Alison King is best known for playing feisty factory boss Carla Connor, now Barlow, on Coronation Street for the past 17 years.
But her latest storyline has seen her become the target of ‘accidental’ serial killer Stephen Reid.
Cash-strapped Stephen has already killed Rovers landlady Jenny’s boyfriend Leo Thompkins and his dad Teddy.
In scenes which aired last week, viewers saw Stephen slip LSD into Carla’s drinks in a bid to make her look like her psychosis was returning so he could try and take over her business.
Not knowing she was under the influence, Carla got behind the wheel of an Underworld van and ended up smashing into Paul Foreman, who was trying out her husband Peter’s new motorcycle.
The knicker factory boss now fears she could lose everything if Paul decides to sue over his injuries.
But before she appeared on the cobbles as a regular character in 2006, Alison got her big break in another soap.
She also enjoyed a career as a model in the 1990s and has dated some of her famous co-stars. Here we look at her life and career before becoming one of Corrie’s most-loved characters.
Modelling career
The 49-year-old actress is originally from Leicester, but moved to Newquay when she was 18 to work in a surf shack.
A keen surfer herself in her spare time, she then spent four years working as a dental nurse before enrolling in the North Cheshire Theatre School at the age of 22.
In the years that followed, Alison worked as a model in the late 1990s, becoming the face of Boddingtons beer and having a recurring role in the Daz adverts.
But her first big acting break was in Brookside, which has returned to TV screens in 2023 after 20 years.
Alison appeared in two episodes of the Channel 4 soap as a hair salon crimper.
Big acting break
Her next role – and best known aside from Corrie – is as Lynda Block in Sky One’s Dream Team.
She went on to date her co-star Jim Alexander, who she became engaged to, but they called it off soon after.
In 2004 she appeared in Corrie as a one-off character called Mrs Fanshaw, brought in to ‘sex up’ Ryan Thomas ’ character Jason Grimshaw.
After impressing soap bosses, Alison was cast as Carla Connor and made her debut on the cobbles in 2006.
Some of her character’s biggest storylines include being raped by her boyfriend Frank Foster, which led to her winning Best Actress at the British Soap Awards in 2012.
This had a massive impact and saw a rise in rape cases reported to the police and an 800% increase in calls to rape support organisations after it aired.
She has also won praise for the portrayal of Carla’s psychosis, a big storyline in 2019.
Personal life
Off-screen, Alison keeps a very low profile and isn’t on social media.
But we know she was previously engaged to Adam Huckett, a Coronation Street sound technician, who she shares her daughter Daisy with, who is now 14. They never married and split in 2012.
Alison has spoken of feeling “immense guilt” as Daisy came into the world the same day her co-star Kym Marsh lost her baby boy in February 2009, who was born 21 weeks early and tragically only lived for a few moments.
Speaking on BBC 's Morning Live, Kym revealed Alison couldn’t properly enjoy being a new mum knowing what her friend was going through.
She said: “My friend Alison King, a really good friend of mine, gave birth to her daughter on the very same day I lost my son – literally hours apart. And the immense guilt that she felt at the fact she’d delivered her baby so safely and I’d lost my son was such a hard time for both of us.”
Alison later went on to have a five-year relationship with Corrie co-star Philip Middlemiss, who played Des Barnes.
In November 2018, Alison was pictured with a new ‘mystery man’, who she revealed was IT consultant David Stuckley when they announced their engagement in OK! magazine a year later.
But in May 2022 it was reported the pair had split after ‘growing apart’ during lockdown.
Surgery
Alison sucked her thumb when she was a child which left her feeling self-conscious about her teeth.
As a drama student she underwent corrective surgery, but in 2015 admitted to having more work done.
She told dentistry.co.uk: “As an actress onscreen I’d began to notice how my top and bottom front teeth had been pushed into the middle where my thumb had been.
“The inside bottom four teeth around the gum line were much shorter than the rest of the teeth.
“It was during my time at drama school that I decided to undergo cosmetic surgery at a dental practice in London. However, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the final result and always felt there was room for improvement."
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