Alison Newman (born 25 January 1968) is a British actress, best known for her role in the hit ITV1 television series Footballers' Wives as Hazel Bailey, and as DI Samantha Keeble in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

Biography

Alison Newman was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset) to David and Jenny Newman. She has one sister called Sarah. Both her parents were school teachers who encouraged her to take up acting as a hobby, but discouraged her from attending stage school when she was younger, a decision she subsequently agreed was probably sensible. Instead she joined the National Youth Theatre when she was 16. Her father died in October 2002, while she was filming the second series of Footballers' Wives. The producers allowed her to take time off from filming some of her last scenes in the series finale so she could be with her family.

Despite studying drama at the University of Manchester Alison Newman did not work as an actress for almost ten years after graduating. She says that she hated the experience of being at drama school and lost her confidence. During this time, she worked in a variety of professions, including publishing, catering, barwork and spent a number of years working in the music industry.

She returned to acting when she was almost 30 after being offered a part in a play written by Anthony Neilson, with whom she had previously worked as an assistant director. This was followed by a role playing a psychotic serial killer in Touching Evil III (1999) with Robson Green (who she would later appear with in RocketMan), and the film Butterfly Collectors (1999), alongside Pete Postlethwaite.