Coronation Street 's Toyah Battersby actress Georgia Taylor has been delighting soap viewers since she made her debut on the ITV soap back in the 90s.
She arrived on the cobbles in 1997, alongside dad Les Battersby (Bruce Jones), mum Janice (Vicky Entwistle) and sister Leanne, played by Jane Danson.
Georgia was just 17 when she made her Corrie debut, and it wasn’t long before the Battersbys, dubbed the ’family from hell’, stirred up trouble in Weatherfield.
Toyah began a romance with eco-warrior Spider Nugent, but she was left heartbroken when he left to go to India.
Her character has endured trials and tribulations during her first stint on the show, and viewers were horrified when Toyah was involved in a harrowing storyline as she was raped by Phil Simmonds.
Toyah left the cobbles in 2003, when she discovered her boyfriend John Arnley had been having an affair with her best friend Maria.
Fans were also stunned to realise that she wasn’t actually called Georgia, but was born Claire Jackson.
She said she had to change her name when she became an actress because there “seemed to be a lot of Claires” when she signed up to register with actors’ union Equity.
“I couldn’t tell you where I got Georgia from, other than I liked it, but my grandad’s surname was Taylor and he passed away not long before I got the part,” she told the Daily Mirror.
“As a teenager I didn’t really think the consequences through of opting for a completely different name, but it’s meant there’s been quite a bit of confusion over the years. At this point I’ll pretty much answer to anything!” she laughed.
Georgia then landed a role on Casualty as Dr. Ruth Winters in 2007, and was a series regular until 2011.
She also appeared in other TV shows including Midsummer Murders, Lewis, Where the Heart is, Law and Order: UK and Life on Mars, and dabbled in theatre, starring alongside Helen Baxendale for The Woman Before.
Georgia played Kate Barker in Law & Order: UK, and had a small role in the ITV sleuth series Agatha Raisin.
The actress also bagged herself a couple of movie roles on her hiatus from Corrie, starring alongside Dominic Cooper and James Corden in the 2006 comedy drama The History Boys, as well as the Jason Statham crime thriller The Bank Job in 2008.
It was announced in 2016 that she would be making her long-awaited return to Weatherfield, and in Christmas that year, Toyah came back to reveal not only had she left her husband, but had struck up a relationship with Peter Barlow, her sister Leanne’s ex.
Since returning, Toyah has endured devastating heartbreak, as she and Peter embarked on a journey to become parents, undergoing IVF before eventually deciding to use a surrogate, but that ended in a tragic loss and a scandalous secret, causing the couple to split.
Off screen, Georgia is dating fellow actor Mark Letheren, after meeting him on the set of Casualty in 2008.
He’s now a budding photographer, and the couple regularly share loved-up snaps on social media.
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