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Kara Louise Tointon (born 5 August 1983) is a British actress, best known for playing Dawn Swann in BBC soap opera EastEnders. Tointon was the 2010 winner of BBC television series Strictly Come Dancing.

Early life

Tointon was born to Ken and Carol in Essex. Together with her actress sister, Hannah (born 1987), Tointon was raised in Leigh-on-Sea. Both sisters attended St Michael's School, Leigh, and St. Hilda's School, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Tointon was diagnosed with dyslexia at age seven. She had speech and drama lessons at school.

Career

Tointon's first professional acting experience came when she played the part of Brigitta in The Sound of Music at the Cliffs Pavilion. Her first appearance on television was as an extra in EastEnders in 1994, when she played a school friend of Sonia Fowler. She played the part of student Pauline Young in 2001's first series of Teachers on Channel 4.

Almost a month after her last Dream Team episode aired, it was revealed to the press that she would be joining the BBC soap EastEnders as a new character, Dawn Swann. Tointon auditioned for EastEnders at the same time as Tiana Benjamin, Matt Di Angelo, Kellie Shirley and Charlie Clements all auditioned for their respective roles. Tointon left EastEnders, along with co-star Ricky Groves, on 27 August 2009. She has said that she would return to EastEnders.

In August 2009, she was unveiled as the new face of Michelle for George underwear at Asda.

She co-starred with then partner Joe Swash in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Bristol in the 2009/2010 pantomime season.

In July 2010, she recorded a documentary for BBC Three called Kara Tointon: Don't Call Me Stupid. The programme examined the impact dyslexia can have on people's lives and the difference different learning styles can have on people with dyslexia. Tointon revealed that she suffers from dyslexia, and has a reading age of 12. During the programme, Tointon visited Shapwick School in Somerset, which specialises in the education of pupils with dyslexia, and talked with the pupils about their experiences. Tointon was taught various line learning and organisational techniques by Dyslexia Tutor Claire Salter.

In February 2011, Tointon took part in the BT Red Nose Desert Trek for Comic Relief 2011.

In May 2011, Tointon will play Eliza Doolittle in the West End production of Pygmalion at the Garrick Theatre.

Strictly Come Dancing

In 2008, Tointon won the Sport Relief special edition of Strictly Come Dancing with Mark Ramprakash. Her Samba was enough to get her the Glitterball Trophy.

In September 2010, it was announced that Tointon would be appearing as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing season 8, this time partnered with Artem Chigvintsev. The pair achieved good scores in the first five weeks of 30, 32, 31, 32, and 37. In week 5, Tointon was awarded the first 10 of the series by Alesha Dixon for her Pasodoble. In week 6 she was top of the leaderboard with her Salsa. She also had good scores for the next five weeks of 36, 38, 35, 34, and 38. In week 11, she got her highest score of 39 for the Viennese Waltz and Rumba and got the maximum 5/5 for the Swing-a-thon. Tointon made it to the final along with Matt Baker and Pamela Stephenson, where she made it to the final two, then went on to win and be crowned champion beating Matt Baker and his partner Aliona Vilani.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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