Albert Square sex bomb Michael Greco is to leave EastEnders two months early, it was announced this week.
The gravelly voiced star, who plays former cop and nightclub owner Beppe Di Marco on the award-winning soap, had been axed from the series after producer John Yorke decided that his character had run its course.
Michael, apparently disgruntled over his treatment by the bosses of the prime-time BBC1 series, asked to be written out early. “Michael requested he be allowed to leave early before his contract ends,” confirmed a spokesman for the show. “We agreed, scripts have been turned around and it was all very amicable.”
The script has the goateed actor leaving Walford to be reunited with the rest of the Di Marco family, but the door has been left open for Beppe’s return.
In real life, Michael, who has already been offered theatre and TV work, plans on taking a month’s vacation. Meanwhile, veteran EastEnders star Letitia Dean, who plays series staple Sharon Mitchell, is set to return to Albert Square for good.
The platinum blonde actress, who featured in the very first episode of the series in 1985 as the adopted daughter of Dirty Den and his wife Angie, will return to the Square to fulfil her mother’s dying wish.
She brings the former Queen Vic landlady, who has drunk herself into an early grave in America, back to her final resting place in Walford. Letitia’s character walked out on her boyfriend Phil at Christmas after revealing that she was unable to give him the thing he wants most – children.
Now the scene may be set for a romantic reunion, but the actress warns: “I don’t think either of them is really sure about what the situation between them is now, and they’ll have to do a lot of talking if they are going to get back together.”
A show insider says: Angie’s death is the end of an era and Sharon’s return is set to ruffle a few feathers” – something the character has proved adept at in her previous stints in Albert Square.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
As famous for his gravelly voice and artistic facial hair as his on-screen bed hopping, Michael Greco has decided to call it quits early after the show's producers decided his character, Beppe Di Marco, had run its course
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Albert Square veteran Letitia Dean has done several stints with the series since its 1985 launch and is all set to cause a stir as she inevitably confronts former love Phil Mitchell who she walked out on at Christmas
