| Dan Sullivan | |||||
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| EastEnders character | |||||
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| Portrayed by | Craig Fairbrass | ||||
| Duration | 1999–2001 | ||||
| First appearance | Episode 1788 7 June 1999 | ||||
| Last appearance | Episode 2150 16 August 2001 | ||||
| Classification | Former; regular | ||||
| Introduced by | Matthew Robinson | ||||
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Dan Sullivan is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Craig Fairbrass. He was first introduced to the series as a regular character from 7 June 1999 to 10 July 2000 before returning as one of the show's major antagonists from 26 February to 16 August 2001.
Introduced by series producer Matthew Robinson, the character Dan was an alpha male hardman who originally came into Albert Square as the new boyfriend of local resident Carol Jackson (Lindsey Coulson). Their relationship escalated when the two got engaged and she became pregnant with his unborn child, but it soon transpired that Dan had a previous fling with Carol's eldest daughter Bianca (Patsy Palmer) and the pair ended up having an affair despite the latter's established marriage with her beloved husband Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen). Eventually the truth about Dan's affair with Bianca came to light when both Carol and Ricky find out about their secret betrayal; in turn Carol broke up with Dan, aborted his unborn child, and Bianca refused to elope with him after Ricky ended his marriage with her. Subsequently, all the characters excluding Dan were written out of the show.
Afterwards, Dan embarked on an intense feud with his arch-nemesis: Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden). The events of their competitive rivalry initially started out as a close friendship and business partnership when Dan became co-owner of The Queen Victoria public house after Phil sold his family's share of the pub to him, which in turn led to Dan clashing with both Phil's mother Peggy (Barbara Windsor) and also Ricky's father Frank (Mike Reid) on multiple occasions. At the same time Dan established a major conflict with Phil's fellow archenemy Steve Owen (Martin Kemp), which had been developing in the case of both Steve and Phil having romantic connections to Dan's former girlfriend Mel Healy (Tamzin Outhwaite) after his brief romance with young neighbour Teresa di Marco (Leila Birch) didn't last long.
Soon in 2001, the character became involved in a high-profile storyline dubbed "Who Shot Phil?" when he sought revenge on Phil and began extorting money from the latter's adolescent godson Jamie (Jack Ryder) as well as bullying Phil's estranged cousin Billy (Perry Fenwick) into compliance. The whodunit scenario reached a turning point when Phil's ex-girlfriend Lisa Shaw (Lucy Benjamin) was revealed to be the shooter, but instead he frames Dan as the assailant; Dan was consequently arrested and wrongfully charged for the crime, but ended up being found not guilty despite Steve collaborating with Phil to have their common enemy jailed. It was then Dan's story arc concluded when he kidnapped Mel to successfully blackmail both Steve and Phil into giving him a £200,000 ransom, after which he ultimately left the country.