Coronation Street and Dinnerladies star Anne Reid made a CBE
She has received three Bafta nominations during her career.
Coronation Street star Anne Reid has become a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours, for her services to drama.
Reid, 89, played Ken Barlow’s (William Roache) first wife, Valerie Barlow, in the ITV soap during the 1960s and 1970s, until her character was electrocuted by a dodgy hairdryer.
Born in Newcastle, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) trained star had smaller roles in classic shows such as Hancock’s Half Hour before joining Coronation Street, and later appeared in Last Tango In Halifax and Dinnerladies.
Her father was a journalist at Newcastle paper the Evening Chronicle, and he later took up a post at the Daily Telegraph.
Reid went to a private boarding school in Wales, Penrhos College, where she discovered her love of acting, and then attended Rada and worked in repertory theatre.
Her storylines in Coronation Street involved the birth of their children, twins Susan, last portrayed by Joanna Foster, and Peter, played by Chris Gascoyne, and being held hostage by a rapist.
She left the soap in 1971, when millions watched her die after the faulty plug and hairdryer mishap, as Valerie was preparing to meet Ken at the Rovers for a party.
In the Victoria Wood sitcom Dinnerladies, Reid played canteen worker Jean, who was known for her put-downs and arguments with her friend Dolly Bellfield (Thelma Barlow) as well as a running gag about refusing to wear glasses.
Between 2012 and 2020 she played Celia Dawson in Last Tango In Halifax, in which she and Alan Buttershaw, played by Sir Derek Jacobi, rekindle their childhood romance in their 70s, after they have been widowed.
She was nominated for a TV Bafta for best actress for the role.
She received a Bafta film nod for best actress in a leading role for the 2003 film The Mother, in which she played a woman who discovers romance with a younger man, played by Daniel Craig, after the death of her husband, and the impact it has on her children.
She also received a TV Bafta best actress nomination for the 2023 true crime drama The Sixth Commandment, which explored the deaths of Ann Moore-Martin and Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, and also starred Timothy Spall.
Other movie roles have included Wendolene Ramsbottom, Wallace’s love interest, who first appeared in Wallace And Gromit short film A Close Shave (1995), village florist Leslie Tiller in Hot Fuzz (2007), and the TV film role of romance novelist Dame Barbara Cartland in 2000’s In Love With Barbara.
She appeared in BBC science fiction series Doctor Who as a shape-shifting villain in the 2007 episode Smith And Jones, and in Ladies Of Letters, Sanditon, Years And Years and Bleak House.
Reid is also known for BBC One drama Five Days, in which she played a mother, Jen Mason, who is beginning to show early signs of Alzheimer’s but also finds romance.
She appeared in a production of Hedda Gabler at London’s Old Vic and the National Theatre’s production of Happy Now?
She will next appear in Riot Women, about middle-aged punk rockers.
She married TV producer Peter Eckersley in the 1970s. He died in 1981.
Reid was made an MBE in the 2010 Birthday Honours.
