Shaw was born into the hotel and pub trade, at the time when her parents ran the Talbot Hotel in Belper, Derbyshire. She attended Saint Ralph SherwinComprehensive School in Derby, learnt classical dance at Hilda Davis School of Dance, Belper and went to the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester in 1990, where she got a degree in theatre studies. Her best known work was as Maxine in the long-running soap operaCoronation Street. However, Shaw came into conflict with the show's bosses after they reportedly tried to cut her pay by £20,000 a year and she bowed out from her role as a result. Shaw's character met a tragic end in the episode screened on 13 January 2003, when she was murdered by Richard Hillman. She has also appeared in numerous ITV dramas. In 2003 Shaw appeared as Sally in the stage playThe Blue Room, starring alongside Jason Connery. Since the birth of her children Shaw has made the occasional return to acting and has performed in several national tours including Mum's the Word and Busy Body, as well as lead roles in pantomimes in Worthing and Southsea. She also had a short lived pop career in 1998, releasing two singles on the Love This Records record label, "Ridin' High" and a cover of Lonnie Gordon's top 10 hit, "Happenin' All Over Again".
Personal life
In May 1996 she was presented with the Rear of the Year title. She had a series of high-profile romances including one with Alex Moscovich and also an engagement to Darren Day, which led to an array of media stories of cocaine use. She married Robert Ashworth in June 2001, but a series of early problems occurred including a row on a return flight from the Caribbean after she had been filming ITV's Wish You Were Here...?. In 2015 Ashworth blamed phone hacking for ruining his career and marriage. In 2003, her father Karl Shaw was featured in an article in the News of the World, and said that Shaw survived on "three bottles of wine and a packet of crisps a day". He also said that if "she carries on this way it will kill her". She made moves to turn her life around including spending two months in rehab in America and leaving her husband. Before this she had set up an eating disorder charity called The Tracy Shaw Foundation which helps teenagers combat eating disorders, as she had struggled with anorexia during the 1990s, and at one stage her weight plunged below six stone. Her marriage ended in divorce in 2004, and Shaw set up home with and subsequently became engaged to childhood friend and Cisco Sales Manager Ashley Poundall, the son of her mother Anne's boyfriend of eight years, Colin. The couple currently live in Caversham Heights, Berkshire and have two sons Louis and Luca..
Stalker
In 2000, stalker Kevin Sedgwick pleaded guilty to harassing Shaw over a period of five years. He had written a number of letters to her, as well as Coronation Street co-stars Jacqueline Pirie and Jennifer James, and hung around the grounds of Granada Studios in Manchester, put his arms around Shaw, and asked for a kiss. Sedgwick pleaded guilty later that year to multiple acts of gross indecency with children and had suffered from hearing voices in his head.
