Bill and his bond with his children
The star has fathered five kids. He had Linus and Vanya from his first marriage and Edwina, Verity and James with second wife Sara.
Lookalike son Linus, 58, followed in his father’s footsteps and has starred in Law & Order and Vikings.
Linus shares his dad’s spirituality, saying: “I realised success as an actor alone wouldn’t make me happy. I needed to explore my spiritual side in more depth.”
He has described Bill as an inspiration to him, but added that fans were always mobbing his famous father wherever they went.
He said: “We went for a walk together and these young girls were saying, ‘Oh, we love Bill Roache, we’ve always had a thing for him’.”
Keeping it in the family, Linus and his younger half-brother William James, 36, both appeared in Coronation Street in 2010, playing Ken Barlow’s long-lost son and grandson James and Lawrence.
That same year James played a younger version of
Bill in BBC drama The Road to Coronation Street about
Tony Warren’s initial attempts to bring Corrie to TV. He said of preparing for the role: “I watched old clips of Daddy. He was very dashing. It’s the Roache genes.”
During one of Bill’s worst moments – being falsely accused then cleared of sexual offences in 2014 – his daughter Verity, 41, was his “rock”, constantly by his side.
She works as an interior designer – despite her father once saying he hoped she would be seen on-screen in the Rovers as an extra. Off-screen, he has faced tragedy with daughter Edwina, who died from a viral infection at just 18 months in 1984.
He later said he believes her to be a nurse in the afterlife, adding: “She is helping other children who have passed over to understand what has happened.”
Vanya died aged 50 from a liver condition in 2018, but Bill was unable to say goodbye to her after he crashed his car in snow on the way to the hospital. “To not be able to say goodbye to Vanya was awful,” he said. “But I take some comfort in now knowing she is in a better place and at peace.
“I like to think about the happier times we had.”