Emmerdale's Kim Tate

The biggest superbitch in soap, Kim Tate gained enemies throughout Emmerdale as she twice cheated on husband Frank, plotted against him and, finally, let him die as he clutched his chest and pleaded for the tablets that could have saved his life. With Frank gone, she inherited the Tate empire, which he had built up from nothing, and sought to wield the power that she so loved.
Claire King, who has played Kim since 1989, has relished every moment - and understands her character's motivation. 'She learned it all from Frank,' she says. 'He was the master - he taught her everything. Kim has a drive for money and power. She is from a poor, working-class family, so money and power are, to her, security.'
Kim's greatest heartbreak came with the death of her lover, Dave Glover, when he saved her baby James in a blaze at Home Farm. 'That gutted her,' says Claire. 'It proved to Kim that she did really love him. Frank had almost pushed her into the affair with Dave by taunting her, saying she had nothing. She saw the affair as a game but fell for him more than she ever thought she would. Then, Frank offered Kim £1 million to return to Home Farm with James but to leave by herself after a year.
'Then Zoë put down Kims horse. So she had just lost the love of her life and all she had left was James. It changed her completely. Suddenly, she didn't give a damn about the £1 million but wanted to get her own back. She wanted Frank to die - and, if he happened to have a heart attack in prison, great!'
Kim planned her disappearance after her supposed death in the hope that Frank would be charged with murder, although she did not bank on the death of the woman she hired to dump her car at the quarry. Frank was locked up in jail on remand but later released. When Kiim reappeared, as if back from the dead, Frank suffered a heart attack and Kim stood by watching, feeling that she had gained her ultimate revenge for Dave's death.
Kim's disappearance was written into the script when Claire decided to leave Emmerdale after seven years. 'I felt exhausted,' she says. 'I wanted a change and to try something else. Then, a few days after my contract finished, I was asked back and decided it wasn't such a bad idea.'
Emmerdale has made Claire one of the best known faces on British television - and endless magazine covers. Her looks were put to good use as a child, when she did modelling and was entered for a Miss Pears beauty contest. She had her own pony in stables on land owned by her parents in Yorkshire and was educated at the exclusive Harrogate Ladies College.
During her early years after leaving school, Claire worked by day in the yeast-making business that her father had built up. After moving to London, she lived for four years with Geoff Bird, best known as guitarist Cobalt Stargazer of the group Zodiac Mindwarp.
Although her father was an actor, John Seed, Claire started her career in the music business. She became a disc jockey at the Warehouse club in Leeds at the age of 18 and recalls the punk era as 'a brilliant time - the best'. She also performed as a singer in the groups Fidea and To Be Continued - complete with bin-bag dress and orange, blue, red, purple, green or black hair at any one time - and formed her own record label, Visual Records, in the mid-eighties. Some of her earliest experiences in front of the cameras were in pop promotional videos for Zodiac Mindwarp and Elvis Costello.
She also appeared as a groupie in the Bob Dylan film Hearts of Fire, a yuppie in Eat the Rich and a prostitute in The Cold Light of day. On television, Claire played a punk and a hooker in Watch with Mother, a model in both Hot Metal and Starting Out, and a doctor's receptionist in The Bill. Her first screen kiss was with Mel Smith in Alas Smith and Jones.She has recently appeared in the sitcom Babes in the Wood.
Returning in 1989 to her native Yorkshire, and the country life with which she had grown up, Claire settled near Harrogate and took the role of lady of the manor Kim Tate in Emmerdale. She later fell for Peter Amory, who plays her stepson, Chris, in the serial and the couple married in 1994.
With ambitions to star in a film herself one day, Claire lists Dustin Hoffman, James Woods, Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon among the actors and actresses she admires most. 'They are technically very good and bring a character of their own to the roles they play,' she says. 'I don't watch a lot of terrestrial television, although I like documentaries such as Cutting Edge, as well as Hamish Macbeth and good dramas like Cracker and Prime Suspect.'
But Claire cannot forget the debt she owes to television. 'Emmerdale was my big break,' she says, and Kim Tate was a role I could get my teeth into. And working with Peter is like working with anybody else. When you are at work, you are professional and in character. We are very good at leaving home life at home.'

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