Acting tough

BEDDING Bob Geldof and snorting cocaine are not what one would expect of a girl schooled at Harrogate Ladies' College.

Former Emmerdale actress Claire King's autobiography, Confessions Of A Bad Girl, contains secrets that might even make her alter ego Kim Tate blush.

But no one could deny she has had fun.

"I've been very open and honest in the book, but that's how I wanted it," she says.

"My mum said it was a bit of an eye-opener but she also said she enjoyed it.

"I think it shows I am a strong woman and that you can get through the bad times as well as the good."

It is easy to see why her mother may have winced.

While still in her teens, Harrogate-raised Claire fought off an attempted rapist, bedded a number of up-and-coming rock stars and had a near-death experience when the tour bus of her punk band, To Be Continued, crashed into a canal in Amsterdam.

Riding high as Kim Tate in Emmerdale she enjoyed sexual relationships with Vinnie Jones and Frankie Dettori before marrying her co-star, Peter Amory, who played her step-son Chris Tate.

She became the victim of a stalking and hate campaign, saw her marriage fall apart through Peter's affair with Emmerdale star Samantha Giles and succumbed to a blackmailing plot in which a former business associate filmed her snorting cocaine and slept with her.

It is her revelations about that teenage romance with Bob Geldof that have really set the tongues wagging, however.

The pair met backstage at a Boomtown Rats gig at the Manchester Apollo in 1979.

After a night of making eyes, 17-year-old Claire found herself enjoying three hours of "pure, unadulterated sex and lust" with Geldof in his hotel room a few weeks later.

The pattern was to continue over a number of years, even after his marriage to Paula Yates and the birth of their daughter, Fifi Trixabelle.

Eventually Claire refused to be second best. When it became clear he wouldn't leave Paula, she cut her losses and walked. She claims he told her he penned the song Skin On Skin from the V Deep album for her.

Geldof, she says, has been "fine" about her autobiography.

"I haven't seen him for a few years and we're not in contact.

"He knows about the book and he's fine about it."

From an early age, it was clear Claire was going to be a bad girl'.

Born to an army officer father and secretary mother in Harrogate, Claire shunned girly dresses at her birthday parties to dig the garden with her brother.

She aspired to be a pop star and DJ, and by her early 20s had achieved both.

After giving up her job as a secretary, Claire left Harrogate and went to seek her fortune in London.

With a wad of inheritance in her hand, a 22-year-old Claire enrolled at drama school and rode motorbikes in an Elvis Costello music video.

Her big break finally arrived when, aged 26, she was cast in Emmerdale.

She propelled the show to popularity, but at a cost. Skips of cement were left outside her house and her neighbours were left notes threatening them, with Claire's name at the bottom.

Her marriage to Peter fell apart while she was playing prison governor Karen Betts in Bad Girls and she made headlines after being blackmailed.

An ordeal she would have been unable to face without her parents. "I think it's made me more aware of the fact that my family and friends are loyal and I got a lot of support from them," she explains.

"There are some really nasty people in the world and I tend to take people at face value and give them a chance but you have to watch it sometimes. He set me up from the word go. You do have to watch out for people like that."

Oddly, for a woman who has just written a racy book about her life, she is quite proud of the fact that in the past, she has managed to keep her private life private.

Writing her autobiography, she explains, has been therapeutic after what have been a difficult few years. "I've turned down doing an autobiography on a number of occasions but thought after the last three or four years which haven't been the best with my marriage breaking up and the blackmail, the time was right.

"A lot of laughter and a lot of tears have gone into writing it."

The book, she says, has brought to an end one stage of her life. Now, she's "starting anew".

"I'm really, really positive the most I've been for three or four years," she says.

"I've got work commitments into next year which doesn't really allow me much of a social or romantic life, but I'm not so bothered about that at the moment. I'm taking it as it comes."

She's happy with the way her career is going post-Emmerdale and, despite what has happened, remains firm friends with Peter.

"At the moment I don't like to tempt fate, but the work is going really well. It would be nice to get a good series off the ground. There are a couple in the pipeline and one is probably going to go ahead. It's about four strong women. I want a really good series I can get my teeth into."