Jennifer Ellison’s career so far has given only a tiny glimpse of her immense talents. She can act. She can dance. She can sing. She looks great and she oozes a unique star quality. In just three years she has starred in the musical Chicago in London’s West End, won a prime-time TV reality show, released a Top Ten single, been voted Maxim magazine’s Cover Girl of the Year, won a feature role in the film version of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, starred in the top-rated ITV court-room drama The Brief and has now released a best-selling fitness DVD, Jennifer Ellison`s West End Workout.
She is currently leading Chicago`s UK tour and will shortly be appearing in the much-heralded courtroom programme The Verdict. In the Spring she will also star in the prime-time TV dramas New Street Law and Hotel Babylon. It’s hard to believe that such a multi-talented, polished and seasoned performer as Jennifer is just 23 years of age.
To understand the phenomenon that is Jennifer Ellison, you must go to her childhood, when the pretty six-year-old perched herself on the counter of a shop in her home city of Liverpool – birthplace of The Beatles - and declared her plans for world showbiz domination. "Hello!" she bellowed, "My name`s Jennifer Ellison and one day I`m going to be famous!" She was right.
Throughout her childhood, Jennifer was dedicated to the arts and sang in many concerts. But her real love was dance and she became a classically-trained ballet dancer. In her teens she secured a coveted place at the Royal Ballet School but by then her career had catapulted her in a different direction – television – and ballet was put on hold. Jennifer first wrote to the producers of the immensely-popular Channel 4 soap Brookside when she was nine, asking for an audition. Her mother still keeps the polite rejection letter in a frame on the living room wall. She knew it was only a matter of time before Jennifer would be a star.
At 14, Jennifer took the leading role of Emily Shadwick in the soap and Emily`s loves, losses, heartbreaks and mischiefs captivated the nation. Jennifer’s first Brookside contract was for six episodes but she was such a hit with viewers that she stayed in the show for five years. When Jennifer Ellison was on Brookside, the TV company’s press office had two piles in their in-tray: Brookside fan mail and Jennifer Ellison fan mail. But her first loves of singing and dancing were calling her. "I came out of the womb born to act, sing and dance,” says Jennifer. “I have to follow my heart.”
Source: jenniferellison.com
