Dame Maureen Lipman was flooded with support as she celebrated a special update.
The soap star is renowned for her role as Evelyn Plummer in the long-running ITV show. She joined the cast in 2018 and immediately established herself as a fan favourite.
Evelyn was rocked last year when her estranged daughter, Cassandra, reappeared on the Cobbles. The characters soon repaired their relationship and they are both living with Tyrone Dobbs and his family.
Tyrone is played by Alan Halsall on the show and he took to social media yesterday to wish his onscreen nan well as Dame Maureen celebrated her 78th birthday.
He shared a snap of the two alongside the caption: “Happy birthday nana. Love you Mo.”
Cassandra is played by Claire Sweeney and she also took to social media to send a message. The former Brookside star said: “Happy birthday Darling Maureen I adore you.”
Away from the screen, Dame Maureen was married to writer Jack Rosenthal from 1974 until he died in 2004. Jack was renowned for his work on Corrie and she said Evelyn is the sort of character her late husband would have created.
She said: “She’s a proper battleaxe, and she’s not really redeemed.” Evelyn found love again with Guido Castro who she started dating in 2008.
However, Dame Maureen was heartbroken when Guido died after contracting coronavirus in care home while suffering from Parkinson’s in 2021. The soap star said she feels grateful “to have had two such wonderful men” and revealed she took to art therapy to help cope with the grief.
She told Mirror Online: “My experience is just one of thousands of feeling bewildered and out on a limb. The residual pain, the grief, I let it drip out inclemently. Sometimes I can’t sleep.”
Dame Maureen’s presence on Corrie remains as strong as ever and it appears she has no intentions of leaving the show anytime soon. She launched a fierce defence of the programme when she extended her contract in 2022.
She told Reader’s Digest: “I won’t hear a word against it. It’s full of quite exceptional actors working with very little rehearsal, very little direction.
‘Am I envious of some of my peers? Sometimes, yes. Do I have the right to be? Of course not. Would I like to be in Sex Education? Yes, of course. Am I sorry I’ve signed up with Corrie for another year? No, I’m not.”
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