Diane Parish has been a familiar presence in Albert Square since rocking up on EastEnders as Denise Fox in 2006.
The four-times married, mother-of-three has endured something of a tempestuous time in the long-running soap, during which she’s enjoyed a one-night fling with Phil Mitchell, survived a bus crash and descended into poverty.
Life off screen, though, has proved rather more ‘normal’ if rather busy for Diane, who first appeared on the soap back in 1998, playing singer Lola Christie, an experience she’d rather forget.
“I don’t sing, I’m not a singer and it was horrible! Oh, it was awful,” she revealed on TV programme Secrets of The Square. “I remember Patsy Palmer came up to me at one point and she goes: ‘Oh don’t worry, it sounds really good, don’t worry about it’.
“I thought: ‘It don’t, Patsy! The role wasn’t for me.”
Before returning regularly to EastEnders, though, Diane became well known through a variety of roles on shows such as Lovejoy, Clocking Off and The Bill, where she played DC Eva Sharpe from 2002 to 2004.
And of course, there was the obligatory appearance in Casualty, back in 1997.
The Chelsea-born, 52-year-old actress, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and started out in the theatre, before graduating to TV in 1993, getting her big break on Lovejoy, becoming the main character’s new apprentice following the departure of the popular, but dim Eric Catchpole, played by Chris Jury.
After appearing in the first two series of the drama Clocking Off, she then portrayed Lesley Bailey in Babyfather, described as a ‘black, male, UK version of Sex and the City’. She received the Royal Television Society’s best actress award in 2001, the first black actor to win such an honour.
Then came The Bill, plus brief stints in Holby City, Murder Investigation Team and Waking The Dead, before returning for good to EastEnders. And ironically, she eventually married Jack Branning on the show, played by her former Bill co-star Scott Maslen.
Now engaged to Gerry Zucarello, whom she met in 2017, Diane was previously married to IT specialist Sebastian Parish, with whom she had two daughters, Kaya and Kenya. She was once asked if she would ever consider having more children in the future, but she told The Mirror: “No way! I’ve shut up shop.
"I’m done, I’m no spring chicken. I feel very fortunate for having my lovely little girls.”
Diane and Gerry, whom she says is the ‘man of her dreams’, met through shared friends and publicly announced their engagement in 2018, on Loose Women, although it didn’t hit the headlines until two years later. A source told OK! Magazine: “Diane and Gerry are just laughing about it really.
“It’s lovely to be congratulated, but they had all that a couple of years back when they actually did get engaged. They were initially a tad baffled by the sudden news coverage it created, but that’s social media for you!”
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