| For 14 years, Dolly Skilbeck was one of Emmerdale's most tragic figures.
She arrived from Darlington as Dolly Acaster to work at The Woolpack
and fell for widower Matt Skilbeck. Her past came back to haunt
her, however, when former lover Richard Roper arrived and her dark secret
- a baby born illegitimately and given away for adoption - was revealed.
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| Dolly married Matt and gave birth to son Sam, but she also suffered
the ordeal of several miscarriages. Dolly and Matt started to drift apart
and she had an affair with timber consultant Stephen Fuller, who
tragically died after they split up. Matt eventually left and the marriage
was over. More heartache came when Dolly had an affair with crooked
councillor Charlie Aindow, became pregnant and decided to have an
abortion. |
| Although Katharine Barker took the role of Dolly when the character
was introduced in 1977, she left the programme two years later and Jean
Rogers took over the part in 1980. 'It was a challenge - that was the only
way to look at it,' says Jean, who was previously known on television as
Nurse Rogers in Emergency - Ward 10 and Julie Shepherd, Meg Richardson's
personal secretary, in Crossroads. 'The producer and others were hoping I
would almost sneak in and it would not be noticed, but people who watched
regularly did notice. |
Katharine Barker |
| 'It was a dilemma because I was shown videos of Katharine and given
the wardrobe and told I could have new clothes. Her measurements weren't
the same as mine - she was a little bit shorter. But I thought it would be
silly for a character to come back without wearing some of the clothes she
had been seen in before. However, having been offered the new wardrobe, I
had to fight for it - it was all to do with budgeting.' |
| One of Jean's favourite storylines as Dolly was her affair with
Stephen Fuller - 'the tree-feller fella,' as she recalls him. 'Matt had
inherited Crossgill but made it clear that he didn't want to move out of
Emmerdale Farm,' says jean. 'Dolly had seen this as her chance to set up
her own home, no longer sharing a kitchen with Annie Sugden, who was a
strong character. The marriage could have been a really good, strong one.
Dolly needed the dependability that Matt gave her, but he didn't
understand that a woman needs her own space. Crossgill represented
independence for her, but it was burned down and the relationship
gradually fell apart. Stephen Fuller came along and gave Dolly the
attention she wasn't getting.' |
| In 1991, Jean was shocked to hear that she was being written out of
Emmerdale and was critical of the storyline that resulted in Dolly's
departure terminating her pregnancy after an affair with Charlie Aindow.
'I was playing a woman who had experienced three miscarriages and run the
local playgroup,' says Jean. 'She was very into children. She could even
have died when she gave birth to Sam. A woman who has gone through all
that isn't likely to get rid of a baby. I did play it as a tremendous
dilemma, but I felt that if they were determined to have an abortion in
the programme they could have diagnosed Down's syndrome or something that
would present Dolly with the dilemma of whether to have the baby.'
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| Since leaving, Jean has appeared on television in Law and Disorder
and made many stage appearances. She surprised Emmerdale fans by playing a
news reporter in war-torn Yugoslavia in the film The Peacemaker, which was
filmed in the former Czechoslovakia in 1997. |
| It was while working on Emmerdale that Jean met her second husband,
TV assistant director Philip Hartley, then a floor manager. She has two
children, Jeremy and Justine, from her first marriage and four
stepchildren with Philip - Pam, Zoë, Lucy and Jody.
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