FROM PENNILESS SINGLE MUM TO SOAP STAR:
With her curly perm, gravelly voice and wicked one-liners, Liz Dawn turned Vera Duckworth into one of Coronation Street’s iconic matriarchs. Following in the footsteps of Annie Walker, Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner, Liz was born to continue Corrie’s tradition of strong, gobby women who ruled the roost.
Husband Jack might have been a lazy, gambling cheat, and son Terry a selfish goodfor-nothing, but they were Vera’s ne’er-do-wells, her flesh and blood.
She could call them all the names under the sun, but woe betide anybody else who did.
When Liz nervously stepped on to the cobbles in 1974, it was initially only a bit-part role as a factory worker and Ivy Tilsley’s pal.
But producers saw huge potential in her no-nonsense portrayal of Vera and promoted her to a regular character with the arrival of husband Jack, played by Bill Tarmey, in 1979.
They became the best of friends in real life, creating one of TV’s most famous love-hate relationships. The bickering “Duckeggs” could not live with or without each other.
It was a case of art imitating life for Liz, whose real-life marriage to second husband Don also suffered its fair share of struggles.
Born Sylvia Butterfield in the front room of her parents’ semi in Leeds, West Yorks, in 1939, she was one of five children. Mum Annie worked at a local factory and dad Albert was a miner.
Liz left school at 15 and married her first husband, coal miner Walter Bradley, when she was just 18. They had one son, Graham.
Money was tight and Liz knew deep down she had married too young, he was not the one, so the marriage collapsed after less than two years. It left Liz a virtually penniless single mum at 20.
Fraught with worry about making ends meet, she was on medication for depression and found work at the same factory as her mum while baby Graham was at nursery.
On a rare night down the pub she met her second husband and love of her life, electrician Don Ibbotson. She recalled: “At the end of the night he said, ‘I can take you home’. I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘I’ve got a car’, and being awkward I said, ‘I don’t like cars’.
“But he gave me a lift home in the end. And he asked to take me out again.”
In January 1965 she was seven months pregnant with the eldest of their three daughters when they went to say, “I do” at Leeds Register Office. Liz said it was “one of the worst days of her life”.
She recalled: “We had our ‘reception’ in Lewis’s restaurant on the top floor, just the six of us [both their parents]. There was a pantomime on in Leeds at the time and the waitress looked at us all dressed up and asked, ‘Are you going to the pantomime?’.
“‘No’, I said. ‘We’ve just been’.” The couple had their three daughters, Dawn, Anne and Julie, in quick succession, and Liz took two jobs to help the family survive: screwing lids on toothpaste in a factory by day, selling wigs by night. But their luck was about to change. After hearing Liz singing in their local pub, Don entered her into a talent contest at a holiday camp near Scarborough. She won. She soon picked up some bookings, and Liz Dawn’s showbusiness career was born. It was singing in gritty working men’s clubs that also helped her find her feisty Vera side. She said: “My worst night was in a miners’ club in Rossington. They didn’t want to listen to me, and in the end I lost my temper up on stage and did the unforgivable and swore at them.
“I used to try to inject a bit of comedy into my act. I like a joke and I found audiences loved a daft remark or two to break the ice.”
Once in her 30s, Liz got the big showbiz break she longed for. After small roles in TV ads she was cast in Colin Welland’s TV play Leeds United. That led to the role in Coronation Street, and Liz and the late Bill Tarmey becoming one of the soap’s most famous comedy double acts. They did what Corrie does best – light and shade, comedy and tragedy, joy and sorrow. Liz was honoured on Michael Aspel’s This is Your Life in 1990 but while her career was riding high, life was not always so rosy for Liz off camera.
She admitted the pressures of fame took their toll as she struggled to juggle it with her young family. And despite their love for each other, Liz and Don separated several times amid blazing rows, and she openly admitted having an affair.
Liz later said of her beloved TV role: “It does take over your life. People don’t realise. They think you’ve had a charmed life. They don’t see that you’ve brought up four children and learnt lines on the train.
“From where I’m looking at it, my life has been a battle – in my career and in my marriage. Playing Vera has been an amazing journey, but
It does take over... people don’t realise. They think you’ve had a charmed life LIZ ON PLAYING VERA DUCKWORTH FOR 34 YEARS
has also put me under pressure.” She added: “It has always been a very volatile marriage. I did have an affair.
“Of course, I regret what happened and the hurt it caused. I think if Don and I hadn’t split up at times, we would’ve ended up killing each other.”
Their most painful split came in 1984, plunging Liz into a deep depression and a battle with the booze. She even considered suicide.
“I tried to find my answers in the bottle,” she said later. “Drinking is no answer to anything. But at the time a drink or two simply seems to ease the pain and help you through the day.
“Hundreds of times I’ve gone to work not feeling 100%. Sometimes I’ve felt suicidal. At times it felt as if the world was closing in on me.” But like Jack and Vera, Liz and Don were meant to be together. Liz got her drinking under control and the couple rekindled their love. Family was everything to Liz. She was devoted to Don and doted on her children and grandchildren. The couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary two years ago, and Don was by her side as she slipped away on Monday night. On screen, Vera’s partnership with Jack ended much sooner. A 30-a-day smoking habit and years of singing in pubs and clubs took their toll and Liz was diagnosed with emphysema in 2004. It was a stark reminder of how precious life is. Liz lost her beloved mum Annie to bowel cancer in 1975, her dad to lung cancer at 70. So, after 34 years on the cobbles, she decided to put her health first and asked to be written out of the soap. But it did not mean putting her feet up.
Fiercely proud of her working-class roots, she continued to be a staunch Labour supporter, most recently campaigning for Tamsin Dunwoody in the 2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election. Liz had appeared at rallies with Tony Blair, who had met her on the set of Corrie a year before he became Prime Minister.
A tireless charity campaigner, she became an ambassador for the British Lung Foundation and helped raise £1million for the St James’s Hospital Breast Cancer Appeal in Leeds. Liz was made an MBE for her services to charity in 2000. Having first met the Queen on set in 1982, the actress joked that the monarch did not recognise her during the service because of her oversized hat.
Liz said: “What would our Jack say? I look like Thora Hird in this hat. Even the Queen said, ‘Are you in disguise?’. I bet she thought I was weird.”
More than 12 million viewers tuned in to watch Vera slip away in January 2008 but it was not her final appearance in Corrie.
Liz briefly returned in 2010 as Vera’s ghost to guide Jack to heaven after he passed away. In one of the most emotional scenes in soap history, the pair shared one last kiss and a dance to Matt Monro’s Softly As I Leave You.
Actor Bill died in 2012. Now, as Liz’s loved ones mourn her, Corrie fans will for ever remember the joy one of TV’s greatest double acts.