Frances Tomelty is an Irish actress whose numerous television credits include Strangers, Testament of Youth, Inspector Morse, Cracker, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, The White Queen and Unforgotten. Her theatre roles include playing Kate in the original production of Dancing at Lughnasa in Dublin. She was married to the musician Sting from 1976 to 1984.
She has featured in series including Survivors, Bergerac, Inspector Morse, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Strangers, Midsomer Murders and Coronation Street, Cracker, as well as many films including Bellman and True, Monk Dawson, Bullshot and The Field. She was Lady Macbeth in the Old Vic's disastrous 1980 production of Macbeth, with Peter O'Toole in the title role. Tomelty's roles in recent years include the drama seriesSpooks, Casualty, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Holby City, , The Royal, Waking the Dead, Silent Witness, Unforgotten, Catastrophe, Death in Paradise as well as big-budget adaptations Atlantis, Merlin, The White Queen, and A Perfect Spy, and the film Chéri.
Momma in Doctor Heart by Peter Muller. British premiere directed by Braham Murray at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.
Mrs Alving in Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. Directed by Braham Murray at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.
Personal life
On 1 May 1976, Tomelty married musician Gordon "Sting" Sumner – best known as the lead singer and bassist for the rock bandThe Police – after knowing him for two years. They met on the set of a rock-musical called Rock Nativity. She played the Virgin Mary; he played in the band. They have two children together, Joseph and Fuchsia Katherine . Sumner left Tomelty for his current wife Trudie Styler, and the couple divorced in 1984. The split was controversial; as The Independent reported in 2006, "The problem was, he was already married – to actress Frances Tomelty, who just happened to be Trudie's best friend. The affair was widely condemned – not least because it coincided with the break-up of the Police."
