Dame Maureen Lipman says her dog dying on ‘Coronation Street’ “brought back” the passing of her real-life pooch.
Dame Maureen Lipman says the death of Evelyn's dog on Corrie brought back the passing of her own pooch
The 76-year-old actress' character on the ITV1 soap, Evelyn Plummer, lost her beloved greyhound Cerberus after the mischievous mutt ate an Eccles cake - and the currants prompted kidney failure - but the fictional doggie death reminded her of the “awful” time she had saying goodbye to her own hound Diva via video call, because she had filming commitments at the time.
She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “Last year, my 16-year-old dog Diva had to be put down. She’d been coughing for weeks so I knew it was the end.
“The awful thing was, I was filming in Salford so I had to say goodbye to her on Zoom. It was horrible. The story with Cerberus brought all that back.”
Maureen thought the dog who played Cerberus knew it was his last day on the cobbles because he looked so dejected.
She said: “The animal looked so hangdog on its last day, I swear he knew the storyline. It was incredibly sad. One of the girls in makeup asked if I needed a tear stick. I told her I needed something to stop me crying, not start me.”
The ‘Educating Rita’ star labelled her on-screen persona “a terrible old bat”, but confessed art does, in fact, imitate life sometimes.
Maureen said: “We’re very alike. Like her, I am assertive, I do stand my ground but, unlike her, I don’t steal bottles of brandy from convenience stores.
“But I know that woman inside out. I know where she shops, I know why she’s tight. I know why she wouldn’t get her vest off when she had a lover.”
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