David Scarboro
David Timothy Scarboro was an English actor, best known for portraying Mark Fowler in the British television soap opera EastEnders from the programme's inception until April 1985, and intermittently between December 1985 and December 1987.
Career
Early years
Scarboro made his acting debut in Good Neighbours, a television drama that aired on BBC in 1984 as part of a series of standalone teleplays for the anthology series Scene.In the same year, he appeared as a member of troublemaker Gluxo Remington's gang in episodes of the school drama series Grange Hill. The script in his first episode called for both Gluxo and Scarboro's character to chase Samuel "Zammo" McGuire across a children's playground in a park, and at one point during the pursuit jump over a see-saw. Following the jump, Scarboro accidentally stumbled and nearly fell — but somehow managed to right himself and keep going. He was really pleased that the scene was thought to look good and retained in the finished programme.
EastEnders
From its inception in February 1985 until April of that same year, Scarboro semi-regularly played the part of Mark Fowler in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The actor did not respond well to the sudden fame the role brought him, and later became very concerned when the writers decided that the character of Mark should become a racist.Things came to a head one day when the script called for a scene where Mark was to deliver racist abuse to Paul J. Medford's character, Kelvin Carpenter. Scarboro refused to play the scene. After this, it was decided that Scarboro should leave EastEnders. His character was abruptly written out of the programme; one morning, Mark's family arose to discover he had secretly moved away during the night. Mark was neither seen nor heard from for several months.
In December 1985, Scarboro briefly returned to the series in a storyline that saw Mark reunite with his family. His parents had travelled to visit him in Southend-on-Sea, where he had settled with an older woman who had children from an earlier relationship. Scarboro subsequently returned for brief stints in 1986 and 1987, but never returned to the series on a permanent or on-going basis. Scarboro's last EastEnders appearance aired on Christmas Day, 1987.