Anne Kirkbride

English actress Anne Kirkbride captured the attention of UK television viewers - including Prime Minister Tony Blair - through her four-decade run as the long-suffering, famously bespectacled Deidre Barlow on the soap opera "Coronation Street" (ITV, 1960- ). Born June 21, 1954 in the Greater Manchester town of Oldham, England, she was the daughter of cartoonist Jack Kirkbride and his wife, Edna. She developed an interest in acting at an early age, as evidenced by an incident at the age of seven, when her parents found her giving a sermon in a Welsh accent to an empty chapel. Kirkbride began performing with children's theater groups, and after graduating from Counthill Grammar School in 1970, she joined the Oldham Repertory Theatre, where she served as assistant stage manager before landing roles in productions. Stage was Kirkbride's primary interest, and she had to be convinced to audition for a supporting part as a football player's girlfriend in "Another Sunday and Sweet F.A.," a 1972 episode of Granada Television's weekly drama series "ITV Sunday Night Theatre" (ITV, 1969- ). The 17-year-old Kirkbride's performance caught the network's attention, which led to her casting as Deirdre Hunt on "Coronation Street" that same year. Initially a minor role, Deidre and her trademark oversized glasses blossomed into one of the drama's most popular characters, thanks to her tumultuous marriage to Ken Barlow (William Roache). When the characters split over an affair in 1983, the storyline gripped television viewers across the United Kingdom; so popular was their relationship that their reunion was broadcast on the scoreboard of a football game in front of 56,000 fans. Deidre and Ken's happiness would prove short-lived; they would split again in 1993, and her subsequent marriage to waiter Samir Rachid (Al Nedjari) ended with his murder. A third marriage to conman Jon Lindsay (Owen Aaronovitch) led to her imprisonment on false charges of fraud. Once again, Kirkbride was at the center of national attention, so much so that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair asked for Deidre's pardon in the House of Commons in 1998. Off-screen, Kirkbride's life was equally plagued by turmoil: she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1993, on the same day that she buried her mother. She briefly left "Coronation Street" to undergo treatment for the disease, which went into remission in 1998, but the experience left Kirkbride clinically depressed. She rebounded again with the help of antidepressants and returned to the series, eventually reuniting with Ken Barlow, and celebrated her fourth decade in the role with a TV documentary, "Deidre & Me: 40 Years on 'Coronation Street'" (ITV, 2012). Two years later, Kirkbridge took a leave from the series for personal reasons, which were later revealed to be a diagnosis of breast cancer. Kirkbridge succumbed to the disease in a Manchester hospital on January 19, 2015 at the age of 60. The reluctant star's passing made headlines throughout the United Kingdom, while co-stars and peers paid tribute to her at the "20th National Television Awards" (ITV, 2015), which was broadcast just two days after her death.