(born '''Deirdre Anne Hunt''', formerly '''Deirdre Langton''' and '''Deirdre Rachid''') is a long-running character on the British
Soap Opera ''
Coronation Street ''. She has been played by
Anne Kirkbride since
1972 . Deirdre has worked in the past as a councilwoman, but she is most often seen at the Corner Shop, first helping
Renee and
Alf Roberts in the
1970s , and then Dev Alahan two decades later.
Deirdre's trademarks include a gravelly, scratchy voice (intensifying over the years due to actress Anne Kirkbride's real-life
Chain Smoking ) and very big
Eyeglasses . She wore the same style of glasses for almost 30 years, before Dev Alahan crushed them with a box when she put them down for a second. Today, her frames are much smaller than they used to be. Interestingly, Anne Kirkbride does not wear glasses at all, opting for
Contact Lenses . For the first couple of years, Deirdre's glasses on the show did not have any sort of lenses.
In the past, Deirdre's boyfriends have included the characters Billy Walker (
Ken Farrington ),
Mike Baldwin (
Johnny Briggs ) and Dave Barton (the actor who played Dave,
David Beckett , is now Anne's partner). She also went through a messy divorce when her first husband,
Ray Langton , decided to leave the country in
1978 . Deirdre stayed behind with their daughter,
Tracy . It was after this that Deirdre first went out with Mike Baldwin, and attempted reconciliation with Billy Walker (her ex-
Fiancé ), but she soon realised that Ken Barlow was better suited to her.
In
1981 , over 24 million viewers watched Deirdre's wedding to
William Roache 's character,
Ken Barlow (which received higher ratings in
Britain than the wedding of the
Prince Of Wales to
Lady Diana Spencer ). The marriage got into trouble when Deirdre, feeling insecure, began an affair with Mike Baldwin in late
1982 . The story ran on into
1983 and was a ratings winner, the first Corrie story to be written about in length in many of the country's newspapers. The episode in which Deirdre broke things off with Mike Baldwin after reconciling with Ken was a national event (including being announced on the scoreboard during a
Manchester United match, leading to cheers from the spectators).
Since then she and Ken have divorced and got back together again. In the interim, however, Deirdre had become a widow; her Moroccan husband, Samir Rachid, was killed by thugs on the day before he was to give his kidney to her daughter, Tracy (who had suffered kidney failure after a drug overdose).
The most controversial storyline Kirkbride had to play was when her character was sent to prison in
1998 for a crime she did not commit. The British public started a big grassroots campaign, pleading
Granada Television to "''free the Weatherfield One''". The Home Secretary even involved Prime Minister
Tony Blair , who, with only a touch of irony, attempted to intervene on Deirdre's behalf.
Deirdre's love life still causes the occasional hassle for her. In December
2001 , Deirdre once again became unsatisfied with her life with Ken, after rowing with Ken and his son Peter, Deirdre slept with Dev Alahan, her boss at the Corner Shop. Afterwards, Dev rejected Deirdre and she subsequently kept her liaison a secret from Ken for over a year, until early 2003, when Dev started dating her daughter Tracy! This prompted Deirdre to confess her fling to both Tracy and Ken, but Ken forgave her and the two have subsequently lived happily together, dealing with the traumas of their children's turbulent love lives rather than their own.
Deirdre's ex-husband Ray Langton eventually returned to the Street in
2005 and announced that he was dying from
Cancer . He died while attending a wedding, which led his biological daughter Tracy to wonder how much money Ray had.
Eventually, Deirdre and Ken were engaged to be married yet again, and tied the knot on
April 8 ,
2005 . The marriage was supposed to coincide with the wedding of the Prince of Wales and
Camilla Parker Bowles , just as Ken and Deirdre's first marriage coincided with Charles and Diana's nuptials, but scheduling conflicts by the royal family ended up throwing the date off by one day. Nearly 13 million people watched the television event. Only nine million watched the royal nuptials; Ken and Deirdre's second ratings victory against the royal family made the national newspapers.
