List of EastEnders characters (1985)
Michelle Fowler (also Holloway), played by Susan Tully from 1985 to 1995 and Jenna Russell since 2016, is the daughter of Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) and Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard). Although she is one of the brighter people in Walford, that does not stop Michelle making some huge mistakes during her time in Albert Square. Michelle has a habit of choosing the wrong men and her stubborn nature means that she rarely accepts anyone's help or listens to good advice. She is tough, feisty, determined, outspoken and never afraid to defend herself or her beliefs. Early on in the series, the character of Michelle becomes central to the programme and is the focus of a controversial storyline involving her teenage pregnancy. Press interest in the show escalated to "record levels" as journalists continuously tried to predict who had fathered Michelle's baby. In whodunnit fashion, the audience had been kept in the dark as to the real identity of the father and were given teasers implicating several residents on The Square. The audience finally discovered the culprit in episode 66 of the programme, October 1985. The episode was written by series co-creator/script editor Tony Holland and directed by co-creator/producer Julia Smith, and was considered to be a landmark episode in the show's history. Four possible suspects are seen leaving the Square in the early half of the episode: Tony Carpenter (Oscar James), Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih), Andy O'Brien (Ross Davidson) and Den Watts (Leslie Grantham). As Michelle waits by their rendezvous point a car pulls up and finally the fluffy white legs of Roly the poodle bound out of the car, and give it all away: Den Watts is the man meeting Michelle and it was he who had fathered her baby. The rest of the episode consists of just one long scene, where Den and Michelle discuss whether or not to keep the baby. Up to that time it was the longest scene ever done in a soap-opera, lasting fifteen minutes.
List of EastEnders characters (1992)
Christine Hewitt, played by Elizabeth Power, is introduced in 1992 as a lonely divorcée who becomes besotted with married Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) while he tends her garden. She leaves in 1993 once her affair with Arthur is discovered by his wife Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard). Liz Power was offered the role by one of the programme's producers, Leonard Lewis, for whom she'd worked with previously on "Juliet Bravo" and "Softly, Softly". She has commented "I got a call out of the blue asking if I could go up to the BBC at Elstree to meet him. Mrs Hewitt was going to be in five episodes and I thought, 'wonderful'." Mrs Hewitt makes her first appearance on-screen in February 1992, as a lonely divorcee who employs the long-running character, Arthur Fowler, to tend to her garden—used as a plot device to rebuild Arthur's relationship with his son Mark Fowler (Todd Carty), while they work together on Christine's garden. Power filmed her scenes for the five episodes and thought that would be the end of it; however, she was subsequently contacted by Leonard Lewis and asked to reprise the role. Power commented "It was all I could do to stop myself screeching down the phone. They didn't tell me which direction the story was going to take. I got on so well with [Bill Treacher] from the word go. We really liked each other." Mrs Hewitt is reintroduced in a storyline that sees her become Arthur Fowler's mistress, but when the affair ended Power left the series, making her final appearance on-screen in October 1993.