As any of the actors who bring the cast of Crossroads characters to the screen four times a week, every week, will
tell you: working on the Crossroads team is a very demanding job. It takes all one's effort and most of one's time and
for nearly all the Crossroads stars the couple of days they have off at the end of every week come as moments of preciously
cherished relaxation.
But with every rule, there are always exceptions. And as far as the team who live in and around the Motel are concerned,
Justine Lord, who plays David Hunter's worldly journalist girlfriend Angela Kelly, is that one.
Kelly, few people ever bother with her first name, is something of a speciality in the Crossroads line up.
While other figures may wander in and out of the series, they tend to base their lives around the Motel and what goes on within
it. Not so Kelly. Her journalistic career has taken her to the furthest points of the world, from the exotic to
the prosaic, but it never fails to keep her away from the Motel, and from her very special friend there, David Hunter, for
months at a time. As Ronnie Allen, in Crossroads Monthly No. 2, has pointed out: "The situation is that they are
independent people who live independent lives with their own careers ... the thing is, this kind of on-off situation in what
the audiences like..."
Audiences apart, though the Crossroads team are always acutely aware of their interests in the show, there are
other reasons behind Kelly's exciting lifestyle. To put it bluntly, it is Justine Lord, not Angela Kelly, who really
dictates the pace of Crossroads' far-travelling glamour girl. Because in the same way as Kelly has her own
life to lead, one that is not completely bound by her involvement with the Motel, so too does Justine Lord lead a life
that is worlds apart from the TV actor's role within the ATV series.
For at least two months a year, during her portrayal of David Hunter's girlfriend, Justine Lord throws up home and her
husband of the last five years for the demanding discipline of the Crossroads schedule. But for the rest of
her time, Justine is working within an equally important world for her, that of her husband's boys' preparatory school in
Kent. With 150 boys aged from 8 to 13, the usual prep school ages, to look after, Justine Lord has her time cut out
when she's away from the show.
Kelly Comes Home ... continued
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