Anita Dobson(I)

Dobson was born in the district of Bow in London to a Anne, a seamstress and father who was a cutter in a dress factory. She had a younger sister. She left school at sixteen with four O levels and had a string of jobs including insurance clerk, and model for C and A (a clothes chain.) When young, she taught singing and tap dancing and joined an amateur drama group. At age twenty, she won a grant for a drama school which lasted three years and then spent the next thirteen years touring around the country in repertory companies, one of which was The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, performing in pantomimes, the odd West End show and television (including a maid in Nanny, Lois, Jim Davidson's girlfriend in Up the Elephant and Round the Castle), as well as ,other odd shows before getting a major role in BBC's long-running serial Eastenders.