Alan Halsall has spent more of his life on-screen than he has off it. This year the actor is celebrating 24 years on the cobbles where he is best known for playing Tyrone Dobbs, the role he bagged on Coronation Street when he was 15-years-old.
He made his Weatherfield debut in November 1998 as the delinquent son of Jackie Dobbs. At sixteen, he left his mother and her difficult ways behind and trained as an apprentice mechanic under Kevin Webster and 10 years later ended up buying half the business.
Throughout the year's Corrie fans have seen Tyrone's storylines focused on his relationships, starting with first love Maria Sutherland, now Windass, before finding on-and-off love with Fiz Stape. But there was also the case of his doomed marriage to Molly Compton and the storyline which saw him suffer shocking domestic violence at the hands of his fiancée Kirsty Soames (Natalie Gumede).
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And in 2018, after spending years like Jack and Vera Duckworth's very own son, Tyrone discovered that Jackie was not his biological mother and while searching for his birth parents, meets his maternal grandmother, Evelyn Plummer with Maureen Lipman making the character her own and the cobbles her home.
While he's well known to fans for playing Tyrone, one of Alan’s early roles was playing Ollie for five episodes in Children’s Ward between 1997 and 1998. The 39-year-old also had roles in Queer as Folk, Heartbeat and The Cops before he stepped onto the cobbles in 1998.
But even after all these years, Alan is still loving life on the famous street. "I absolutely love it," he told us. "I don't wan't to [leave]. I've been there a long, long time. I was talking about that... it's 24 years going on now." But it's fair to say Alan is still a soap pin up for many of Corrie's fans and he has recently been sharing his fitness journey on social media. He has been heading to the gym and recently shared a sweaty workout mirror selfie and commented: "In between scenes today," before adding: "No excuses."
Away from the Salford-based set, Alan married former Coronation Street and current Hollyoaks actress Lucy-Jo Hudson in 2009. They welcomed daughter Sienna-Rae three years later. However, the couple split in March 2016 and divorced in 2018.
"We're so amicable. We get on and we speak every day. He comes round for a brew. We will maintain as mummy and daddy," Lucy-Jo, who starred in the ITV soap as Katy Harris from 2002 to 2005, told the Loose Women at the time.
However, things had clearly turned sour by February 2020 after the pair had both moved on when Alan appeared to lash out at his ex and her new man in a scathing Instagram post when Lucy-Jo's partner Lewis Devine referred to Sienna as 'Our Sienna.' Alan has since admitted he doesn't have much communication with his ex anymore apart from to discuss their daughter.
"There's always going to be ups and downs with a blended family," he told OK! Magazine in July 2020 when opening up about co-parenting Sienna. "So long as Sienna comes first in all of it, that's all that matters. Sienna's got her mum and dad, and she's also got Lewis and Tisha. It's just a case that everybody loves her.
"Of course there will be differences of opinion; so long as we're in that loving way when Sienna is around. We don't have a great deal of communication, it's only ever about Sienna and that's all it ever needs to be."
But it sounds like Alan and Lucy-Jo may have a mini-me on their hands. "You try to steer them away from the industry that you know so well, but she is a little actress," Alan told the Mirror. "She loves to sing and dance and perform but she’s also obsessed with animals and insects. I say, ‘Oh, you could be a vet,’ and she goes, ‘Yeah, but I’d like to be an actress.' Whatever she wants to do she’ll have my full support, just like my parents supported me."
Alan is now in a relationship with former Corrie co-star Tisha Merry. The Salford actor has previously revealed his relationship with Tisha developed naturally and started out as friendship. Alan said he and Tisha lived less than a mile away from each other in Worsley and found they had a lot in common.
"I’d really got into hot yoga and someone mentioned that Tisha was going to the same studio so I thought we could go together. We got on so well and after that we spent a lot of time together," told OK! magazine. Tisha played waitress Steph Britton in Corrie from 2013 to 2016 and made a brief return to Weatherfield in 2018.
The pair played badminton, enjoyed walks and went for dinner together. They enjoyed nine months of friendship before their relationship developed into romance over a bottle of wine and a game of Scrabble, and Tisha moved into the the six-bedroom home that Alan designed in Worsley.
During their first joint interview in the summer of 2020, Tisha, who moved in with him back in 2019, the pair discussed plans to have their own kids together. "He’ll be so amazing," she told OK! "When we were still friends, I got asked to babysit and asked Alan to come along.
"We got there and it was just Alan babysitting. He’s such a good dad; he’s so caring and loving. He notices everything and his communication with Sienna is so strong. I would love that for our child if we have one." On being a step-mum, she said at the time: "In all honesty, I've had a few times where I've thought 'Oh my god, my life has changed so much'. It's crazy but it's changing for the better. When I first got together with Alan and I became a bigger part of Sienna's life, my dad said 'this will be the making of you."
As already mentioned the pair live together in Alan's very own mega mansion. Fans of the soap star were left floored last summer when enjoyed a garden party with co-star Andy Whyment and his family and shared some snaps on social media.
Andy, 41, who plays Kirk Sutherland, his wife Nichola and their children Tom and Hollie posed in the garden with Alan, Tisha, Sienna and fellow guests in a photo shared on Instagram as they enjoyed time in the sunshine together. Alan captioned the snap 'we are family' - and fans were stunned by the gorgeous mansion which has a large patio and garden.
Tisha has previously given followers a look inside their home on her YouTube channel. The £750,000 five-bedroom home features a playroom for Sienna as well as a glamorous living room with three brushed velvet sofas. Alan also gave his followers another look at the outside of his house when he bought a new car last year - a flash red Mercedes.
