Ten Things You Never Knew About Liz Dawn

It’s time, if you can, to cast your mind back to 1974. Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. And Liz Dawn made her first appearance on Coronation Street. For nearly 34 years, she’s steered Vera Duckworth through family crisis after family crisis, more financial ups and downs than a Wall Street trader and a succession of increasingly dodgy perms. What a woman! Before ill health forces her to bid adieu to the Street later this year, why not take the time to get to know Liz a little better? Read on for ten fascinating facts about the Queen of the cobbles.

1. Liz was born Sylvia Butterfield in Leeds on November 8, 1939.

2. How did she choose her stage name? "I wanted a name that created a glamorous image," she recalls. "But I finished up playing a hard-up housewife with hair like Harpo Marx."

3. Before Liz decided to try her luck in showbiz, she held down two jobs to make ends meet. She toiled in a toothpaste factory during the day, while working as a wig-seller in the evening.

4. Liz’s big break was appearing in a TV advert for Cadbury’s biscuits. What goes around, comes around, eh?

5. Liz smoked her first cigarette at 14. “I used to polish my brother’s shoes in exchange for a cig,” she recalls. “Had someone told me they could kill, I’d have been terrified. But it was a glamorous thing to do in those days and all the adverts encouraged you.”

6. In 1996 Liz had collagen injections to smooth out her face. Gasp! What would Vera say?

7. Liz was terrified when she first joined the Corrie cast. "I would grit my teeth, switch on my most confident smile and stride into action as though I'd just called in from the Royal Shakespeare Company," she confesses.

8. Has there been a downside to Liz’s Street success? "It does take over your life," she admits. "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."

9. In 2000 Liz received an MBE for her charity work. She’s raised more than £700,000 for the Liz Dawn Breast Cancer Appeal at St James’ Hospital, Leeds. Nice work!

10. Later that year, she was made lady mayoress of Leeds. Honestly, it never rains but it pours!