Actress and star of Coronation Street

Born: November 8, 1939;

Died: September 25, 2017

LIZ Dawn, who has died aged 77, was one of a long line of extraordinary characters that have always been central to the success of Coronation Street. From the very first episode of the soap, the show relied on its impressive and slightly frightening female leads – Hilda Ogden, Elsie Tanner, Ena Sharples and the like – and Liz Dawn as Vera Duckworth was a perfect example of the best of them. She was loud, she was loyal to (and critical of) her layabout man Jack, and – like Liz Dawn herself in her early life – she was always struggling to make a living in poorly-paid jobs.

In all, Dawn appeared in the Street, off and on, for nearly 40 years, having won the role despite having no training as an actress. She had, however, worked her way up through the traditional Northern route to showbusiness, singing in working men’s clubs. Performing as Elizabeth Dawn - it sounded much more glamourous than her real name, Sylvia Butterfield – she also worked in a factory during the day, experience which served her well when she started playing Vera, who worked as a machinist for Mike Baldwin. She was the only member of the cast, she said, who really knew how to work a sewing machine.

Dawn’s first appearance in the soap was as an occasional character, pretty much in the background, but she proved popular and when her husband was introduced (played by Bill Tarmey), they quickly became a soap-opera couple to rival Hilda and Stan. In the early days, Vera was very similar to Hilda – a battleaxe who took no nonsense from anybody – but over the years she softened and viewers appreciated the real affection that Jack and Vera had for each other. It seemed to reflect viewers’ lives but also delivered what Coronation Street has always had in big Northern dollops: a sense of humour.

Liz Dawn was born in Leeds where her father Albert was a miner and her mother Annie worked in a tailoring factory. Albert had to quit his job when he was badly injured in an accident and money was always tight in the family. Liz Dawn herself also had a terrible accident as a child, falling over and ripping open her top lip. She had to undergo pioneering surgery in which skin was grafted from Liz's arm.

Dawn left school at 15 and three years later married miner Walter Bradley – it was a disaster. She gave birth to a son Graham in 1958 but she felt trapped in the marriage and moved back in with her mum and dad before she was 21. Many years later, her view of the marriage was that they were both too young and naive.

Back home, she round work in the same factory where her mother worked, which was the first of a series of poorly-paid jobs. Dawn said that one of the dispiriting jobs she had to do was screwing caps on toothpaste tubes; she also sold wigs and worked on the lightbulb counter at Woolworth’s.

Her life started to turn around when she met her second husband Don Ibbertson, whom she married in 1965. It was Don who spotted her talent for singing and encouraged her to find work as a singer in nightclubs. He entered her in a talent contest at a holiday camp, she won, and she embarked on her new career.

For the next five years, she worked in factories during the day and sang in clubs at night, which eventually led to the offer of television work. By the 1970s, she was getting semi-regular work in supporting roles on shows such as Z Cars and Crown Court. She also worked on the comedian Larry Grayson’s TV show as well as doing more serious work, on Play for Today – one of her notable appearances was in Colin Welland’s 1974 play Leeds United.

Coronation Street came along the same year, although at first the part of Vera was not a regular. Later, her husband Jack was introduced and they became fixtures of the programme, moving into No 9 Coronation Street (notorious as the one with the tacky blue cladding). Later, viewers also came to know the couple’s ne’er-do-well Terry, who was sometimes in prison, sometimes at home causing his mother grief.

In the first few years of her time on the show, it was all pretty happy for Dawn, who suddenly found she had fame and plenty of money, although she said that the role later led to her having an identity crisis. “My life is so different to Vera’s,” she said. “I live in a nice house, have four wonderful children, I can afford nice holidays. But there have been times when I longed to stay in Vera’s house with the yellow and blue stone cladding because her life seemed so much simpler.”

Among the issues Dawn struggled with in her personal life was the workload in Corrie (“people think you’ve had a charmed life,” she said, “but they don’t see you’ve brought up four children and learnt the lines on the train”). Her second marriage also broke down and the couple separated several times before eventually reconciling for good. One of the break-ups in 1984 also led to Dawn turning to drink for a time.

Later, Dawn’s health also began to deteriorate. A lifelong and committed smoker, she was diagnosed with emphysema in 2004 which eventually led to her leaving Corrie four years later. She once said that she would player Vera until her dying day, but eventually she was forced to admit that she could not continue. She later became an ambassador for the British Lung Foundation and held an honorary doctorate from Leeds Metropolitan University.

Liz Dawn is survived by her husband and her four children.