Trudy Monk
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Trudy Anne Monk (nee Ellison) is a fictional character on the television show Monk. She is the late wife of Adrian Monk. Solving her murder is a main ongoing theme of the show. She was played by Stellina Rusich during first and second seasons, Melora Hardin during third season, and Hannah Contrucci as young Trudy during fourth season. Lindy Newton plays Trudy in a college flashback in the fifth season.
Trudy Monk was born in Los Angeles in 1962 ("Game Show"). She attended the Ashton Preparatory School, and graduated valedictorian in 1977 at the age of 15. She did not date very much while there, expecting to know who the right man would be once she found him ("Goes Back to School"). She graduated from Stanford University, and met her future husband Adrian while he was working as a detective ("Goes to the Ballgame"). In the 5th season episode Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion the first meeting of Trudy and Adrian was changed. In this new episode, Monk takes Natalie to the college library he was working in as an aide when he first meet Trudy. Trudy asked for a book and was impressed when Monk found it by memory (he saw it days earlier) out of a large pile of books being moved upstairs. Monk tells Natalie he got Trudy's phone number by remembering the numbers written as someone used his back while they wrote Trudy's phone number down.
Adrian and Trudy married on August 8, 1990. Trudy was involved in a lawsuit with financier Dale Biederbeck (AKA "Dale the Whale"), an important adversary to Adrian, in 1993, because she referred to him as the "Genghis Khan of Finance" ("Dale the Whale"). Biederbeck was unable to win the lawsuit, but the Monks lost their house paying for their lawyer. Adrian has an intense hatred for Biederbeck because of the pain it caused on Trudy although Adrian became satisfied when he proved Biederbeck was guilty of murder and put in jail.
She, in Adrian's words, enjoyed poetry, was often barefoot, and kept every promise she ever made.
She was murdered in winter 1997 by a car bomb built by Warrick Tennyson. Tennyson was hired by a six-fingered man whom he could not identify ("Monk Takes Manhattan"). Her last words to a paramedic were "bread and butter," a message to Adrian that she would never leave him, as this was something she always told her husband when they had to temporarily let go of each other for some reason or another.
Adrian still has not found either the six-fingered man who hired Tennyson or his motive, but is likely to at the end of the series. However, in ("Mr. Monk Bumps His Head"), Monk attempts to find this 6-fingered man by purchasing a picture of him. Monk, however, discovers that one finger does not have hair, implying it was digitally added. This leads to his amnesia and accidental trip to Wyoming, though he is recovered and cured at the end of the episode.
| MONK | |
| Current Main Characters | Adrian Monk | Natalie Teeger | Captain Leland Stottlemeyer | Lieutenant Randy Disher |
| Secondary Characters | Charles Kroger | Trudy Monk | Ambrose Monk | Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck | Julie Teeger |
| Tertiary/Quaternary Characters | Jack Monk | Jack Monk, Jr. | Warrick Tennyson |
| Former Characters | Sharona Fleming | Benjy Fleming |
| Related Articles | Episode List | Monk soundtrack | Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse | Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii |
| Official Website | Official site |
