How Did Tracey Ullman Start Her Career?

Tracey Ullman was born in Slough in December 1969. When her father died six years later, she started putting on shows in her bedroom to try and cheer everyone up – the show was called "The Patty Ullman Show", Patty Ullman being her sister who she performed with.

At the age of 12, she was recommended for the Italia Conti Academy stage school, something that provided her with her first experience of being on stage. She did though have problems fulfilling the criteria for many of the productions – she wasn't blonde and blue-eyed.

Four years later, she started to find dancing jobs which eventually led her to gain roles in musicals such as Grease and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

In the early eighties, she started singing with Stiff Records with a string of hits including "Breakaway" and "My Girl."

She then moved on to TV with shows such as A Kick up the Eighties and Three of a Kind for the BBC (with Lenny Henry).

It was then that the USA came calling as she teamed up with American producer James L Brooks to create The Trecey Ullman Show, which earned her 4 Emmeys and was responsible for creating cartoon series The Simpsons.

Since then her career has been bigger in America than it has been in the UK - which fits in with what had been predicted for her years earlier when a woman knocked on her front door claiming to be a psychic, and predicted that Tracey would become famous and have huge success, especially in America.

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