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Character Profiles > Louise Allen Tessa Taylor, Jiordan Anna Tolli, Adelaide Kane

Shannon Louise 'Lolly' Allen (née Carpenter) 1994-2001, 2007, 2013
Lived: 22 Ramsay Street
Born: 1994 (later altered to 1991)
Parents: Cheryl Stark and John Allen (biological); Lou Carpenter (adoptive)
Siblings: Janine, Darren, Danni, Brett, Braiden and Keisha; Ling Mai, Guy and Lauren (adoptive)
Family Tree: Carpenter
Occupation: Student

Louise - or Lolly as she is affectionately known - was born in Erinsborough to Lou Carpenter and Cheryl Stark on 25 July 1994. Lolly was showered with love from the moment she was born, not only from her doting parents, but also her half-brother and sister, Brett and Danni Stark from Cheryl's previous marriage.

Naming Louise proved to be full of complications for her parents. Firstly, Lou and Cheryl decided on calling her Shannon, but Gaby Willis from across the street had also chosen that name for her son, born on the same day. So Lou and Gaby's father Doug were filing the names at the registrar's office and realised the babies would have the same names and live doors apart, they were forced to choose middle names to set them apart. Doug chose 'Zac', and Lou chose Louise, after his own name. Further problems occurred as Cheryl and Lou argued on whose surname Louise should have. Lou was determined that Louise should get his surname, but Cheryl disagreed and wanted Stark. But after Lou pointed out that Louise would be taking the surname of Cheryl's first husband, Cheryl realised Carpenter was more appropriate. A few weeks later, Louise was christened with her cousin, Sam Kratz, and his girlfriend, Annalise Hartman, as godparents.

Louise was cared for by various nannies over the years - including Victoria Smith, who was more interested in smoking and watching television as opposed to caring for Lolly and Patsy Edis, who ended up robbing the house. The longest serving nanny was Serendipity Gottlieb, who cared for Lolly for several months during her first year. However, Cheryl had various run-ins with Serendipity, such as the time Ren protested against Cheryl's plans for a baby contest at Chez Chez, which culminated in Cheryl sacking Ren as nanny. However, Cheryl eventually came to realise that Ren was simply expressing her feelings, and she re-hired her. The Starks celebrated Louise's first birthday with a party by the lake, and Lou organised for the family to leave their handprints in a block of cement to commemorate the special occasion. But tragedy was to strike the family a year later when Cheryl was knocked down and killed one afternoon while rescuing Lolly from the path of an oncoming truck. At only two years of age, Louise had lost her mother, and was to be raised single-handed by Lou in the coming years. Lou did receive help from all quarters, however - Cheryl's mum Marlene lived with him for a time to help care for Louise, and in later years, Lou took in Drew Kirk as a lodger, who became like a big brother to Louise. And the neighbours were always helping out with babysitting duties. Nonetheless, Lou always regretted that Lolly had to grow up without having known her mummy.

When Lou was forced to rush up to Queensland unexpectedly to help sort out his older daughter Lauren's marital problems, Lolly went to stay with the Kennedys. It was while staying here that Louise encountered another high bout of drama. On New Years Eve, the Kennedys joined the other neighbours out on Ramsay Street for a Millennium Party and Michelle Scully babysat Louise. But when Michelle left Lolly unattended, Lolly found some fireworks lying on the kitchen worktop. She started playing with them, and set the house on fire. With Lolly trapped inside, Drew rushed inside to save her. Louise escaped with smoke inhalation, while Drew suffered only minor burns to his back. As Louise recovered in hospital, Karl and Susan desperately tried to get in contact with Lou but bad flooding in Queensland had caused the phone lines to come down in the area. They eventually contacted him a few days later, and after the flooding came to a halt, Lou returned to Erinsborough immediately to be with his precious daughter.

When Louise started primary school, Lou became concerned at her lack of enthusiasm after the first week, and blamed her teacher, Merridy Jackson. Lou arranged a meeting with Mrs. Jackson, but instead of getting to the bottom of why Louise was reluctant to go to school, he ended up being talked into joining the school's fundraising committee. After helping out at a cake sale, Lou became attracted to Merridy, and Louise helped get the pair together in her own way by inviting Merridy back to No. 22 for a coffee when she bumped into her and Lou one afternoon.

Louise caused problems for Lou's old friend, Harold Bishop (or 'Uncle Harold' as she called him) when she got hold of his treasured signed letter from President John F. Kennedy and it went missing. Harold desperately tried to get Lolly to tell him where she had put it, but she insisted she couldn't remember. However, the letter turned up some weeks later in the post after Lolly had coloured on it - devaluing it substantially. Harold didn't hold it against Louise, and continued to treat her like part of the family, regularly looking after her for Lou, and even holding a burial service with her when Louise found a dead bird in the back garden. And when Louise presented Harold with a flower on the day of the funeral of Harold's beloved wife, Madge, Harold was so touched by the gesture that he wore the flower on his jacket at the service.

Louise's life faced a massive upheaval when Lou received a letter out of the blue from a man called John Allen, who claimed to have had an affair with Cheryl and was consequently, Louise's father. Shocked by the letter's contents, Lou's world was turned upside down, and he spent days trying to come to terms with what he had been told. He eventually opted to have a DNA test done to find out for definite if he was Lolly's real father. The results only confirmed Lou's worst fears when they proved that he wasn't Louise's biological father. Lou initially vowed to keep the discovery to himself and tell nobody other than Harold, who he had confided in about the letter from John Allen. But when Lou and Louise bumped into Drew, and Louise told him she had been to the doctor for some tests, Lou realised that he would have to start facing up to reality.

Determined to hold onto Lolly, Lou phoned John Allen and told him that he had had DNA tests done, and they proved that he was Louise's father, before telling John that the matter was over and he didn't want to hear from him again. But after Harold encouraged Lou to face up to the truth, he arranged to meet John, and discuss the situation. John quickly wanted to see Louise, and Lou reluctantly agreed to think about it. But as it turned out, they were to meet by accident the next morning when John bumped into Lou and Lolly in the park. Louise instantly took a liking to the puppy John had with him, and was delighted when John offered to push her on the swings after Lou told her he couldn't because of his bad back. Afterwards, Lou brought Louise for a milkshake in the Coffee Shop, and for a split second considered telling her the truth about John, but couldn't bring himself to tell her.

Lou eventually chose Lassiters Lake as the best place to break the news to Louise, and after telling her how much he loved her, he told her that she had another daddy. Louise surprised Lou by taking the news quite calmly, and even started to think she was lucky to have two daddies herself. Within a few days, Louise asked Lou if she could have a picnic with her two daddies, and all went well until John asked if he could introduce Louise to his wife, Sandy. Lou told John he didn't think it was such a good idea just yet, but after Lolly showed an interest in getting to know John's wife, Lou agreed to the meeting. Sandy was an instant hit with Louise, and proved she was a natural with kids since she was a nursery school teacher. The meeting went so well, in fact, that Lou felt slightly left out as Louise laughed and joked with John and Sandy.

As the Allens started to see more of Louise, Lou began to fear he was losing his daughter. Things came to a head when Lou told John that he would allow him to see Lolly once a month and John reacted by announcing he was going to seek custody of her. After an anxious few weeks, the day of the custody hearing arrived and after a frosty exchange with the Allens outside the courthouse, Lou was even more determined to win the case. The hearing got off to a bad start for Lou, as John's solicitor dragged up Lou's addiction to painkillers, tax difficulties and a recent run-in with the police over after-hours drinking at the pub. She also pointed to the fact that Louise had had so many childminders since Cheryl's death, and highlighted the fact that Lou had been married three times, had other grown kids living interstate, and that Louise was from an unorthodox extended family. When Lou's time came to state his case, he gave his heartfelt reasons for why he felt Louise was better with him, pointing out that he loved her more than anything else in the world, while John Allen didn't even now her. And finally, at the end of the proceedings, Lou made an impassioned plea to the judge not to take his little girl away from him. But the court decided that the Allens should get full custody of Louise, and granted Lou visitation rights. Poignantly, as Louise's fate was being decided, she was having the time of her life with Drew at a Wiggles concert, completely unaware of what was going on.

Lou was devastated by the outcome of the hearing, and in a last desperate attempt at keeping his beloved daughter, ran away with Louise. They settled at a caravan site for the first night, just as the neighbours back in Ramsay Street realised what Lou had done. Louise was confused by Lou's behaviour and questioned him about why he didn't want to answer his mobile phone or let anyone see them. Lou told her they were off on an adventure and were playing a game whereby they were invisible and nobody could see them, and Lolly was satisfied with what he said. Harold and Joe Scully eventually tracked Lou down at the caravan site, and persuaded him to return to Erinsborough after pointing out that he would ruin any future chances of seeing Lolly if the authorities knew what he had done. After returning to Erinsborough the next day, Louise was confused and upset when Lou tried to explain to her that she was going to live with the Allens, and she was unable to understand why she had to leave her daddy and home behind. When John and Sandy arrived to pick Louise up, Lou broke down and told Lolly how much he loved her, before waving goodbye to his little girl as John and Sandy drove out of Ramsay Street, with Louisewaving to her daddy from the back of the car.

Louise quickly felt at home with the Allens, but still considered Lou as her father and visited him on weekends in the first weeks after she moved. But when John and Sandy moved to the country with Louise, Lou only got to see Lolly during the school holidays. Nonetheless, they spoke to each other on the phone all the time, and Lou made a point of visiting her in the country as often as he could get away from Erinsborough. And as far as Louise was concerned, Lou would always be her daddy.

Louise returned to live with Lou in Erinsborough when she was 15. In the intervening years, Lou had moved in with Harold and his granddaughter Sky at No.24, and Lolly was determined to impress Harold so that he would let her stay on permanently, even going so far as to steal money from Karl Kennedy's wallet in order to buy a book on JFK for Harold to make it up to him for ruining his letter from the late president all those years before. Lolly also found it hard to accept the presence of Harold's lodger Carmella Cammenitti and made out that Carmella had been getting up to all sorts with Dylan Timmins in the bedroom she shared with her so as to evoke the scorn of a disapproving Harold. Her plan worked and it ended with Carmella moving out and Louise having the room to herself. Throughout all this attention-seeking behaviour, Lou remained oblivious to his daughter's bad points and concentrated only on trying to help her settle back into her old home town as best he could.

Upon starting at Erinsborough High, Lolly immediately clashed with her P.E. teacher Pepper Steiger. When Pepper caught Lolly and her classmate Bree Timmins with packets of cigarettes, Lolly persuaded Bree to take the heat. When Bree's mother Janelle found out, she stormed over to Lou and Harold insisting Lolly was just as involved. Overhearing the exchange outside, Lolly started hitting herself – a sign that she was a troubled young girl. Feeling guilty, she owned up to having the cigarettes too and was given a one day suspension from school. But once again, Lolly managed to make Lou feel sorry for her and she succeeded in getting him to gatecrash a function at Lassiter's Hotel where Australian Idol host Andrew G was appearing. After Lou mistakenly thought Andrew was the chef, he almost got them thrown out, but when Andrew realised what Lou had done for his daughter, he invited them to join him for lunch. Pepper, it transpired, was also a fan and was brought along too – giving her and Lolly a chance to get to know each other better.

However, back at school, Lolly found it difficult to re-adjust to seeing Pepper as a teacher and when Pepper held Lolly back after class to reprimand her for not showing her any respect during a class, Lolly revealed some bruises on her shoulder to her teacher. Pressed by a shocked Pepper to reveal where they had come from, Louise started screaming and attempted to run from the class just as Susan walked in. With Pepper grabbing hold of Louise, it immediately looked like she had been hitting Louise, who was happy to let Susan think that was what happened. Pepper was then suspended from school pending an investigation into the incident, and Lolly started to feel guilty about letting her taking the blame for something she didn’t do. Such was her guilt, Louise ran away and all the neighbours searched the area for her. It was Pepper who found her hiding out at the garage, and she persuaded Louise to return home to Lou and admit that she had lied about Pepper hitting her. But just as they got back to No.24 and things were looking up, Louise was shocked when Sandy showed up and it became clear that she was very uncomfortable around her stepmother.

After being left alone with Sandy, Lolly was persuaded by her that Pepper had indeed been hitting her and was forced to again point the finger of blame at her teacher rather than the real culprit – Sandy. The matter sorted, Sandy returned to the country only to stun Louise by arriving back in Erinsborough a few days later to care for her while Lou embarked on his first shift as a flight attendant, requiring him to fly to Moscow. Ringo Brown, another troubled teen who had moved in with his brother Frazer at No.30 around the same time Louise had returned to Ramsay Street, quickly noticed how nervous Lolly was around her stepmother and when he challenged her about it, Lolly confessed that Sandy had been hitting and abusing her ever since she had successfully given birth to children of her own through IVF. Ringo urged Louise to tell Lou about it, but she instead resolved to deal with it in her own way – cutting the brakes on Sandy's car when it was left in for repair at the garage. Unfortunately, she hijacked the wrong car and caused Boyd Hoyland and Glenn Forrest to have a near miss instead. Matters finally came to a head when Louise confronted Sandy at the side of the pool out the back of No.24 and ended up pushing her stepmother in. Sandy hit her head on the side of the pool and although Louise momentarily froze in shock at what had happened, once Ringo and his girlfriend Rachel Kinski arrived on the scene, she snapped into action and saved her stepmother's life by performing CPR.

With Sandy in hospital, Louise finally confessed all to Lou, even showing him her diary entries of recent years to prove what Sandy had been doing. Once Sandy was discharged, Lou bitterly confronted her about what she had put his daughter through and although she initially tried to deny the abuse, Sandy eventually admitted that she had grown to resent Lolly because every time she looked at her she was reminded of the affair John had had with Cheryl. Lou promptly called the social services and John to explain everything, and Lolly was thrilled and relieved to finally be able to get on with her life. While John finalised his separation from Sandy and sorted things out with family services, he suggested Lolly stay on with Lou, much to the delight of the pair who were happily embracing the chance to make up for lost time.

In an attempt at rebuilding Lolly's confidence, Lou urged her to join the school basketball team and persuaded Ringo, Rachel and her brother Zeke to encourage her. But Lolly proved to be a disaster on the court, ending up with a sore nose after the ball rebounded on her the first and only time she managed to get control of it. Retreating back into a bout of low self-esteem, Lolly started to nick things again – this time targeting the belongings of No.30's residents anytime she was visiting Ringo. But after Ringo caught Lolly out, he arranged for his housemate Rosie Cammeniti to act as a big sister counsellor to her and Lolly soon struck up a close friendship with her, even offering Rosie a shoulder to cry on in turn as her relationship troubles with Frazer mounted.

All the way through her problems settling back into Erinsborough, Louise was lucky to have Ringo by her side and she gradually found herself falling for him. The only problem was the fact he only had eyes for Rachel, who had become good friends with her. To add to the confusion, Rachel's brother Zeke – who was dating Bree – had developed a crush on Lolly. Infatuated with Ringo, Louise was only too happy to help him pitch a tent in the local allotments when he ran away from home, much to the annoyance of Rachel, who he had initially kept in the dark about his whereabouts. When he asked Lolly to arrange a meeting between him and Rachel, Lolly cunningly 'forgot' to pass on the message, almost causing a rift in the relationship. When Rachel found out Lolly omitted to tell her Ringo wanted to meet up with her, she angrily confronted her about her evident crush on her boyfriend. Lolly denied that she wanted to be anything other than good mates with Ringo and the two girls eventually patched things up while on school camp, where, for the first time, Lolly began to realise that, perhaps, Zeke was the guy for her after all.

The consequences of Louise's actions when tampering with Glenn Forest's car brakes came back to haunt her, meanwhile, when she was given 100 hours community service, and began working it off by helping Janae Timmins at the garage. Around this time, Louise also became interested in boxing, much to the dismay of Lou, who feared his daughter wasn't tough enough to indulge in such a violent sport. Furthermore, Louise wasn't very good at boxing, whereas her workmate Janae was and Louise couldn't understand why Lou was happy to coach Janae but not his own daughter. Lou eventually had to tell Lolly how bad she was at the sport, and they compromised by co-coaching Janae together instead.

Meanwhile, Lolly and Zeke grew closer when they were paired together for a school project about responsibility which saw them act as 'parents' to an egg. Neither would admit to each other or their friends that they liked the other but Rachel, in particular, knew there was an attraction there. Around this time, Zeke and Bree's romance came to an end, and within weeks, Lolly and Zeke gave into their feelings and went on their first date to the movies. The evening went well until Lou terrified Zeke at the end of the date by showing up at his house just as he was about to kiss Louise. Luckily Harold dragged Lou away to leave the teenagers alone and they kissed, but their awkward, first snog was captured from behind the sofa by Rachel on her camera phone. Rachel then proceeded to upload the footage onto the Erinsborough High blogzine, causing total humiliation for Lolly and Zeke. However, they had their revenge shortly after when they kidnapped Rachel's stuffed pony and held him captive for a number of days.

Despite having made so many new friends in Erinsborough and getting close to Lou again, Lolly began to miss her little brother and sister, Braiden and Keisha. Sensing how much she wanted to see them, Lou packed Lolly off to see John and the kids, hoping that a visit would ease her pain at being separated from them. Lou and Zeke both breathed huge sighs of relief when Louise returned from the trip complaining about how annoying her younger siblings had been as it would mean she was definitely going to stay in Erinsborough for the long haul. But Harold and Bree both realised that Louise was trying to spare the feelings of her father and new boyfriend and was actually missing her family in the countryside a lot more than she made out. After Harold pointed out how Louise was feeling to Lou, Lou faced the truth and surprised Louise by announcing he had arranged for her to return to live with the Allens. Louise was thrilled at the prospect of being reunited with them for good, but was sad at the thought of leaving Lou behind again. However, he promised to see her all the time and delighted Louise by revealing he had arranged for them to fly to Moscow for a holiday with Lou's long distance love Mishka just as soon as Louise had settled back in at home. Zeke's pain at Lolly leaving was eased slightly by her inviting him to come for the drive to the country with her and Lou, and that afternoon, Lolly said her goodbyes once again to the residents of Ramsay Street, some old and dear to her and some new.

Six years later, Lolly made a brief return to Ramsay Street, for a surprise party to mark Lou's 70th birthday. Lolly was surprised to find Lou in a downbeat mood, as he'd recently realised that none of the Carpenter men had lived beyond the age of 70, and he was convinced that he only had hours to live. Lolly, too, was a little unhappy, as she'd just broken up with her boyfriend Graham, after mistakenly believing that he was about to propose to her, when in fact he dumped her. Lolly kept this from Lou, and enjoyed spending time with her adoptive sister Lauren, as well as Lauren's children, and flirting with the male residents of Ramsay Street. Lou's mood soon improved when he realised that he was actually about to turn 71 - his date of birth had been changed when he was conscripted as he was trying to impress a girl, and he'd been one year behind for almost 50 years. The next day, Lou found out about Lolly's problems and felt bad that he hadn't spent more time with her recently so, although she insisted that she was fine, Lou decided shortly afterwards to go and spend a bit of time with her.

Trivia Notes
• Tessa Taylor played Louise Carpenter for her first few months on the show, before being succeeded by Jiordan Anna Tolli. In 2007, Adelaide Kane took over the role, and the character was aged from 12 up to 15, as well as being officially known as Lolly Allen in the closing credits
• As a child, Lolly was a big fan of The Wiggles
• During Adelaide Kane's time playing Lolly, she was added to the opening titles sequence but not the regular character credits
• In 2013 (exactly 1500 episodes after her last 2007 appearance), Lolly returned to Erinsborough for one episode, and the character was de-recast, with Jiordan Tolli returning to the role she'd last played in 2001. The character was credited as Louise Allen for that appearance

Tenure
2201-2250, 2259-3910, 5134-5245, 6745