Bill Roache admits he 'lied to get first job - then told pack of lies for another'

Now 93, Bill, who has been a fixture on the cobbles since the first episode of Coronation Street on December 9, 1960, recalls being invited to an audition at an address in London’s Belgrave Square.

He says: “This guy asked me to talk about myself and he said he had a part for me. He handed me the phone and the guy at the other end said there were two days work at £49 a day. He said, ‘You are a member of Equity (the actors’union) aren't you?’ I heard this voice tell me to say ‘yes’.

"Two days later I got the contract and then I went to the Equity head office and I told them I had been offered this part and I was not a member. They told me to fill this form in.

"Normally you had to be from a drama school or had gone to theatre school. From then on, I met real actors for the first time and found out about a magazine that had all the contacts in and I wrote lots of letters."

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Before acting, Bill, whose dad was a doctor, had a place to take up at medical college after he completed two years’ National Service in the Gulf with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, where he reached the rank of captain.

But he wanted to act, saying: “I was in the drama society at school and my mother directed, so I wanted to get into it. Every film I went to see I would take the name of the director and I would write to him. I did not get many replies!”

But after blagging his Equity card, Bill’s bravado knew no limits. He admits: "I went straight into an agent's office one day and told a pack of lies. I knew there was a Colwyn Bay rep, I knew the names of the actors and I had been to see one or two plays there, so I said that I had been in Colwyn Bay rep.

"This agent said ‘Oh that sounds very good. I have got a job if you like it? It is a juvenile lead in Clacton-on-Sea’. I said ‘Yeah, great thank you’. “ With his foot in the door, Bill then turned to acting legend Laurence Olivier for career advice.

He says: "I knew Olivier had just formed a company of his own and knew he was playing in the West End, so I wrote a note to him. Amazingly, I got a letter back from Sir Laurence, saying ‘come to the stage door at 7.15pm and I will see you’.

"I thought ‘wow,’ so at 7pm I was there. I went in and while he was getting made up, he was telling me about how he was going to America to make a film with Marilyn Monroe. "He said to me ‘What can I do for you?’ I told him I was 35 and was finding it difficult to get work. I said ‘a word from you would be worth a million more than anything from anybody else’.

"He said to me ‘don't give up’. I can’t tell you how wonderful that was from a man who I thought was the greatest actor in the country. His words telling me not to give up buoyed me and I left there feeling as if I was walking on air."

Soon Bill landed a role on a weekly Play of the Week series on ITV. Then just weeks later, Corrie creator Tony Warren wanted him for a new northern soap he was writing. Bill says: “I was filming at Granada and unbeknown to me Tony Warren took the Coronation Street casting director down to the studios and pointed to me and said, ‘he is the one I want for Ken Barlow’.

"At the time, I had a little flat in Notting Hill (west London). My agent rang and said ‘I think they want you. It is for a northern comedy’. "I thought ‘I have got this lead in a play coming out. I don't want to go back up to Manchester’. So, he rang a few days later and said ‘look, this series is only going to run for 11 weeks. It is going to go out on a Monday and a Friday, so on the Wednesday you can do your play. It is great publicity.’ I thought ‘ok, I will do it. It is only 11 weeks’. I am still waiting to go back and pick up my career!"

In Coronation Street, Bill has worked with greats like Violet Carson, who played the fearsome Ena Sharples, Doris Speed who was the original Rovers Return landlady Annie Walker and Pat Phoenix, who played fiery Elsie Tanner.. "Doris Speed was a real character,” he says. “We used to have a bridge room in the rehearsal room and if she ever had a good hand she would stand up. That would not be very good in poker, but she had the authority which was very good."

"Also, when the show first started it was supposed to be called Florizel Street. They had to get the right title and they changed it to Coronation Street. I mean Florizel? That sounds like a sanitary detergent."

He recalls Frank Pemberton, who played his father Frank Barlow, struggling with some of the live scenes. He says: "In the early days, we did the first show live and the second one was recorded, but it was done as live. Frank often used to get into trouble with his words. "One day he wrote a word on his hard boiled egg on the living room table on the set. But I saw him smash it before he got to the word he needed to remember. Thankfully, he managed to get through it!” And he reveals how he thinks Corrie’s success is down to its realism.

He says: "When I joined the cast there were only about 15 of us and nobody was really that well known. It really hit the pulse of the nation. It was a time when realism was sweeping through the theatre. Like we had Marlon Brando and James Dean in the films and Look Back in Anger in the theatre. It was kitchen sink drama, so that was it. We zoomed to the top of the ratings and we have not been out of the top 10 in 65 years."

Ken Barlow’s popularity has also never waned. Something of a ladies’ man, he‘s enjoyed romances with a string of characters, played by stars including Dame Joanna Lumley, Denise Black and even Hollywood icon Stephanie Beacham. But his favourite was, of course, the late Anne Kirkbride, who played Deirdre for 21 years - who he married twice.

Paying tribute to Anne, who died aged 60 from cancer in 2015, Bill says: "I was so lucky. I remember a writer once saying ‘Ken and Deirdre should be together’. There was always a laugh when she was around. She was a brilliant actress. Absolutely spot on with her lines and her comedy timing was immaculate. She was a perfect acting partner and was a lovely person too. I really miss her.

"Anne Reid played my first wife and she has done incredibly well. We met recently for my birthday and all we did was laugh. She was such a good wife and Ken really loved her." Bill also has fond memories of working with actress Julie Goodyear, now 83, who played Street firebrand and ex Rovers landlady Bet Lynch for almost 37 years.

In 2023, Goodyear's husband Scott Brand revealed she had dementia. Bill says of Julie: "She did some wonderful scenes. She was a powerhouse and that came out of the camera and into your homes. " Meanwhile, Bill says he would like to keep working on the cobbles until he is 100 - if the director is prepared to put up with him laughing while he tries to remember his lines. .

He says: "Once the director upstairs said to me ‘now, just stop it. It is unprofessional. I am coming downstairs’. I remember he came down and someone had a paper hat and they put it on my head. So I am sitting there with a paper hat on and he lectured us on how we were being unprofessional, but once you start (giggling) you can’t stop. The more angry someone gets the more you do it. I am absolutely terrible."

His Corrie family will certainly be happy to raise a pint to Ken in The Rovers on his centenary - and the more laughs the merrier!

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