of the Scottish pop group Wet Wet Wet since their formation in 1982. He has also recorded solo material.-Early life:...
.
She has been seen in an episode of the Afternoon Play series on BBC1, in an acclaimed run of Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
's Round and Round the Garden
The Norman Conquests
The Norman Conquests is a trilogy of plays written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn. The small scale of the drama is typical of Ayckbourn. There are only six characters, namely Norman, his wife Ruth, her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, Ruth's sister Annie, and Tom, Annie's next-door-neighbour...
at the Theatre Royal, Windsor
Theatre Royal, Windsor
The Theatre Royal, Windsor is located in the town of Windsor, Berkshire, England, directly across the road from Windsor Castle.The present building was opened on 17 December 1910 after the previous theatre had burned down on 18 February 1908, under the ownership of Sir William Shipley.With the...
and as a contestant on Sky One
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
's Cirque de Celebrité
Cirque de Celebrité
Cirque de Celebrité was a celebrity reality TV show broadcast on Sky One. The show features celebrities training for and then performing various circus acts. The winner of the 2006 series was Grace Adams-Short....
.
In 2010 she toured alongside Brigit Forsyth
Brigit Forsyth
Brigit Forsyth is a British actress, who is best known for her roles as Thelma Ferris in the BBC comedy Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Helen Yeldham in the hit ITV drama/modern-day western Boon....
in a production of "Carrie's War
Carrie's War
Carrie's War is a 1973 children's novel by Nina Bawden, set during the Second World War and following two evacuees, Carrie and her younger brother Nick. It is a common fixture in secondary schools.-Plot:...
" playing the part of Auntie Lou.
On 22 December 2009 she appeared on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
special edition of Come Dine With Me
Come Dine With Me
Come Dine With Me is a popular Channel 4 television programme shown in the United Kingdom, produced by Granada Television and first broadcast in January 2005. The show has either four or five amateur chefs competing against each other hosting a dinner party for the other contestants...
alongside David Gest
David Gest
David Alan Gest is an American concert promoter and media personality, perhaps best known for his turbulent marriage to Liza Minnelli, friendship with The Jackson 5 and appearance on the 2006 series of the British reality television show I'm a Celebrity.....
, Diarmuid Gavin
Diarmuid Gavin
Diarmuid Gavin is an Irish garden designer and television personality. He is married to Justine Keane, daughter of The Hon. Ronan Keane, the former Chief Justice of Ireland, and Terry Keane, and they have a daughter named Eppie born December 2004.-Early life:When he was six, his younger brother...
and Sherrie Hewson
Sherrie Hewson
Sherrie Lynn Hutchinson is an English actor, broadcaster and novelist.-Early life:Born in Nottinghamshire, Hewson was brought up in a showbusiness family; her father was a singer and her mother a model. She began performing at the age of six, touring the UK's theatres in revues with her own...
. The programme was repeated on 12 December 2010.
Personal life
On 2 September 2006 in a country church on DartmoorDartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...
Waterman married another former EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
co-star Ricky Groves
Ricky Groves
Richard "Ricky" Groves is an English actor best known for playing Garry Hobbs in EastEnders from 2000–09. Before his role in EastEnders he appeared in the series Burnside, a spin-off from The Bill.-Other TV work:...
, who played Garry Hobbs
Garry Hobbs
Garry Pelé Hobbs is a fictional character in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Ricky Groves. He made his first appearance on 18 September 2000...
. They announced that the relationship was over in January 2010. It has been alleged, by the press, that their relationship broke down due to Waterman's substantial weight loss and subsequent fitness promotions and DVD.
In 2009 she released an exercise DVD called Hannah Waterman's Body Blitz. The exercise regime promoted in the video was criticised as "unhealthy" and "unrealistic" by television presenter Coleen Nolan
Coleen Nolan
Coleen Patricia Nolan is an English born television presenter, author and singer of Irish descent. She was the youngest member of the girl group, The Nolans, in which she sang alongside her sisters...
who has herself released several exercise videos and believed Waterman's dramatic weight loss would be difficult to maintain. Waterman was also criticised by former Eastenders colleague Natalie Cassidy
Natalie Cassidy
Natalie Ann Cassidy is a British actress, most commonly known for appearing in the television soap EastEnders where she played Sonia Jackson for many years. She has also appeared in the BBC Two sitcom Psychoville and was a contestant on the seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing.-Career:As a...
, who herself released an exercise video after losing weight, and said that Waterman had "gone too far with her weight loss" and looked "too skinny.". However, defending herself in an article for the February 2010 edition of Closer Magazine, Waterman said, "My own doctor said she was worried about me at the time because, at and , I was risking my long-term health. I'm much healthier now at - well within the healthy range of BMI recommended by the government - and I feel much better about myself. [...] I lost weight because being fat was making me miserable and threatening my health. I'm not sure why anyone would criticise me for that."
In January 2011, Waterman announced she was expecting a child fathered by Huw Higginson, a former Bill star. Higginson left his wife of 14 years and mother of his 2 children. She gave birth to a son in July 2011.