Emerick, Louis

Emerick was born to a white mother and Ghanaian father and placed as a baby with a black foster family (unusual for the time) who later adopted him. There were already four children born to the family.

He wasn't specifically told he was adopted until he was 10, although he remembers hearing adoption being talked about throughout his childhood, without understanding its significance for him personally.

He loved his family, but in 1973 he started the six-year search for his birth mother. They met and have a good relationship. He also knows his three birth half-siblings, and his adoptive parents and birth mother are also in touch with each other.

Emerick has worked in a factory, as a window cleaner and as a cook, but he is famous as the actor who plays Mick in Brookside on Channel 4.

References

Brissett, Elaine. "Adoption is Wonderful!" Be My Parent, no 60 (October 2000), pp. 1-2. Also available at: http://www.baaf.org.uk/pages/bmp/emerick.htm [Includes portrait].