Craig Valentine
| Craig Valentine | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Shortland Street character | |||||||||
| Portrayed by | Renato Bartolomei | ||||||||
| Duration | 2004–08 | ||||||||
| First appearance | 24 May 2004 | ||||||||
| Last appearance | 2 September 2008 | ||||||||
| Introduced by | Harriet Crampton | ||||||||
| Classification | Former; regular | ||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||
| Occupation | Head of ED at Shortland Street (2004–08) | ||||||||
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| Brothers | Brett Valentine |
|---|---|
| Wife | Paula Valentine (until 1994) |
| Sons | Jake Valentine |
| Daughters |
Scarlett Valentine Kelly Piper (Daughter) |
Dr. Craig Valentine is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street. He was portrayed by Renato Bartolomei for four years from May 2004 to September 2008.
The character arrived in mid-2004 as the father of the established character Scarlett (Nicole Thomson), in what was to become a new family unit for the soap. The character embarked in a steamy on/off relationship with the hugely popular Sarah Potts (Amanda Billing) in a romance storyline that lasted four years. The character's final storyline saw Craig investigate dodgy pills from a pharmaceutical company, Scott Spear, which resulted in his murder by hired thugs. His relationships often stemmed from his kind but overly protective personality, with a hugely cemented friendship with Chris Warner (Michael Galvin) and a long running relationship with the feisty Alice Piper (Toni Potter).
After filming ended on the series Mercy Peak, Bartolomei decided he would stay in New Zealand rather than returning to Australia and was offered the role of a new character – Craig Valentine on Shortland Street, who was set to undergo a steamy romance with the upcoming character Sarah Potts. Bartolomei decided to leave the soap in 2008, saying, "It was a very difficult decision, from an actor's point of view it's not very often that you have the security that a job like Shortland Street provides. But after four and a half years I longed for a degree of anonymity again. I'm a very private person, and given what I do for a job, the spectre of Shortland Street will invariably take that away from you." The character was killed off in a dramatic gang storyline, something which producers at first thought would be "unforgivable" but which, due to Bartolomei's iinsistence on leaving, they went through with. Bartolomei said of the storyline, "It's all a bit of fun and it's nice to see the characters away from the normal hospital setting and involved in something a little bit different," and of the conclusion to Sarah and Craig's romance, "That does get revisited but not in a stereotypical way. There is a great deal of resolution at the end for everyone concerned."
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