Creation
Betty Driver, who had been performing since she was 8 years old, retired from acting in her late forties to run hotels in Cheshire and Derbyshire. It was here that she was spotted by one of her customers, producer of Coronation Street, Harry Kershaw, who persuaded her to audition for the role of Hilda Ogden in 1964; she eventually had to turn the role down as she was tied into an advertising contract with Procter & Gamble and they refused to release her. The part of Hilda eventually went to Jean Alexander. Driver has commented, "Harry Kershaw, producer of Coronation Street, persuaded me to audition for Hilda Ogden – just think I could have been wearing curlers for 30 years." In 1969, she was cast as the new character, Betty Turpin. Commenting on her casting in 1999, Driver said, " said, 'Betty, how would you like to pull pints for us on television?', and that was it. I suppose I expected I'd be there for perhaps a few months. But it just went on and on and, well, they've never managed to get rid of me."
Following her first appearance in 1969, Driver remained in the role of Betty continuously. She suggested in 1999 that if she gave up she would die "within a month from sheer boredom". In a 2006 interview she laughed off the notion of retirement, saying: "From day one on The Street everyone has been very kind to me. In fact, I'm godmother to Bill Roache's son. So as long as they want me, I'm happy to stay. The Street is like home and they really are my family." She confirmed her intention to remain on the show in 2010, when the character celebrated her 90th birthday. In May 2010, the News of the World reported that Driver had decided to retire, just prior to the actress's 90th birthday. Driver was distressed by the rumour, and assured producer Phil Collinson of her intention to remain with the soap, and was told that Betty was very much a part of plans for the series' upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations. Driver died on 15 October 2011, having appeared in over 2,800 episodes of Coronation Street.
Read more about this topic: Betty Williams (Coronation Street)
Famous quotes containing the word creation:
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“One of the necessary qualifications of an efficient business man in these days of industrial literature seems to be the ability to write, in clear and idiomatic English, a 1,000-word story on how efficient he is and how he got that way.... It seems that the entire business world were devoting its working hours to the creation of a school of introspective literature.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)