MADALYN MORGAN
Actress, Writer & Radio Presenter
Madalyn Morgan has been an actress for over thirty years, performing on television and in the West End. She is a radio journalist, and has written many articles for newspapers, including The Daily Mail, The Islington Gazette, and the Leicester Mercury. She is also a novelist and a writer of short stories.
Recent work:- Research and Editorial on a publication for Parliamentary Candidates. Current work:- Proof reading and editing St. Peter's Review while taking the challenge of NaNoWriMo writing month. She presents, The Madalyn Morgan Show for www.raidersbroadcast.com one of London's first Internet Radio Stations, writing a book of short stories and trying to get an publisher for her first novel 'Foxden Acres' as well as seeking work as an actress.
While she waits to hear whether an interested Literary Agent is going to represent her, Madalyn is writing her second novel, 'Applause.' She has plotted two other books in the same genre as Foxden Acres and Applause, and has outlined two contemporary novels.
BIOGRAPHY - Or who is she?
Madalyn was brought up in a working class pub in a small market town called Lutterworth in Leicestershire. In the mid 50s her father, Jack, turned the hay loft above the stables into a dance room, had a stage built for local rock bands to play on Saturday nights and bought a 124-play American Seaberg Jukebox. Madalyn grew up with rock 'n' roll, so it's hardly surprising that music has remained a passion. "I love all Rock music, from Guitar based rock, Prog-rock, Folk Rock, and from the bands of the 60's and 70's to the the Stadium Rock bands of the 80's & 90's - as well as the alternative sounds of today. In fact, I love all music." Her claim to fame as a rock-chick was singing with an R & B band called The DT's in her 20s "The DT's were great - I was not!" she says. Janice Joplin's "'Bobbie McGee' and 'Mercedes Benz' were my most performed songs. I sang them just before closing time at my mum and dad's pub. It was a good way to get the customers to go home!"
At 15 Madalyn was offered a part in "Crossroads" (the first time round), which her mother wouldn't let her do because it meant she would have to live in Birmingham. So at 16 she began a hairdressing apprenticeship and ran dances and discos at the weekends. When she was twenty she bought her own hairdressing salon and at twenty-two she started a wig hire business, supplying wigs to The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and The Palace Theatre, Watford. While she was dressing the hair of the fabulous Pat Pheonix (Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street) Pat asked her to if she would go to New Zealand with her and play the maid in the 1944 play 'Gaslight'. Madalyn auditioned for E15 Drama College instead. "Not going to NZ with Pat was a huge mistake."
At twenty-four she won a place to train as an actress at East 15 Drama College. At twenty-six, with the promise of an Equity card she began her professional acting career with a Theatre In Education Tour with 'Locomotive' out of Telford & Iron Bridge. She spent a season at The University Theatre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and The Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow. Madalyn worked extensively in Repertory Theatre before moving to London and working in the London Fringe and The West End. She spending six months at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket with Vanessa Redgrave and Tim Dalton in 'Antony and Cleopatra' and 'The Taming Of The Shrew'.
In 1992 Madalyn gave up her acting career for love (and a mortgage) and then ten years later love gave her up. "He left me for someone half my age, but then he was half my age, so, what could I expect... " Actually it broke her heart at the time. She said she spent a lot of time sticking pins in dolls - only joking. It didn't take long before she wished him, his girlfriend and baby, and anyone else in his life, much happiness. Anyway, Madalyn reinvented herself and started again. She taught herself to touch type, did a two-year writing course and has written her first noved is waiting for a literary agent or publisher to turn it into print.
In recent television work Madalyn was very glam - not. In 'Maurice 2274' she was an elderly farmer in World War II and in 'Billy Girl Of The Future' she was a bag-lady, turned school secretary. Don't ask! Both television series were directed by the wonderful, talented, and very funny Daniel Peacock, for Two Hats Television and Film, and Channel 5. Until Madalyn finds more work as an actress, or gets a publisher for her first novel, she'll be writing 1,700 words a day during November, NaNoWriMo month.