British actress Nicola Wheeler is best known to fans for her role as Nicola King in ITV’s weekly soap Emmerdale.
The star first made her mark in the Dales in 2001 and since then Nicola, 47, has been involved in several hard hitting storylines as well as comical fuelled performances.
Nicola’s first appearance on the soap was only supposed to be for one storyline, but she has now become one of the longest-standing members of the cast.
During her time, the Emmerdale resident has suffered a heart breaking miscarriage and tried to kill her millionaire husband to hopefully gain all of his riches.
(Image: ITV)
Now with Jimmy King in the show, Nicola’s character is undergoing a strained marriage with plenty of relationship woes.
Not only this, but Nicola’s sister Bernice Blackstock is always round the corner to cause plenty of havoc from time to time.
But although she is a much-loved character in the programme, Emmerdale is not the first soap that Nicola has appeared in.
The actress first hit our screens in July 1999 as Coronation Street’s Melanie Tindel, who was Maxine Peacock’s school friend and bridesmaid.
(Image: ITV)
Nicola’s character Melanie was asked by Maxine to do her hair for her upcoming wedding in the popular soap.
But although the happy event was exciting for all those involved, the wedding was soon cancelled – leaving Maxine to quickly step in when the church booking became vacant.
Even though the wedding was cancelled, Melanie was a very busy bridesmaid as she managed to hook up with hairdresser trainee Tom Ferguson in the bridal suite.
(Image: ITV)
The pair continued their steamy affair for a month until Tom broke it off.
Though actress Nicola has been a part of Emmerdale for 20 years, she has managed to take a break to start a family of her own off screen.
In 2015, Emmerdale announced that Nicola had given birth to a baby boy.
The official Emmerdale Twitter account confirmed the happy news and said: “BIG congratulations to @nicola_Wheeler and her baby boy, who arrived on Friday 13!”
(Image: ITV)
But at the time, her character flew away to sunny Dubai to start a new job abroad.
Talking to The Mirror about her departure from the soap, Nicola said: “Aww this storyline was built into the soap because I was going on maternity leave to have my son.
“I was very excited about being a mum for the first time and it was a great way to write Nicola out so that they could leave it open as to when I came back.
(Image: ITV)
“I returned six months later and I can remember feeling appreciative about being around adults again. I was still breastfeeding though and I can remember putting out a sign saying ‘milking’ on my door so they knew when I was.”
Away from the Dales, Nicola lives with her husband Matt and their son near the Emmerdale studios in Yorkshire.
Recently Nicola has expressed how proud she is to be a part of Emmerdale for such as long period of time.
She also said she is happy to be playing the role of a “catty cow”.
The star also said that she hasn’t been killed off after all these years.
Although Nicola sometimes thinks of staying in Emmerdale until the 50 year mark, she is happy that she has reached a miraculously twenty years on the popular drama.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
