EastEnders (Mark Thrippleton); wheeler-dealer Vince Johnson (Hepburn Graham) and Laurie Bates (Gary Powell), who became Pete Beale's (Peter Dean) sparring partner. The majority of "EastEnders" characters are working-class. Middle-class characters do occasionally become regulars, but have been less successful and rarely become long-term characters. In the main, middle-class characters exist as villains, such as James Wilmott-Brown, May Wright, Stella Crawford and Yusef Khan, or are used to promote positive liberal influences, such as Colin Russell or Rachel Kominski. "EastEnders" has always featured a culturally diverse cast which has included black, Asian, Turkish, Polish and Latvian characters. "The expansion of minority representation
Julie Cooper (EastEnders) was no place for characters "whose prime function was to be comic relief". Louise Plowright has since revealed that she would have liked to have stayed with the soap longer, but that the split was an amicable one. She commented, "They just didn't know where to go with the character." Julie Cooper (EastEnders) Julie Cooper is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera, "EastEnders", played by Louise Plowright from 1989–1990. The character was one of Mike Gibbon's introductions, but she was axed in 1990 at the start of Michael Ferguson's reign as executive producer. Julie is portrayed as a