Annie Sugden

Template:Emmerdale character 2 Annie Brearly (née Pearson; previously Kempinski and Sugden) was a fictional character in the popular soap opera Emmerdale. She was played by Sheila Mercier as a regular character between 1972 and 1994, making guest appearances in 1995 and 1996. Annie was one of Emmerdale Farm's original characters, appearing in its first episode on 16 October 1972. She was the soap's "first matriarch", the maternal force behind the Sugden family, who were collectively one of Emmerdale Farm's main focal points.

Sheila Mercier as Annie Sugden and Frazer Hines as Joe Sugden were the only two original cast members to take the show into its 20th year. Though the character left the serial in 1994, she has made occasional appearances since this time and last appeared on-screen in 1996. Sheila Mercier reprised the role in 2000 for a special web broadcast in which Annie talked to her troubled screen son Jack Sugden, played by Clive Hornby. The broadcast was available for viewers to download on the official Emmerdale website.

Character creation and development

Annie Sugden was created by Kevin Laffan, the mastermind behind Emmerdale Farm who also wrote the serial's first 262 episodes. Laffan was said to be "keen on dominant women" and he created a "memorable heroine" in Annie Sugden, "the wife of the ne'er-do-well…who drank himself to an early grave" (the first episode opened with his funeral). The show originally focused upon the struggles of Annie and her family, with the first episode of Emmerdale Farm (1972) being billed as "the living story of the Sugden family - the excitement of country life around."

Actress Sheila Mercier—whose career had been mainly theatrical—was chosen to play the role and went on to be the serial's longest running original actor. Mercier has commented "I had done a lot of television from the stage of the Whitehall, but very little else before joining Emmerdale Farm…I remember, at first, playing to the Gods! Tristan de Vere Cole, one of the first directors on the programme, told me to take [my performance] down until it was so low I was almost muttering. Then, Gordon Flemyng - another of the directors - played back to me a scene I did so that I could see what I had done wrong."

The character has been described as a firm favourite with viewers, from the opening scene of Emmerdale Farm with Annie standing in the farmhouse kitchen, to the day she left. As peacekeeper between her warring sons Joe and Jack, Annie was quickly placed at the centre of the soap's action. The character was involved in numerous storylines, including marriages, bereavements, tragedies and family problems. Commenting on her "most gripping" storylines, Mercier has said, "[Annie's daughter] Peggy Skilbeck's death, [Peggy's] twins' deaths and [Annie's father Sam Pearson's] death, which all called for lots of tears."

From the late 1980s, Sheila Mercier cut back on her appearances, working only in the studio. Annie Sugden reportedly poured more than 6,000 cups of tea in the farmhouse studio, where she was most often seen. After she retired in 1994, she has appeared in only a handful of Emmerdale episodes, making guest appearances in 1995 and 1996. However, in 2000 she came out of retirement briefly to take part in an special internet mini-drama, which ran side-by-side with the Emmerdale television broadcast. Mercier talked live on the Net with her troubled screen son, Jack, played by Clive Hornby. The broadcast was available for viewers to download on the official Emmerdale website. Mercier was also invited to return to the Emmerdale set to celebrate with the crew at the official 30th anniversary party. In an interview in 2002, Mercier said she had no desire to return to acting, "I don't want to act. I watch TV, read and live like an ordinary person." However, for the show's 5000th episode special, transmitted across the ITV network in May 2008, Mecier (aged 89) made another appearance as Annie along with other past characters, Matt and Dolly Skilbeck and son Joe Sugden, played by Frazer Hines.

Storylines

The audience was introduced to farmer's wife Annie Sugden in the soap's first episode. It was a time of sadness for the Sugden family, as Annie was burying her recently deceased husband, Jacob—who had died after spending much of his later years in the soap's pub, The Woolpack, drinking away the family's farming profits. Early central storylines in the serial followed Annie as she struggled to come to terms with the death of her husband, support her family, and run Emmerdale Farm—set on the Yorkshire dales in the fictional village of Beckindale.

Matriarchal Annie aimed to rebuild the Sugden's ailing farm by reuniting her two feuding sons, Jack and Joe. She also helped to do this by accepting investment from a village outsider, Henry Wilks, who had made his fortune in the wool industry and brought his business acumen to the Yorkshire Dales. Early in the series, landlord Amos Brearly decided a woman’s touch was needed in his pub and proposed to recently widowed Annie. She turned him down. In early 1993 when it was found that Emmerdale Farm was collapsing due to subsidence Annie didn't want to know anything about it although the family moved into Hawthorn Cottage she would remain unhappy until it was renamed Emmerdale Farm. In December the same year, Annie and her new husband, Leonard Kempinski who she had married in October, planned to move to Spain, sadly on the night that they were supposed to fly out, Annie's son, Joe was driving them to the airport, when a crashing plane's wing collided with the car, Joe survived with a broken leg, however Annie was left in a coma for several months until she came out of it, unfortunately, Leonard died and Annie was left to mourn another husband. Shortly after the birth of her granddaughter Victoria, she woke from a coma which she had been in since the plane crash. Later Amos proposed to Annie 23 years later, she finally accepted and they married in 1995, and moved to Spain for their retirment, Annie and Amos came back in 1996 to mourn the death of Annie's youngest son, Joe who had died in a car accident in Spain whilst visiting Annie and Amos with Sarah and the kids, Annie left Emmerdale after 24 years. In 2006, Annie had her granddaughter, Victoria Sugden stay with her and Amos in Spain, however she had to stay in Spain for longer as she had lost her passport. Jack later discovered that she had a holiday romance with a boy called Enrique, when he phoned Annie she said that she didn't know what he was talking about, Victoria later admitted that she had lied. In late February 2008, it was revealed that Jack had left for Spain as Annie had fallen ill. Clive Hornby (Jack Sugden) sadly died on Thursday 3rd July 2008 and it is unknown if there will be an on-screen funeral and, if so, if Annie, Matt and Polly Skilbeck will attend.