Huddersfield's Zoe Lucker stars in a new series of the hit ITV series Footballers' Wives tonight. In an Examiner interview last year, we predicted Zoe would become a household name - her face on every magazine and in every gossip column. And so it has come to pass.

A lot can happen in 12 months. When I first met Zoe Lucker she was a 27-year-old former Fartown High School and New College girl about to make good. She'd just completed filming a series called Footballers' Wives that ITV claimed was going to be the new Dallas or Dynasty. It would have clothes to die for and characters to love and hate - Zoe was one of them, the bittersweet Tanya Turner.

As it turned out the series was so successful, with its raunchy mix of sex, bad boys, Lacroix evening gowns and private swimming pools, that it was a major turning point in the career of an actress who had previously only played minor roles on television and in the theatre.

Zoe, whose parents Paul and Judith live in the Lindley area and have their own design consultancy business, have seen their daughter transformed into a celebrity. At the moment not a day goes by without a television appearance or her picture appearing in a national newspaper or magazine. "It is quite strange," says Paul, "going into a motorway service station to get some crisps and seeing Zoe on the cover of what appears to be quite a lot of publications." A year ago his daughter was reeling from the punishing filming schedule - 16 hours a day, five or six days a week - and a round of promotional activities. She didn't know how fame, if and when it came, would affect her.
Today she has learned to be wary of the coverage she gets in the tabloids and, while enjoying her new-found star status, television chat shows and glamour shoots, finds the media attention can be intrusive.

She is widely recognised wherever she goes, particularly in her home town, where she still has many friends and where she comes home to re-charge her batteries on a regular basis. Zoe, who is one of four children, had no burning ambitions to be an actress until, as a teenager, she took a drama studies course at school.
"She's always been a bit of an extrovert," says Paul, "she always loved singing, dancing and acting. When we realised she was serious about it we looked around the drama and acting courses. "We had a couple of trips down to London to check out the more famous drama schools, but fortunately Zoe set her heart on The Arden School of Theatre, which is part of Manchester University, and she got in. That was fantastic."

Although Zoe secured a steady stream of acting parts - she has been seen in Coronation Street, Where the Heart Is, Doctors and with the Hull Truck Company - there were some lean times when she had to literally wait it out as a waitress, until Footballers' Wives came along. Her part as the leading wife, shackled to the dirty Den of Earls Park FC, pulls no punches and is, says her father, a great role. "It's a fantastic acting opportunity because it's all so emotional. She can be angry, sad, loving and treacherous, all in the same scene." It's also a part that has more than its fair share of sexy scenes and nudity. Not perhaps an easy role for her family to live with? Says Paul, "It is a bit strange seeing your daughter half-dressed on TV . But overall I think it's a great role and I think she plays it very well. She's certainly made the part her own. Both Tanya and Zoe are survivors and they both love life. But where Tanya is exploitative Zoe is a caring person. She always has been."

The new series of Footballers' Wives, which starts tonight, gives Zoe even more of a starring role as her character is central to most storylines. Filming finished a few weeks before Christmas and since then she's been contracted to promotional work.

An actress's life can be exhausting, says her father. "Zoe's routine was to be picked up by a staff car at 5.30am to be taken to the studio or on location and they'd usually finish filming at 9pm or 10pm and then they'd have to get home. "She'd go to bed about midnight still buzzing from filming. That would be for five or six days a week and then she'd have to learn her scripts on her day off," explained Paul.
Although a third series of Footballers' Wives is being mooted, Paul says he and his wife have always thought that Zoe would do well in a comedy role. "She's always been able to make the rest of the family laugh. And she's got a great voice. She does the best Tammy Wynette impression I've ever heard. Perhaps they should write a song into the script for Tanya Turner - Stand By Your Man is her motto!"

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