Ruth Gemmell

Ruth Gemmell was born in Bristol but grew up in County Durham,[1] England, where she attended an all-girls' school in Darlington called Polam Hall School.[2] She has three brothers.[2]

Her parents divorced when she was a child and she moved with her mother to Darlington from Barnard Castle. She later moved to London to live with her father and pursue her acting dreams.[3] She trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Gemmell was married in Westminster, London, in 1997 to actor Ray Stevenson, whom she met in 1995 during the filming of TV drama Band of Gold. The couple divorced in 2005.[4]

Gemmell has played a variety of roles mainly in theatres plus TV dramas. She played the leading female role Fever Pitch, based on Nick Hornby's novel of the same name, starring opposite Colin Firth[5] and had another leading role in the comedy/drama 2 January (2006).

In 2004 she starred in Tracy Beaker's Movie of Me as the mother of the title character, who abandoned her when she was a baby, leading her to spend life in a children's home.

From January 2009 she became a recurring character in EastEnders as Debra Dean, the mother of a teenage girl who, identically to her role in Tracy Beaker's Movie of Me, abandoned her daughter when she was an infant.

In August 2009, she starred as Rebecca Sands in two episodes of The Bill.[6]

Gemmell has appeared three times in the BBC's police drama Waking the Dead, playing two different characters. Her first appearance was in 2002 in the episode Special Relationships as DI Jess Worral, a former lover of DSI Boyd. She next appeared in the episode Sins of seventh season in 2008 as Linda Cummings, an exceptionally intelligent serial killer. Gemmell reprised the role of Cummings in Endgame, the fourth episode of the eighth season of the show. The storyline had Cummings manipulating Boyd and revealed that Cummings' accomplice was responsible for the drugs overdose that killed Boyd's son Luke. The role reprisal of Cummings is a first in the show's history.

Gemmell's ex-husband Ray Stevenson has also appeared in the show as consultant child abductor in the episode Fugue State.

Gemmell starred in Episode 8 of Jimmy McGovern's BBC drama Moving On playing the role of Joanne, in November 2010.[7]

In November 2011, Gemmell played Lady Shonagon in the adaptation for BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour of The Pillow Book, by Robert Forrest. She appeared as Jen, the wife of an adulterous civil servant, in Channel 4 drama Utopia, in early 2013.

In 2015, Gemmell appeared in five episodes of the television series Penny Dreadful as Octavia Putney.

• Ruth Gemmell at IMDb