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Steve Garti (off screen he's Steve Gartside) has a great acting CV while not being a household name. He's from Scawthorpe and has appeared in The Full Monty, Casualty, Emmerdale (as Dave McGee), Coronation Street, Clocking Off, Heartbeat, The Royal, The Cops (Colin) and more.

Despite being from a showbiz family, Steve's acting career got off to a bit of a false start. Things were going swimmingly when as a weenie four year old he began modelling school clothes for adverts. Next came a role in Follyfoot Farm (remember that?) and the future looked bright until a serious car accident put pay to any plans to tread the boards as a child star. Steve had to find another channel for his creativity.

"I've done a lot of musician stuff, I'm a drummer and I used to go round in bands. That were the only release I could get really without doing the acting." Garti comments.

In the earlyu nineties the itch to act got the better of him and Steve decided that he just had to scratch it.

"I just got into it through extra work," he states simply, "I asked my agent if she'd send me to auditions and it started from there really."

In the mean time Steve had to support himself and had no qualms about doing whatever he could to make ends meet.
"I used to peel potatoes at a chip shop and I used to be a chef as well because I thought I must have something normal to do in case it all goes horribly wrong."

Thankfully it went surprisingly right and he was soon a fully-fledged actor.

"I did a lot of jobbing actor work, you know, like The Full Monty and City Central and all that."

In fact The Full Monty was the first time Steve got to play a policeman.

"It were a brilliant director on there and he really gave me the spark again, I thought this is a really good job because of the mental stuff you have to go through, but it were hard getting the parts that challenge you mentally", then there was Jellico!

Although the character is in for a free ride on the emotional roller coaster this series, Steve is perfectly calm and happy with his lot. He adores his job and gets to spend plenty of time with his kids, who have even appeared on the programme, although he admits it has led to some confusion for his four-year-old son.

"He's spent the last few years thinking I was a real policeman and I've just been explaining that I'm not a real policeman at all, I've just been pretending. He didn't like that at all."

Credit: Suggested by Sean Caddy.
Interview: World Productions, 2000.

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