Amanda Barrie was happily married to a man, but was constantly 'hounded' about her sexuality.
The much-loved Carry On actress joined the cast of Coronation Street as Alma Sedgewick, who would later become a Baldwin, in the mid 80s before getting a full contract in 1988.
Amanda's character died in a tragic cervical cancer storyline in 2001, but she still watches the soap "religiously" with her family to this day.
During that time, the actress refused to publicly confirm her sexuality over fears some of her co-stars would have refused to work with her for being gay.
The 86-year-old dated singer Billy Fury in her early 20s after they met filming his semi-autobiographical musical comedy I've Gotta Horse in the mid-60s - and she even turned down his marriage proposal.
In 1967, Amanda got married to theatre director and actor Robin Hunter, but they separated in the mid-80s and he sadly died from emphysema in 2004 before they had divorced.
Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here .
Robin's death happened two years after she came out as bisexual in her hit autobiography It's Not A Rehearsal.
"I was happily married to a man, so I suppose I’m on a sort of line down the middle," she told The Mirror in January 2018.
"Which goes back to me saying if people don’t tell you what the rules are, everybody’s life would be very different. People told you then, ‘Get married, have children’.
"When I did my autobiography, I was being hounded by people asking about my sexuality – which had always been a confusion to me, never mind anyone else. So I did the book because I thought, ‘I’m bloody well putting my side of how it is.’ I wanted it off my chest."
Nobody at Corrie knew apart from Amanda's very close friends, which included Helen Worth (Gail Platt), Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts) and Barbara Knox (Rita Sullivan).
She added: "I was terrified, there was an attitude that certain people wouldn’t work with you, it was taboo. Everything changes so quickly – in a wonderful way."
Amanda dated actress Heather Chasen, but then found the love of her life in the form of crime writer Hilary Bonner.
She got married to Hilary, who is also a former Mirror journalist, in September 2014 after being together for many years.
On what convinced her to tie the knot, Amanda explained: "I’d been with Hilary for years and we didn’t want to get married before. I kept going, ‘Oh my God, I can’t bear one of those receptions. Ugh!’
"Then when I did pantomime I asked my Dandini [Cinderella’s sidekick] where he got married and he said Drury Lane Theatre. And I went, ‘Hilary! That’s it, we’re doing it!’
"It’s my favourite theatre – the first place I went when I arrived in London at 13. I said my prayer on Drury Lane steps, ‘Please can I be in the theatre?’
"I’ve never played there except a charity show, although that was my ambition. So we married there instead."
Their big day happened just two days before Amanda's 79th birthday and was very much a showbiz affair, with former Corrie co-star Helen leading the celebrity charge.
"We had a wonderful day. I’m very anxious about big occasions but I think you have to do it in this day and age to make things legal. And it was great actually, it was memorable," said Amanda.
She jokingly added: "It’s nice for the dog. Our child needed a legitimate parentage! But it hasn’t changed anything. We’re still the same."
Amanda is very fond of her time on Corrie and recently discovered that she is actually related to one of her former co-stars.
During a special Corrie-themed episode of DNA secrets back in 2018, it was revealed that Jenny Connor actress Sally Ann Matthews is her distant cousin.
Amanda was in Corrie with Sally for four years and the pair remained close friends over the years - but had no idea of the family connection for all that time.
Their jaws dropped to the floor when they found out, with Amanda admitting: "I thought I'd come round the corner and you'd go 'oh no not you!'."
Speaking to RadioTimes about her discovery, Sally said: "Waiting for my Corrie cousin to come around the corner was torture – I was praying it was someone I liked!
"The joy when I saw it was Amanda was overwhelming and I thought, ‘well, of course it is, that all makes sense now.’
"We rarely had scenes together but, because of the way we worked back then, we were all in the rehearsal room together and knew everyone really well. I think we share a naughty, slightly bonkers streak."
xx
This week, Amanda admitted she believes she would have been sacked from the soap if she had come out as lesbian during the 80s.
Speaking on the Conversation Street podcast, she said: "Every week I would come up to the office. They’d go, ‘You’re coming out.’ ‘Am I?’. ‘Yeah, they’ve got this thing on you.’
"I spent a fortune on solicitors because believe me if that had happened to me at that time they would not have kept me in Coronation Street and I will stand by that.
"Not because of them [the producers] but because of people, who shall be nameless, who would’ve said, ‘I’m not working with her.’
"Now, I fall about, I said, ‘Bloody hell, are they opening a gay club in Coronation Street now?’
"What’s going on? How many are they? They’re all coming out. Why didn’t they come out when I was there? I good have had so many hooks if they’d come out.
"I was ahead of the game."
Do you have a story to share? Email webfeatures@trinitymirror.com
