Post by RitaLittlewood on Jan 25, 2006 13:57:52 GMT
From the Mirror:
25 January 2006
EMMERDALE EXCLUSIVE: WHAT IF I REALLY DID HAVE CANCER?
EMMERDALE EXCLUSIVE
By Claire Donnelly
WHEN Emmerdale's Ursula Marsden shaved her head to be more convincing as cancer sufferer Alice Wilson, she never imagined that losing her strawberry blonde locks would cause such uproar.
She certainly hadn't bargained on just how cruel and thoughtless people could be.
Since shaving her head, she has been sneered at in the street, had abused yelled at her and been quizzed by total strangers.
"I actually can't believe it," says 31-year-old Ursula, who lives in West Yorkshire. "I felt sick when the first incident happened.
"I was coming out of a nightclub and a lad shouted out, 'You bald bitch', at me. I was horrified that anyone could be so horrible and so thoughtless.
"All I did was smile a hello and that's what he shouted back. Imagine how much that could hurt someone who did have cancer? It hurt me and I'm not even ill.
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"That could have been my first time out after treatment and my self-confidence would have been destroyed."
Sadly, it wasn't an isolated incident. Ursula was abused again a few days later in a pub near her home.
"This guy started going on, saying 'What's wrong with your hair? Why's it so short? Are you ill? What's wrong with you?'" she says.
"I tried to explain and he turned round and said, 'Oh, she's a feisty one'. What did he want me to say, 'I've only got a few months to live'? In the end, I told him to get lost.
"What's the big deal about having a bald head? I don't understand it and I don't know how people cope with the abuse. Imagine facing all that on top of fighting cancer.
"This hair cut has been the best research into what it must be like to have cancer because it changes how people react to you - and it isn't always positive."
On last Friday's episode of Emmerdale, her character Alice started chemotherapy for the first time.
SHE had delayed treatment until after the birth of her baby, Samson - to the dismay of her anxious fiance Sam Dingle. And she suddenly decided to hack off her hair before it started falling out.
Alice was only due to be in the countryside soap for a brief period in 2004, but she proved so popular that she was brought back full-time last July.
Now this emotional storyline has shown a whole new side to the bird-brained chicken farmer as she struggles to cope with being a mum, with her terrible illness - and with dimwitted Sam Dingle.
For realism, Ursula opted for the razor instead of a bald wig. "They offered me a wig but it didn't look right," she says.
"I knew that if was sat in a cancer unit and saw that I would be insulted because it was so obviously not real, so I had to go the whole way."
Getting things right was doubly important to her because her 34-year-old husband Howard has lost two relatives to cancer.
"When they told me Alice was going to get Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma - a type of leukaemia - I wanted to do my best to be true to people's experiences," she says.
"My husband's grandfather and uncle both died of it and it's awful. His grandad was elderly but his uncle was only in his 50s, it came in a very aggressive form.
"It's a horrible coincidence that his family have been affected by it and now I am in contact with it through the show."
To prepare for the role, Ursula spent time talking to volunteers from Leukaemia Research.
"A woman called Jo-Jo Holborn told me how losing her hair affected her," she says. "She bought a lovely hat and was out in it for the first time when it blew off. A group of teenage girls saw and burst out laughing and that left her in pieces."
LOOKING at Ursula - all big blue eyes in a sweet, elfin face - it is hard to believe she plays frumpy Alice who is a few sheep short of a farmyard.
Yet she has made her name as some weird and wonderful characters. She was Craig Cash's girlfriend in the BBC sitcom Mrs Merton And Malcolm and cross-eyed Carol in the hit Channel 4 drama Teachers, whose strange looks terrified staff and pupils alike.
"Most people don't believe I played Carol," she laughs, "because, thank goodness, I don't look anything like her in real life. I wore a prosthetic eye and put my jaw at a strange angle - all very strange.
"I've always looked quite different from the characters I've played, so I never get recognised. The only time I get spotted is if I'm out with other people from the show. And I like that - I like acting but I'm not an aspiring celebrity."
Ironically, Ursula, who is from Blackburn in Lancashire, only fell into acting by mistake.
"Drama therapy, drama as healing, was my big interest," she says. "It still is and I've done voluntary work with children in care and who have suffered bereavement.
"But when I graduated from uni they thought I was too young to do that - they wanted me to have some more life experience. It was a case of, 'Come back in a few years, love', so I went into acting instead."
Since her career took off she has rarely been out of work. But whenever life becomes too hectic, she has her husband Howard to lean on.
The couple, who have been together for 10 years, got married in 2005 in one of their favourite beauty-spots on the Isle of Skye.
"Howard's great," grins Ursula. "He's not an actor - he's sane. We like walking and being outdoors and Skye has always meant a lot to us, so we just went off and got married there. No fuss or anything. Perfect."
Howard also reassured her she was doing the right thing when it came to parting company with her hair.
She says: "When I got home the night I did it he had left a little card for me and written on it, 'Remember, Urs, I love you, with or without your hair - a very brave thing to do'. I thought that was wonderful."
So has playing Alice, who has just become a mum, made her broody?
"It's on the cards," she says coyly. "And we have been talking about it.
"Saying that, we are so busy at the moment. We need to spend a few nights in the same house first - that would be a start."
My husband lost two relatives to the same cancer that Alice has
This lad shouted 'bald bitch' at me. How could anyone be so horrible?
YOU can make a donation to Leukaemia Research online at www.lrf.org.uk or by calling 020 7405 0101.
25 January 2006
EMMERDALE EXCLUSIVE: WHAT IF I REALLY DID HAVE CANCER?
EMMERDALE EXCLUSIVE
By Claire Donnelly
WHEN Emmerdale's Ursula Marsden shaved her head to be more convincing as cancer sufferer Alice Wilson, she never imagined that losing her strawberry blonde locks would cause such uproar.
She certainly hadn't bargained on just how cruel and thoughtless people could be.
Since shaving her head, she has been sneered at in the street, had abused yelled at her and been quizzed by total strangers.
"I actually can't believe it," says 31-year-old Ursula, who lives in West Yorkshire. "I felt sick when the first incident happened.
"I was coming out of a nightclub and a lad shouted out, 'You bald bitch', at me. I was horrified that anyone could be so horrible and so thoughtless.
"All I did was smile a hello and that's what he shouted back. Imagine how much that could hurt someone who did have cancer? It hurt me and I'm not even ill.
Advertisement
"That could have been my first time out after treatment and my self-confidence would have been destroyed."
Sadly, it wasn't an isolated incident. Ursula was abused again a few days later in a pub near her home.
"This guy started going on, saying 'What's wrong with your hair? Why's it so short? Are you ill? What's wrong with you?'" she says.
"I tried to explain and he turned round and said, 'Oh, she's a feisty one'. What did he want me to say, 'I've only got a few months to live'? In the end, I told him to get lost.
"What's the big deal about having a bald head? I don't understand it and I don't know how people cope with the abuse. Imagine facing all that on top of fighting cancer.
"This hair cut has been the best research into what it must be like to have cancer because it changes how people react to you - and it isn't always positive."
On last Friday's episode of Emmerdale, her character Alice started chemotherapy for the first time.
SHE had delayed treatment until after the birth of her baby, Samson - to the dismay of her anxious fiance Sam Dingle. And she suddenly decided to hack off her hair before it started falling out.
Alice was only due to be in the countryside soap for a brief period in 2004, but she proved so popular that she was brought back full-time last July.
Now this emotional storyline has shown a whole new side to the bird-brained chicken farmer as she struggles to cope with being a mum, with her terrible illness - and with dimwitted Sam Dingle.
For realism, Ursula opted for the razor instead of a bald wig. "They offered me a wig but it didn't look right," she says.
"I knew that if was sat in a cancer unit and saw that I would be insulted because it was so obviously not real, so I had to go the whole way."
Getting things right was doubly important to her because her 34-year-old husband Howard has lost two relatives to cancer.
"When they told me Alice was going to get Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma - a type of leukaemia - I wanted to do my best to be true to people's experiences," she says.
"My husband's grandfather and uncle both died of it and it's awful. His grandad was elderly but his uncle was only in his 50s, it came in a very aggressive form.
"It's a horrible coincidence that his family have been affected by it and now I am in contact with it through the show."
To prepare for the role, Ursula spent time talking to volunteers from Leukaemia Research.
"A woman called Jo-Jo Holborn told me how losing her hair affected her," she says. "She bought a lovely hat and was out in it for the first time when it blew off. A group of teenage girls saw and burst out laughing and that left her in pieces."
LOOKING at Ursula - all big blue eyes in a sweet, elfin face - it is hard to believe she plays frumpy Alice who is a few sheep short of a farmyard.
Yet she has made her name as some weird and wonderful characters. She was Craig Cash's girlfriend in the BBC sitcom Mrs Merton And Malcolm and cross-eyed Carol in the hit Channel 4 drama Teachers, whose strange looks terrified staff and pupils alike.
"Most people don't believe I played Carol," she laughs, "because, thank goodness, I don't look anything like her in real life. I wore a prosthetic eye and put my jaw at a strange angle - all very strange.
"I've always looked quite different from the characters I've played, so I never get recognised. The only time I get spotted is if I'm out with other people from the show. And I like that - I like acting but I'm not an aspiring celebrity."
Ironically, Ursula, who is from Blackburn in Lancashire, only fell into acting by mistake.
"Drama therapy, drama as healing, was my big interest," she says. "It still is and I've done voluntary work with children in care and who have suffered bereavement.
"But when I graduated from uni they thought I was too young to do that - they wanted me to have some more life experience. It was a case of, 'Come back in a few years, love', so I went into acting instead."
Since her career took off she has rarely been out of work. But whenever life becomes too hectic, she has her husband Howard to lean on.
The couple, who have been together for 10 years, got married in 2005 in one of their favourite beauty-spots on the Isle of Skye.
"Howard's great," grins Ursula. "He's not an actor - he's sane. We like walking and being outdoors and Skye has always meant a lot to us, so we just went off and got married there. No fuss or anything. Perfect."
Howard also reassured her she was doing the right thing when it came to parting company with her hair.
She says: "When I got home the night I did it he had left a little card for me and written on it, 'Remember, Urs, I love you, with or without your hair - a very brave thing to do'. I thought that was wonderful."
So has playing Alice, who has just become a mum, made her broody?
"It's on the cards," she says coyly. "And we have been talking about it.
"Saying that, we are so busy at the moment. We need to spend a few nights in the same house first - that would be a start."
My husband lost two relatives to the same cancer that Alice has
This lad shouted 'bald bitch' at me. How could anyone be so horrible?
YOU can make a donation to Leukaemia Research online at www.lrf.org.uk or by calling 020 7405 0101.
