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1-16 of 16
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jean Margaret Hodgkinson, known by the stage name Jean Alexander, was a British television actress. She was best known to British television viewers as Hilda Ogden in the soap opera Coronation Street (1960), a role she played from 1964 until 1987, and also as Auntie Wainwright in the long-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine from 1988 to 2010. For her role in Coronation Street (1960), she won the 1985 Royal Television Society Award for Best Performance, and received a 1988 BAFTA TV Award nomination for Best Actress.
Alexander was born at 18 Rhiwlas Street Toxteth, Liverpool, in 1926, to Nell and Archie Hodgkinson; her father worked as an electrician and the family lived in a terraced house with no indoor lavatory. Alexander had an elder brother, Kenneth. She aspired to become an actress from an early age, and later said that she was inspired by variety acts she saw at the Pavilion theatre in her home city. She attended St Edmund's College for Girls in Princes Park, Toxteth and as a teenager, she joined an amateur theatre group and took elocution lessons.
Alexander spent five years as a library assistant in Liverpool before she began her acting career in 1949 at the Adelphi Guild Theatre in Macclesfield. She first appeared as Florrie in Sheppey by Somerset Maugham. She later worked in rep in Oldham, Stockport and York. Most of her parts were minor, and she also worked as a wardrobe mistress and stage manager. Her television debut is variously given as in the police series Z-Cars or in Deadline Midnight.
Alexander first appeared in Coronation Street in 1962 in a minor role as a landlady. Two years later, she returned to the programme as Hilda Ogden. She started playing the role on 8 July 1964, finally leaving on 25 December 1987. Ogden became highly popular with viewers and Alexander was often identified with her character.
The British League for Hilda Ogden was established in 1979 by Sir John Betjeman, Willis Hall, Russell Harty, Laurence Olivier and Michael Parkinson, among others. In 1984, hundreds of fans sent her condolence cards after the death of her on-screen husband Stan Ogden, played by Bernard Youens, who had died a few months before his character was killed off. In 1985 she received the Royal Television Society Award for her performance on Coronation Street. When she decided to leave the show in 1987, fans started "Save Hilda!" campaigns; however, many did not realise that she had made her own decision to depart. Her final scenes in the programme were aired on 25 December 1987, attracting nearly 27 million viewers, the highest number in the show's history.
In 2005 the UK TV Times poll voted her as the "Greatest Soap Opera Star of All Time".- Avril Angers was one of Britain's finest comedy actresses. Once dubbed Britain's answer to Lucille Ball she was a great exponent of revue, musicals, cabaret and TV and film comedy. Born in Liverpool, Angers' long and successful career in show-business began in variety. Her father was the comedian Harry Angers and her mother was Lillian Errol, a member of the original Fol-de-Rols concert party. She was 14 when she made her debut at a concert party in Brighton and the same age when she played Cinderella with Wee Georgie Wood and Clarkson Rose at Birmingham. She followed in her mother's footsteps and became a Fol-de-Rol. During the Second World War she was one of the hardest working members of ENSA, touring the remotest parts of West Africa. She was awarded the Africa Star for her work and during the forties and fifties was rarely off the London stage or the cinema screen. As an actress she played a variety of roles from Billie Fawn in Born Yesterday to Marigold in the classic film The Green Man (1956), opposite Alistair Sim. Her success in acting led her to becoming one of the first women to have a television series with a proper storyline, Dear Dotty, in 1954. She also partnered TV comedians such as Arthur Askey, Dick Emery and a young Bob Monkhouse. One of the first stand-up comediennes she regularly appeared in cabaret. She won critical appraise for her role as Liz Piper in Roy Boulting's film The Family Way (1966) and was cast opposite Richard Burton and Rex Harrison in the off-beat gay comedy Staircase (1969). In 1964 she stole the notices in the hit London production of Little Me, in which she appeared with Bruce Forsyth, and she headlined in numerous West End comedies and thrillers. Her last public appearance was in October 2005 when she was a guest of honour at the Max Wall Society in London. Her close friend, the variety artiste and strong woman Joan Rhodes, said: "Avril was one of the funniest and most gifted people in show-business. She was very unassuming and comediennes such as Victoria Wood adored working with her."
- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Scott Martin was born on 1 April 1926 in Toxteth, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Doctor Who (1963) and The Meaning of Life (1983). He died on 6 January 2009 in Great Maplestead, Essex, England, UK.- Jake Abraham was born in 1967 in Toxteth, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Mean Machine (2001) and Formula 51 (2001). He was married to Joanna Taylor. He died on 1 October 2023 in England, UK.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Connor McIntyre was born in Toxteth, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He is known for Coronation Street (1960), Drop Dead Gorgeous (2006) and Always and Everyone (1999).- Mary Elizabeth "Mimi" Smith (née Stanley; 24 April 1906 - 6 December 1991) was the maternal aunt and parental guardian of the English musician, John Lennon. Mimi Stanley was born in Toxteth, Liverpool, England the oldest of five daughters. She became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital, and later worked as a private secretary. On 15 September 1939, she married George Smith, who ran his family's dairy farm and a shop in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool.
After her younger sister, Julia Lennon, separated from her husband, Julia and her son, young John Lennon, moved in with a new partner, but Mimi contacted Liverpool's Social Services and complained about him sleeping in the same bed as the two adults. Julia was eventually persuaded to hand the care of Lennon over to the Smiths. Lennon lived with the Smiths for most of his childhood, and remained close to his aunt, even though she was highly dismissive of his musical ambitions, his girlfriends, and wives. She often told the teenage Lennon: "The guitar's all right John, but you'll never make a living out of it".
In 1965, Lennon bought her a bungalow in Poole, Dorset, where she lived until her death in 1991. Despite later losing touch with other family members, Lennon kept in close contact and telephoned her every week, until his death in 1980. The Smiths' house in Liverpool was later donated to The National Trust. - Ken Hodgkinson was born in 1924 in Toxteth, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He died on 4 October 2017 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK.
- Robbie Fowler was born on 9 April 1975 in Toxteth, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Liverpool FC & The Boot Room Boyz: Pass & Move (It's the Liverpool Groove) (1996), Mess (2016) and Match of the Day 2 (2004). He has been married to Kerry Hannon since 9 June 2001. They have two children.
- Nikita Parris was born on 10 March 1994 in Toxteth, England.
- Zillah Bateman was born on 19 May 1886 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Caught in the Net (1928), The Outsider (1939) and Murder in the Night (1939). She was married to Frank Hewitt. She died in 1970 in Purley, Surrey, England, UK.
- Guy Rathbone was born on 29 May 1884 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Julius Caesar (1911) and Macbeth (1911). He was married to Theodora De Selincourt. He died on 21 April 1916 in Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, Turkey.
- Leslie Southwick was born in 1942 in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Aeschylus' Oresteia (Tony Harrison Adaptation), the National Theatre (1983), A Killing on the Exchange (1987) and Warship (1973).
- Amalia Magri was born on 5 September 1903 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, England, UK. She died on 18 April 1989 in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, UK.
- Richard H. Tobin was born on 4 May 1894 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, England, UK. He died in 1979.
- Harry Angers was born on 1 January 1886 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, England, UK. He was an actor, known for My Ain Folk (1945), Little Miss Molly (1938) and Oh for a Plumber! (1933). He was married to Lilian Woods. He died on 17 May 1957 in Paignton, Devon, England, UK.
- Diana Quiseekay was an English cabaret singer and actress. Born and brought up in the Upper Parliament Street area of Liverpool. In 1964 she got her big break when at short notice she was offered a leading part in the Lionel Bart Musical "Maggie May" at the Palace Theatre Manchester, after the departure of Joy Marshall. She carried on in the role when the show moved to the West End at the Adelphi Theatre in September 1964. She was later a resident singer at London's Talk of the Town in 1970. Diana Quiseekay had two separate roles on Coronation Street, Janice in 1967, then Sophie Edwards in 1975. Her other TV credits include Z Cars and Doctor In Charge and she had a film role as Elvira in the Marty Feldman Film, Every Home should have one. She died in Kensington and Chelsea, London in December 1981 at the age of just 49.