It was tough but I’m glad Michael’s death was a proper Corrie exit
Amanda Holden finds out a relativelative was a convictonvict in Who Do You Think You Are??
Five-times great grandfatherher Collin was jailedd at 15 for breakinging an apprenticeship.hip. He said he was 17 to join the Royalal Marines to get £11 and 11 shillings.. Amanda said: “My mum won’t’t be happy.”
The BBC series starts Nov 24, 8pm.
Millions of Corrie fans watched in anguish on Friday night as ex-jailbird Michael Rodwell died slowly from a heart attack while begging evil Pat Phelan to help save him. And for actor Les Dennis, the harrowing scenes filmed on his 63rd birthday, brought back very painful, real memories. The star, who has played reformed burglar Rodwell since 2014, says he felt added pressure to play the part sensitively after losing his dad and his old comedy partner Dustin Gee to heart conditions. In his first interview since leaving the cobbles, he says:say “I felt a big responsibility to try to play h his death sensitively. “Michael w was fading in real time, over an hour anda a half or so, and that’s not easy to do. Fortunately Phelan ( Conn Connor McIntyre) gave a wonder wonderful monologue. “I’m glad he had a classic Corrie exit and didn’t wave goodbye in a taxi.” Les’s pal Du Dustin died of aha heart attack in 1986 at 43. He recalls: “W“We were w walking off st stage after p playing Cin Cinderella’s ugly sisters. “I “In the dressi dressing room he felt a p pain in his left arm and said, ‘I think I’m dying’. He collapsed and died two days later in hospital.
“Years before, we’d been the next act the night Tommy Cooper died on stage. Dustin told me, ‘ That’s the way I want to go, with my boots on’. I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for’. I was 29 when my dad died of a heart condition too at 66, although I wasn’t with him at the time.”
Les was given a proper Corrie send-off on his final day of filming. Crew bought him a birthday cake and executive producer Kate Oates led the speeches at a leaving do. Co-star Sue Cleaver, who plays Eileen Grimshaw, even held a surprise bash for him at her home.
Les describes the decision to leave the soap as “agonising”. He says: “My wife Claire and I talked about it for months. Being on Corrie wasn’t just a great role, it also meant I could be around our two children as they settled at school.
“But I knew after a sabbatical that I wanted to do theatre again. Claire said to me, ‘ You were away from home before Corrie. We’ll make it work’.
“And I’d rather leave when Michael was riding high, than in another few years when he could just be making tea for Gail.”
Since leaving last month, he says: “I’ve mourned. I’ve probably spent more of the last two-and-a-half- years talking in his accent than my own. I went back to the studios recently and everyone was in black. They were filming his funeral and his coffin was in a hearse, so Claire took my picture next to it.”
Meanwhile Les’s stage career is being reborn as he plays Mr Maraczek, a 1930s Budapest chemist, in musical She Loves oves Me at London’s Menier Chocolate ate Factory theatre. Next year he’ll play Uncle Fester in The Addams Family. y.
He says his own family, with kidsds Eleanor, eight, and Tom, five, “keepsps me young”. On Thursday it’s his is seventh wedding anniversary withth Claire, who is 17 years his junior.
He says: “We’ve been together 10 years. She’s the glue in our family. y. There’s only room for one ego.”
Leaving the Street was agonising but I knew I wanted to do theatre LES DENNIS ON DECISION TO QUIT THE COBBLES
■ CatchCatc Jennie McAl McAlpine on James Mar Martin’s Christmas wit with Friends, which con concludes on Mo Monday, November 21, at 9pm on Food Net Network