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BIOGRAPHY

Billie Piper
	BIOGRAPHY | GALLERY | GOSSIP | BLOG

Billie Paul Piper, originally registered as Lianne Piper, born on 22 September 1982, is an English actress.

Piper began her career as a pop singer in her teens, and was well-known for her marriage to DJ Chris Evans, but is now best known for portraying Rose Tyler, companion to the Doctor in the television series Doctor Who from 2005 to 2006. Her role in Doctor Who consolidated her status as a household name in the United Kingdom.

Piper's first break in the entertainment world came as a teenager, when she was selected to appear on the Saturday morning kids' television show Scratchy & Co. Piper later landed a role in a television commercial promoting the pop magazine Smash Hits. Her role was to blow a bubble in front of the camera, burst it with her finger and shout "Pop!". A red screen would then come up and the words "Smash hits Magazine. 100% pure pop!" with Piper's voice saying the words. She then had to run up to the camera and dance, then run back. Soon after she was offered a record deal at the age of fifteen, and in 1998 became the youngest artist ever to debut at number one in the UK singles chart with "Because We Want To", released under the artist name "Billie". Her follow-up single "Girlfriend" also debuted at Number One, and her first album, Honey to the B (released immediately afterwards) debuted at Number 14 in the UK album charts. She released two further singles off the album, "She Wants You" and "Honey to the Bee"; both songs debuted at Number 3.

Piper then took a year off to record her second album. She decided to release further records under her full name, Billie Piper. She returned to the Singles Chart in May 2000 with a new, sexier sound. She hit the Number 1 spot with "Day & Night", but her success wasn't to continue. She waited until the following September to release "Something Deep Inside". That reached Number 4 in the UK Singles Chart. In October 2000, Piper released her second album, Walk of Life, which reached Number 14 in the UK Album Chart. The song "Walk of Life", the final single off this album, was released in December 2000 and reached Number 25 in the UK Singles Chart.

On January 15, 2007, BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles started a campaign to get Honey to the Bee back into the Top 100 on download sales as a way of testing out new chart rules that favour download sales. The campaign was highly successful, with Honey to the Bee re-entering the official UK singles chart at #17, eight years after it was first released.

In November 2005, Piper starred as Hero in a BBC adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, updated for the modern day in a similar manner to the Canterbury Tales series in which she featured, with Hero now being a weather presenter in a television station.

Piper has completed work on two stand-alone television productions. In the first, a BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's historical novel The Ruby in the Smoke broadcast in December 2006, Piper played protagonist Sally Lockhart, a Victorian orphan. The BBC plans to film all four of Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels, presumably with Piper continuing in the role. In 2007 she appeared as the main character, Fanny Price, in an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, screened on ITV1. This was her first acting role on television for a broadcaster other than the BBC.

Piper is also attached to appear in an ITV2 adaptation of Belle de Jour, a book detailing the life of a prostitute.

Piper won the Most Popular Actress category at the 2005 and 2006 National Television Awards for her work on Doctor Who. BBC News named Piper as one of its "Faces of the Year" for 2005, primarily due to her success in Doctor Who. At The South Bank Show Awards on 27 January 2006 Piper was awarded The Times Breakthrough Award for her successful transition from singing to acting. In March 2006, the Television and Radio Industries Club named Piper as best new TV talent in their annual Tric awards. In September 2006, Piper was named Best Actress at the TV Quick and TV Choice Awards.

After the completion of the first series of Doctor Who, the British media regularly released conflicting reports about how long Piper would be staying with the programme. In March 2006, she claimed that she would continue on Doctor Who into its third season in 2007; however, on May 10, 2006 she was reported to be considering quitting the series, although she did express an interest in playing a female version of the Doctor in the future (possibly related to a proposed Doctor Who spin-off series about Rose which was later dropped). On June 15, 2006, it was announced by the BBC that she was to depart in the final episode of the second series, "Doomsday"; Piper's decision to leave had been taken a year previously, but remained a secret until news of her departure became public.