Verity Rushworth


Verity Charlotte Rushworth is an English actress. She is known for portraying the role of Donna Windsor in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale from 1998 to 2009, with a guest appearance in 2014. She has twice played leading roles in London’s West End theatre amongst many other theatre roles throughout the UK, and in 2020, she appeared in the BBC soap opera Doctors as Lily Walker.

Life and career

Rushworth attended St. Mary's Catholic High School, Menston. In 1997, Rushworth had small roles in ITV television programmes such as Heartbeat, and in 1998, at the age of 12, she went on to play her most notable role of Donna Windsor in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale, having taken over the role from Sophie Jeffery who played the part from 1993 to 1997. After appearing on Emmerdale for over 10 years, Rushworth filmed her final scenes at the end of 2008 which were later aired in January 2009.
From 2 February 2009, she made her West End debut by playing the role of Penny Pingleton in a production of Hairspray, taking over the role from Elinor Collett. Rushworth then played the leading role of Maria Von trap in the 2011 UK tour of The Sound of Music for Andrew Lloyd Webber which led to many other theatre roles for her. She took on the role of Velma in Chicago at Curve Theatre, Leicester from November 2013 to January 2014 On 6 January 2014, it was announced that Rushworth would be returning to Emmerdale to reprise the role of Donna, after a five-year-absence. Rushworth began filming in February, and returned on screen on 19 March 2014. It was announced that she would be back as Donna for 5 months and departed on 15 August 2014. On the 2016 tour of the Breakfast at Tiffany's, she shared the role of Holly Golightly with Pixie Lott. Her latest theatre role was ‘Lauren’ in the West End cast of Kinky Boots until 2018. In June 2020, she appeared in three episodes of the BBC soap opera Doctors as receptionist Lily Walker.

Filmography

Stage