William Roache: Coronation Street legend reveals long-running feud he shared with soap icon Pat Phoenix
Coronation Street legend William Roache has revealed that he had a long-running feud with one of the soap’s most iconic actresses, admitting that they did not speak for two years.
The actor, 93, has appeared on the ITV soap for the entire 65 years it has been on air, playing Ken Barlow. Roache, who has never taken an extended break from the show, is the world’s longest-serving soap actor as a result of this, but not all of his years on the show have been happy ones, he revealed during the An Audience with Coronation Street Tour.
He sat on the panel with actors Jane Danson (Leanne Battersby), Jack P Shepherd (David Platt) and Jimmi Harkinsin (Dev Alahan) and revealed that he butted heads with Pat Phoenix, who played the legendary character Elsie Tanner.
According to Manchester Evening News, he told the crowd at the live event that the pair’s frosty relationship was sparked over one scene in which Ken Barlow was set to tell Elsie off for some unkind words she had made to his then-onscreen wife Valerie Tatlock (Anne Reid). However, he revealed that Phoenix took umbrage with the way the scene had been written.
Roache told the audience: “In this scene I told her off and when it came to the rehearsal she said to the director, 'I don’t think she’d take this from this young man'. She wanted to do something at the end and said to me, 'Can you pause with all these things you say at the end and I am going to threaten to throw this ashtray at you'...
“I said ‘No Pat I won’t’. I said ‘As far as I am concerned it is unprofessional’ and we did not talk for two years.”
Phoenix played legendary cobbles resident Elsie Tanner on the ITV soap from 1960 until1973, before returning for an eight-year stint in 1976. Her last appearance as Elsie came onscreen in 1984.
While the frosty relationship between the two lasted two years, Roache said that came to an abrupt end when Phoenix invited him to her birthday part out of the blue. The actor explained: “Two years later, we’re standing together waiting to film a scene, still not talking and it was her birthday coming up. She said, ‘Oh I suppose you’d better come to my party then,’ and we became good friends after that.”