Lesley Dunlop age: How old is Emmerdales Brenda Walker star?

Emmerdale: Eric Pollard and Brenda Walker kiss

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Lesley is best known for playing village gossip Brenda Walker on Emmerdale, a role she plays alongside her real-life husband and Eric Pollard star, Chris Chittell. The actress has been a part of the cast for almost 15 years, having first been introduced as the adoptive mother of Gennie Walker (Sian Reese-Williams). Over the years, the character has had a number of different looks to coincide with the storylines she was a part of but she has still been young at heart. Express.co.uk has everything you need to know about the ITV soap star’s age.

How old is Emmerdale star Lesley Dunlop?

According to the world of the weeknight serial drama, Lesley’s character Brenda is 64 years old and she has faced a multitude of challenges over the years.

This has included discovering her daughter Gennie was killed and the fact she was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2013.

Due to this storyline, the actress shaved her hair off and has looked drastically older because of the effect of treatment would have had on her alter-ego.

However, the soap star is actually two years older than her character as she is 66 years old as she celebrates her birthday on March 10, 1956.

She has already marked the occasion this year and it is likely she will have celebrated with her husband Chris back in the spring.

The actress started her career back in 1970, more than 40 years before she would first feature as Brenda on Emmerdale.

This would have been when the soap star was 14 years old, meaning her career has spanned over half a century as she has been acting for 52 years.

Joining the cast of Emmerdale back in 2008 means Lesley would have just turned 50 at the time, resulting in a celebration of the landmark birthday.

She met her husband Chris on the show and with the Eric star being 74 years old, the Brenda actress is 10 years his junior.

However, no matter what age she is, it seems acting has always been in her blood from a very young age.

Was very definite at the time

Lesley Dunlop

Discussing how she got into her career, the soap star said: “At primary school, they used to have an end-of-term concert every year with little plays.

“It was so exciting, the build-up to it and everything. In the first one, I was a fairy. Then, when I was about eight, I got my first review in the local paper.

“I thought it was wonderful. I knew even then I wanted to act in TV and films – as much as you can know. I was very definite at the time because of Hayley Mills.

“I thought she was wonderful. In retrospect, I think maybe I’d like to have had a few more choices.”

It wasn’t too long before she got more acting opportunities once she had her break as a teenager as Lesley wanted to get her career started straight away.

Lesley added: “All I wanted was to get into the business and start working properly.

“My parents’ finances were never steady and I used to feel awfully guilty that I was at private school, knowing what a struggle it was to keep me there.”

Amongst getting her career off the ground and securing jobs right, left and centre, the actress also gave birth to two children.

The actress is the mother of two daughters; Daisy Dunlop and Rosy Guard.

“I was 21 when I was pregnant with Daisy. When she turned 21, I thought, my God, what my mother must have thought. I’d be horrified if Daisy had a baby now.”

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The actress continued: “I had worked so much, I thought I was older than I was,” but stated although her girls were getting older, she still wanted them to be children.

“It’s not fair now they’re older,” she said but it wasn’t until her daughters were a bit older that she found out how rebellious they were as children.

Lesley explained: “Daisy says things like, ‘I went to a club when I was 15′ and I say, `You did not,’ and she says, `You know that night I was staying at Lucy’s’.”

Even when the soap star separated from her partner when the girls were getting older, she was proud of how well they responded to this.

“I’m pretty damn lucky with them. Neither has ever been nasty or bad. We have always talked – whether I want to hear things or not.”

“Sometimes you think, I don’t want to know that, go and talk to your friend’s mother,” she explained in an interview with The Mirror in 2000.

Despite being in her mid-40s at the time, the actress did like the idea of having more children to look after.

Lesley said: “I still get broody. I’m completely loopy over children – I just love them. I’m still not too old to start again, but I’m not going to now.

“It’s not the having a baby that I can’t face, it’s the thought of being the mother of another teenager in 15 years’ time.

“I do miss having little ones around, but I enjoy my brothers’ children instead – and I can do the old thing of handing them back.”

Emmerdale airs weekdays at 7:30pm on ITV, with an hour-long episode airing on Thursdays.

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