Pauline Quirke

Sometimes life-changing events force people to adopt drastic measures to turn their lives around, just like the 1959 Hackney-born English thespian Pauline Quirke did. The former star of “Birds of a Feather” faced some body issues after adding more pounds due to excessive eating. She admitted it in her “Where Have I Gone?” autobiography, serialized in the Daily Mirror.

Quirke, who also starred in “Emmerdale,” adopted an ideal menu with regular exercise to shed some pounds after tipping the scales at 280 lbs. It took a seat belt extension request aboard a flight to Malaga for a 2010 summer vacation for her to realize the gravity of her weight issue.