| Joe Macer | |||||||||||||||
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| EastEnders character | |||||||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | Ray Brooks | ||||||||||||||
| Duration | 2005–2007 | ||||||||||||||
| First appearance | Episode 2996 19 August 2005 | ||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | Episode 3303 26 January 2007 | ||||||||||||||
| Classification | Former; regular | ||||||||||||||
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Joe Macer is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders , played by Ray Brooks. He made his first appearance on 19 August 2005. He was the second husband of Pauline Fowler and her accidental killer. Brooks was axed in July 2006 and Joe was killed off on 26 January 2007.
Joe Macer was widowed in 1982 and has two daughters, Megan (Niky Wardley) and Shelly, from his first marriage. He soon met Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard), a dancing companion at their salsa dance club, and they become good friends. Joe falls in love with Pauline and proposes to her once in The Queen Victoria public house. She turns Joe down, but he does not give up, and asks her again in February 2006, after falsely telling her that he will leave for Dubai; this time, she accepts. On their wedding day (17 February 2006), Pauline has doubts about remarrying, but goes through with it anyway. However, she chooses to keep her surname as Fowler, as she doesn't want 'a new identity'. Soon after this, Joe admits his former criminal career to Pauline, revealing that his lifelong friend Bert Atkinson (Dave Hill) served time in prison for Joe's crimes, and that he still owes Bert. Joe refuses to choose between Pauline and Bert, and Pauline throws him out of the house. After he and Bert convert Pauline's loft, Pauline forgives him and lets him come home, but their relationship remains uneasy, as she becomes obsessed with her irrational vendetta against her daughter-in-law, Sonia (Natalie Cassidy).
In December 2006, Pauline falsely claims that she is dying of a brain tumour. When Joe goes to the hospital and discovers this is untrue, he leaves Pauline. In one final encounter, Pauline tells Joe she never loved him, insults his lovemaking and tells him she wants nothing more to do with him. Joe responds in kind by calling her "a block of ice in bed," and then smashes her family photographs, insulting in turn her late husband Arthur ("a criminal"), her dead son Mark ("diseased") and her daughter Michelle ("little scrubber"). The heated argument ends with Pauline smashing a plate on Joe's head. Joe leaves to spend Christmas with his daughter, and when he returns on Boxing Day, he is at first shocked to find out that Pauline is dead, but later gets drunk and tells everyone he is pleased she is dead. When the police arrive at Pauline's funeral with news of a murder inquiry, Pauline's son Martin (James Alexandrou) initially believes that Joe must be the suspect, and tries to strangle him, until Sonia owns up and announces it was her the police are investigating. Joe later packs his belongings and goes to live with Megan. He promises Martin he will return for Pauline's second funeral, but he later claims that his car broke down on the motorway, so was unable to attend.
On 25 January 2007, Joe unexpectedly returns to the Fowlers' house, much to the horror of Pauline's friend Dot Branning (June Brown), who is inside the house at the time. Joe reveals to Dot that he had gone back to the house on Christmas Day to try to patch things up with Pauline, but that she harshly told him that he [Joe] was leaving, not her, and continued to insult him and his ways. He told Pauline he felt like lashing out at times, and she dared him to "be a man" and hit her. Joe then describes how, in anger, he picked up a frying pan and hit Pauline hard on the head with it. He left the house after the incident, at which point Pauline was fine, and that was the last time he saw his wife, who later died due to a brain haemorrhage caused by the blow to the head Joe had given her. This causes Dot to realise that Joe is the one who killed Pauline, accident or no accident. She then attempts to phone the police when Joe refuses to own up to Pauline's death, but he snatches the phone out of her hand and throws it away. Joe proceeds to try to stop Dot from leaving, which prompts her to tell him that he will "go to hell" and that she cannot forgive him for what he did, as "only God can do that". At that point, Dot's husband Jim (John Bardon) arrives at the Fowlers' house to find Dot being prevented from leaving by Joe. She quickly exposes Joe as Pauline's killer, just as Joe ends up taking Dot hostage, and Jim rushes over to save her. A struggle ensues, and Jim manages to rescue Dot from Joe. In that moment, Joe falls back and ends up crashing out of a window, ultimately falling to his death when he fatally collapses onto Martin's market stall. Jim looks out of the window as Joe lies dead on the street. The following morning, Joe is exposed as Pauline's killer in public, and his body is subsequently taken away.
The character Joe Macer, played by Ray Brooks, was introduced in August 2005 as a love interest for the long running character Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard). The characters were shown to meet at salsa classes, a relationship was quickly developed and despite Pauline's initial trepidation, 2006 saw her marrying Joe after almost a decade since the death of her first husband, Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher). Her wedding day was screened to coincide with EastEnders' 21st anniversary. [1] Richard was openly opposed to her character remarrying, but she was eventually convinced by the executive producer and battled—successfully—for Pauline to keep her surname, Fowler. [1]
In July 2006, however, Richard announced that she would be leaving the show. Richard felt that she did not have the same chemistry with Brooks as she did with Treacher. She rejected producers' views that Pauline and Joe "looked good together", and felt that she and Brooks had to work very hard to turn them into a "realistic-looking couple." [2]
Just two months after the wedding was screened, Pauline and Joe's marriage was shown to sour after Joe's criminal past was uncovered. Their relationship steadily deteriorated throughout the year, and in episodes that aired in December 2006 Pauline ended the marriage, removing her wedding ring and informing Joe that he "was half the man that Arthur had been, that she had never really loved him and that their sex life was a sham." The resulting row saw Joe insult Pauline's family, suggesting that her "perfect marriage" with Arthur was "nothing but a fantasy" and calling Mark "diseased", Michelle a "slapper" and Arthur a "con", to which Pauline responded by smashing a plate over his head. [3] Richard has commented "It was not just the memory of Arthur that stopped the marriage to Joe being a success. He was proven to be a weak and untruthful man. That is what caused the marriage to be a non-starter. Pauline was not mean to Joe, he used her…and lied to her." [4]
The destruction of Pauline and Joe's marriage was part of the build-up to the exits of both characters. Pauline was killed off in a "shocking" and dramatic storyline, which saw her collapsing and dying in the middle of Albert Square, leaving both characters and viewers in uncertainty about the cause of her demise. [5] The storyline continued through 2007, as Pauline's funeral was interrupted by the police in order to perform an autopsy on her body, and then Pauline's former daughter-in-law Sonia Fowler (Natalie Cassidy) was arrested for the murder. [6]
However, Sonia's arrest proved to be a red herring, and it was later revealed that the killer blow had actually come from Pauline's husband Joe, who broke down and confessed to Dot Branning (June Brown) that he had rowed with Pauline on Christmas Day (off-screen) and, in a fury, struck her across the head with a frying pan, causing a brain haemorrhage that claimed her life. [7] The plot's eventual climax in February 2007 led to the exits of several established characters connected with Pauline. This included Martin, Sonia and Joe, who was dramatically killed off after confessing to Pauline's murder. Joe fell out of the Fowlers' first floor window while trying to apprehend a hysterical Dot. [8]
A promotional picture of Pauline and Joe was used on the official Torchwood website, in a fictional magazine article about aliens. [9]
Wendy Richard was a British actress, known for her television roles as Miss Shirley Brahms on the BBC sitcom Are You Being Served? from 1972 to 1985, and Pauline Fowler on the soap opera EastEnders from 1985 to 2006.
Arthur Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Bill Treacher from 1985 to 1996.
Mark Fowler is a fictional character in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Mark, an original regular character when the series started in February 1985, became a semi-regular after his original portrayer David Scarboro was written out of the role in April 1985. Scarboro made brief returns to the role in 1986 and 1987. Scarboro died by suicide in April 1988 and subsequently Mark was recast two years later on his return, with former Grange Hill regular Todd Carty taking on the role. From this point the character was a permanent fixture in the series and Carty remained in the role until the character was written out of the series in early 2003.
Pauline Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC One soap opera EastEnders. She was played by actress Wendy Richard between the first episode on 19 February 1985 and 25 December 2006. Pauline was created by scriptwriter Tony Holland and producer Julia Smith as one of EastEnders' original characters. She made her debut in the soap's first episode on 19 February 1985, and remained for twenty-one years and ten months, making her the second-longest-running original character to appear continuously, surpassed only by her nephew, Ian Beale. Since then, she has been surpassed by Letitia Dean who plays Sharon Watts.
Sonia Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Natalie Cassidy. Her first appearance was on 2 December 1993 and she departed on 2 February 2007. She returned briefly in 2010 along with other members of the Jackson family, and re-appeared in the soap from 8 to 18 February 2010 and again in January 2011. Sonia returned as a permanent character on 14 January 2014, as part of a storyline that saw her mother Carol Jackson develop breast cancer. Cassidy took maternity leave in 2016 and Sonia left on 20 September 2016 for her dream job in Kettering. Cassidy made two guest stints during her maternity leave, on 25 December 2016 via webcam and for a three episode arc from 14 to 18 April 2017. She returned full-time on 27 June 2017. On 29 December 2020 it was announced that Cassidy would take an extended break from the show, with Sonia set to leave the Square to return in spring 2021. She departed on 8 January and returned on 16 April.
The Beales and the Fowlers are a fictional family in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. They were the main family for storylines in early episodes of EastEnders, and remained as such ever since. With at least one member of the family having been a member of the cast from the first episode in February 1985, they are the show's longest serving family. The original Beale/Fowler family consisted of matriarch Lou Beale and her children Pete and Pauline, alongside their families including their children Ian, Mark, Michelle and their spouses Kathy Hills and Arthur Fowler. Additionally, several members of the family have been introduced at a later point, including Pauline and Arthur's son Martin who was the first baby to be born into the show in 1985. The family has been headed with a matriarch first seen with Lou, and over the years, Lou's daughter Pauline, Ian's wife Jane Collins and more recently Pete's wife Kathy, have filled this role.
Nellie Ellis is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Elizabeth Kelly. Nellie is introduced as the interfering relative of Pauline Fowler in 1993 and appears regularly until 1998. She makes a further appearance in 2000 for the funeral of Ethel Skinner. She moves in with the Fowlers in early 1994, and appears to be extremely annoying and interfering. However, she proves useful in getting Michelle Fowler's money back from Frank Butcher, who had unwittingly sold Michelle a stolen Austin Metro, which was subsequently apprehended by the police.
Christine Hewitt is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Elizabeth Power. Introduced in 1992 as a lonely divorcée, she becomes besotted with married Arthur Fowler while he tends her garden. She leaves in 1993 once her affair with Arthur is discovered by his wife Pauline.
The Branning family, together with the Jackson family are a fictional, extended family in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Introduced in 1993 were the Jackson family, consisting of Carol Jackson, her partner and later husband Alan Jackson, and Carol's four children, Bianca Jackson, Sonia Jackson, Robbie Jackson, and Billie Jackson ; he is the only child fathered by Alan. The family becomes a more dominating presence in 1999, when Carol's father Jim Branning moves to Walford following the death of his wife Reenie due to cancer. Since then, all six of Jim's children have appeared, many of them with their own families.
Willy Roper is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Michael Tudor Barnes. The character appears on-screen in episodes originally broadcast between 1 June 1995 and 20 June 1996.
In 1997, the BBC soap opera EastEnders broadcast three singular transmissions that were filmed on location in Dublin, Ireland. The episodes involved the Fowler and Beale family travelling from London to Ireland to meet their long-lost relatives. The episodes were badly received by viewers and heavily criticised in the media. The BBC was inundated with complaints from angry viewers from Ireland for negative stereotyping, portraying Irish people as "dirty, rude, and drunk". Complaints were made by the Irish Embassy and there were fears that the episodes would have a negative effect on the Irish tourist trade. The BBC was forced to issue an apology for causing offence.
Martin Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The character was played by Jon Peyton-Price from Martin's introduction 1985 until 1996, and by James Alexandrou from 1996 until 2007. When Alexandrou took over the role, Martin was seen more regularly and was featured in prominent storylines such as sleeping with Sonia Jackson and getting her pregnant with their daughter Bex Fowler ; developing a romantic crush on Zoe Slater, which is not reciprocated, accidentally killing Sonia’s fiancé Jamie Mitchell after running him over in his car, which results in Martin being imprisoned for Jamie's death and subsequently feuding with Jamie’s relative Phil Mitchell ; enduring a problematic marriage with Sonia after their wedding; and coping with the deaths of both his brother Mark Fowler and their mother Pauline Fowler. Alexandrou quit the role in 2006, and Martin departed on 2 February 2007.