25 Facts About Kay Mellor

Kay Mellor was an English actress, scriptwriter, producer and director.

Kay Mellor was known for creating television shows such as ITV drama Fat Friends, as well as co-creating CITV's children's drama Children's Ward.

Kay Mellor raised her children as a single parent in Ireland Wood and kept the affair a secret for more than 30 years.

In 1967, Kay Mellor become pregnant aged 16 and married the child's father, Anthony Kay Mellor, who was 17.

When Kay Mellor told her mother about being pregnant, she made her daughter promise to go back to her education later, should she get the chance.

Kay Mellor did so when her children were at school age, passing her O-levels and A-levels.

Kay Mellor went on to Bretton Hall College and graduated with a BA Hons degree in 1983.

In 1989, Kay Mellor wrote many episodes for the Channel 4 soap Brookside.

Kay Mellor wrote for the anthology drama series Dramarama before co-creating the long-running children's drama Children's Ward with her Coronation Street colleague Paul Abbott in 1988.

Kay Mellor created the soap opera Families which aired from 1990 until 1993, and wrote and starred in three series of the family show Just Us.

Kay Mellor wrote the television drama serials Band of Gold, Playing the Field, Fat Friends, Between the Sheets, and Strictly Confidential.

Kay Mellor had seen Corden in a Tango advert and asked her casting director Beverley Keogh to find him for her because she thought he was perfect for the part.

On stage, Kay Mellor acted in Three Girls in Blue and she wrote and starred in the one-woman show Queen at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Kay Mellor wrote and directed the two-part drama A Passionate Woman which was based on her 1992 stage play and was broadcast on BBC One in April 2010.

Kay Mellor was awarded the BAFTA Dennis Potter Award in 1997 for Outstanding Writing for Television.

Kay Mellor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 Birthday Honours and, in 2015, she was awarded the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing.

In 2016, Kay Mellor was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and, in February 2020, Kay Mellor was awarded Broadcast's Special Recognition Award.

Kay Mellor was the subject of This Is Your Life in 2000 when she was surprised by Michael Aspel.

Kay Mellor appeared on the BBC's Desert Island Discs in 2017.

Outside of television, Kay Mellor wrote screenplays for feature films such as Girls' Night starring Julie Walters, Brenda Blethyn and Kris Kristofferson, which played at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998.

Kay Mellor both wrote and directed the feature film Fanny and Elvis starring Ray Winstone, which won the Audience Prize at the Dinard British Film Festival, and one off drama Some Kind of Life, which was BAFTA nominated for Best Single Drama in 1997.

In 2017, Kay Mellor turned Fat Friends into a stage musical with Nick Lloyd Webber writing the music.

Kay Mellor subsequently adapted Band of Gold for the stage, which premiered in Kay Mellor's hometown of Leeds in 2019, and toured the UK until it was shut down early due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kay Mellor liked going to Roundhay Park, Golden Acre Park, and the Cottage Road Cinema in Leeds.

Kay Mellor was a frequent visitor and supporter of the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.