Lesley Sharp is an English stage, film and television actress, particularly well known for her variety of British television roles including Clocking Off, Bob & Rose and afterlife. Adopted as the second daughter of mature Scottish parents, Sharp grew up in Formby, Merseyside. Childhood holidays were spent in Edinburgh, where "every fucking summer it rained". Sharp started acting because, as a child, she felt "invisible" and didn't "quite fit in." She has said that her inspiration to act came from watching Dick Emery on television. Her father worked for the Inland Revenue and was not keen... on her taking up acting, preferring her to follow in his footsteps by becoming a civil servant. Her adoptive mother died of cancer when Sharp was 15. The adoption was never a secret in the family, but it was only after leaving home that she met her genetic mother — a working class woman unable to keep her because the father was a married man. Sharp moved to London at 18 and, after initially failing to get into drama school, worked at the Department of Education and Science at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
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