Farewell to Corrie super baddie Alan
Tributes for actor Mark, who played soap’s most wicked villain
ACTOR Mark Eden, who played Corrie baddie Alan Bradley, the villain whose reign of terror over Rita Fairclough ended when he was hit by a Blackpool tram, has died, aged 92.
Mark, who had Alzheimer’s disease, had been in hospital since November and died “peacefully” early yesterday.
John Whiston, ITV managing director of continuing drama, paid tribute to the actor, whose wife Sue Nicholls, 77, plays Audrey Roberts in Coronation Street. He said: “He was a consummate actor and played the role of psychotic villain to a tee, making the character both chilling and credible.
“The show owes Mark a great deal as he set the template for all the great villains to come, from Hillman and Phelan to our latest, Geoff Metcalfe. “It’s a fantastic dramatic legacy.” Born Douglas John Malin, Mark’s first screen credit was in 1958 with a role in the BBC sci- fi series Quatermass and the Pit.
He later acted in the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago, starring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif, and had TV roles in Doctor Who, The Avengers, London Belongs to Me and Crown Court.
But he is best remembered for his role in Coronation Street, from 1986 to 1989, and that final scene in Blackpool, where he chases Rita, played by Barbara Knox, along the prom. Mark later unveiled a plaque at the tram stop where Alan Bradley died. And speaking in 2013 about the role, he said: “In the early days, Alan was a decent fellow but the producers eventually said, ‘Look, we’ve got this idea. Alan’s a bit of a nutcase’.
“Baddies are the best roles to get and Alan was a very bad boy. At times, it got very, very dark.”
Bradley tried to rape his receptionist and then tried to kill his partner Rita when she found out. She fled to Blackpool but he tracked her down. Eden said the reaction from viewers to the storyline was “incredible”.
He said: “The night I got killed, we had 26.93million people watching. That was almost half the country.”
But he said he later felt typecast, with “countless offers to play psychos”.
His last screen credit was in 2013, in the television movie An Adventure in Space and Time. Eden, who wed third wife Sue in 1993, is also survived by his daughter Polly, stepson Saul, and granddaughter Emma.
The night I got killed half the country watched MARK EDEN ON ALAN BRADLEY’S DEATH SCENE