2point4 Children actress Georgina Cates dies aged 51
Georgina Cates, the original Jenny Porter in BBC sitcom 2point4 Children, has died aged 51. We look back at a career that took her from the BBC to An Awfully Big Adventure and Clay Pigeons.
Georgina Cates, the actress who played Jenny Porter in the BBC sitcom 2point4 Children before going on to a film career on both sides of the Atlantic, has died aged 51. News of her death emerged this weekend - No cause of death has been made public.
Born Clare Woodgate in Colchester, Essex, in 1975, she was just 16 when she landed her first television role in 2point4 Children, Andrew Marshall's comedy about the chaotic Porter family. She played Jenny, the elder child of Bill and Ben Porter, in the first two series in 1991 and 1992, before the part was taken over by Clare Buckfield for the remainder of the show's run.
Her move into films came with an unusual twist. Having auditioned for the role of Stella in An Awfully Big Adventure without success, she tried again under a new name, Georgina Cates, and this time won the part. The 1995 film gave her a leading role and introduced her to a much wider audience. The same year she appeared as the young Emma in Frankie Starlight.
She went on to work in America, most notably in the 1998 thriller Clay Pigeons, in which she played Amanda alongside Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix and drew praise from critics.
Further film roles that year included Illuminata and A Soldier's Sweetheart. After a break of several years she returned in 2007 with Sinner, which earned her a Best Actress award at the Brooklyn Arts Council International Film and Video Festival, and she continued to take on screen roles in the years that followed.
For many British viewers, though, she will always be remembered as the teenage Jenny in the early years of one of the BBC's best-loved family sitcoms of the 1990s, alongside Belinda Lang and Gary Olsen as her parents Bill and Ben.
