Biography

Coronation Street (1960) was rejected by ITV several times.

He was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to television drama.

Portrayed by David Dawson in The Road to Coronation Street (2010).

He attended Liverpool's Elliott Clarke Theatre School, and was a child actor on the BBC radio show "Children's Hour".

Partner of Ernst Walder (Elsie Tanner's Polish son-in-law Ivan Cheveski) for several years during the 1960s.

[on addiction] Once I went to Amsterdam to get away from it, put on the television and there was Ena Sharples with Dutch subtitles. I put my foot through the screen. After Coronation Street, what do you do for an encore? I had a drink while I thought about it, and one turned into a million.

[on Coronation Street's location] The Queen asked me: 'Where is the real Coronation Street?' I said to her: 'It's wherever you want it to be in your own heart.' And she said, 'I like that.' So that's on the authority of the Queen of England.

[on his sexuality] In those days, if you were going to work in television and you were gay, you had to be three times as good as anyone else. The first Coronation Street writing team contained some of the biggest homophobes I've ever met. I remember getting to my feet in a story conference and saying: 'Gentlemen, I have sat here for two-and-a-half hours and listened to three poof jokes, a storyline dismissed as poofy and an actor described as 'useless for us as he's a poof'. As a matter of fact, he isn't. But I would point out that I am one, and without a poof none of you would be in work today.'

[on his childhood in 1940s Britain] I grew up in a matriarchal society. All the men were at war and I was surrounded by strong women. I expected that, when the men came back, they would take over and bugles would sound at the end of the street and tom-toms would be beaten. It wasn't a bit like that. The women just raised their voices to be heard and went on just as they had done before.

[on formative experiences] I wasn't born in a Coronation Street but it was there in my background, my grandparents still lived in "coronation street". I was the kind of child that people took everywhere, I don't know why but I was never satisfied until I saw the inside of people's houses and the inside of their relations houses. So as a small boy I was carted down to Salford all the time. I was, in a way, the outsider and the outsider sees more.