In 1974 Malandra Newman became the youngest-ever winner of New Faces, appearing on the same "all-winners" show[2] with Les Dennis and Victoria Wood.
Her interest in music continued throughout her early adolescence, and at age 13 she won the 1978 BBC Merseyside Songwriter of the Year award.
Even before leaving drama school, Burrows played several roles on television, appearing in The Practice and Fell Tiger, as well as taking two parts in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside - firstly Lucy Collins' schoolfriend, Sue, and then Lisa Morrissey, the girlfriend of Pat Hancock.
During her 16-year stint, Kathy was kidnapped by a diamond-thieving lord, knocked down by a horse-stealing conman, targeted by a double wife murderer who tried to drive her over a cliff, trapped in the wreckage of a bus hit by a lorry, and imprisoned for protesting against the local haulage company.
Reportedly one of the soap's highest-paid stars of the time on a reputed £80,000pa,[4] she paid the price of celebrity when a fanatical patient escaped from custody threatening to kill her; she had police protection for two months.
This resulted in a recording contract with Warner Bros., and two more singles ("Carnival in Heaven" and "Don't Leave Me") also hit the UK charts (albeit the lower reaches: No.
In 2002 Burrows was a contestant on Celebrity Weakest Link and in 2004 she took part in the ITV game show Simply the Best, where she represented Leeds in a head-to-head tournament with other British cities.
In 2023 Malandra appear on The Big Soap Quiz, sparking rumours that she could quite possibly be returning to the dales where fans rushed to support her.