Frances Tomelty - Tribute

Frances Tomelty is the youngest daughter of the late actor playwright Joseph Tomelty.
She was born in Belfast (6 Oct 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) and raised both in the city and on the Antrim coast.
She was educated at St. Vincent's Primary School and at Rathmore House Convent.
She was an enthusiastic member of Patricia Mulholland's Irish Ballet Company and is still known to dance the odd reel round her kitchen.
She left school in the middle of her last term to join the Belfast Arts Theatre as an acting Assistant Stage Manager.
She then left for London and after the usual vicissitudes appeared at The Royal Court Theatre in Wilson John Haires "Within Two Shadows" which won an Evening Standard Award and was the first play to deal with the current "Troubles". It was a good showcase and kick-started her career.
She has been a leading member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and has enjoyed extensive appearances on television, stage and film.
She has featured in series including Bergerac, Inspector Morse, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Strangers, Midsomer Murders and Coronation Street, Cracker, as well as films like Bellman and True, Monk Dawson, Bullshot and The Field. She was Lady Macbeth in the Old Vic's disastrous 1980 production of Macbeth, with Peter O'Toole in the title role.
She greatly enjoys her radio work and is an award winning audio book reader.
CORONATION DAY a short produced by Flying Fox Films and directed by Tony Knox for BBC Northern Ireland's NORTHERN LIGHTS strand was Frances' writing debut.
Frances also developed a full length script TWELFTH WEEK (or THE CARNLOUGH DUTCHMAN).
Original radio work for the BBC includes several short stories for Radio 4: CHANGING ROOMS (part of a season of new Irish writing, spring 2005); PIZZA MARGHERITA (Hallowe'en, 2006); SPARKS (Valentine's Day, 2008) and a comedy pilot script JOYCE MISKIMMON (BBC Radio Ulster, 2006). Frances is also writing a novel ANOTHER SHADE OF GREY.
Frances wrote a hugely popular weekly lifestyle column in the Saturday edition of the Belfast Telegraph from February to September 2005 and continues as an occasional guest columnist for the paper.
In 1976 she married Sting after knowing him for two years. They met on the set of a rock-musical called Rock Nativity. She was the Virgin Mary, he played in the band. They have two children, Joseph (born 23 November 1976) - (Joe Sumner is the lead singer and bass player in the UK band Fiction Plane) and Fuchsia Katherine (born 17 April 1982). The couple divorced in 1984.
Frances lives between London and New York.