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.
Pauline Fowler
Pauline is a member of the Beale family. Her storylines focus on drudgery, money worries and family troubles. The matriarchal stalwart of the fictional London community of Albert Square, she is portrayed as a loving, doting mother who is very family-oriented. In later years however, she becomes a more stoic, opinionated battle-axe who alienates her relatives through overbearing interference. Pauline is married to the downtrodden Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher), though she finds out he has had a one-night stand with Christine Hewitt (Elizabeth Power) which leads to her hitting him with a frying pan. Their marriage remains rocky until his death in 1996. She is used for comedic purposes in scenes with her launderette colleague, Dot Cotton (June Brown), and scriptwriters included many feuds in her narrative, most notably with her daughter-in-law, Sonia Fowler (Natalie Cassidy), and Den Watts (Leslie Grantham), a family friend who got her daughter, Michelle Fowler (Susan Tully), pregnant at 16. A famous episode in 1986, which includes Pauline discovering that Den is the father of Michelle's baby, drew over 30 million viewers, and was listed at number 36 in "The Times"' 1998 list of "Top 100 cult moments in Film". Richard announced Pauline's retirement from the serial in July 2006, and the character was killed off in a "whodunnit?" murder storyline, with Richard making her final appearance on 25 December 2006.