Tributes as ‘Father of Coronation Street’ Tony Warren dies
He was still a consultant on the ITV series until his death, at the age of 79, and he regularly returned to offer feedback to actors.
But Warren was “no more than a young boy” when the programme first aired, on December 9, 1960, according to Corrie’s longest-serving actor, Bill Roache, who appeared in the first episode.
Roache led tributes to “the father of Coronation Street”, Warren, who died aged 79. He said: “When I first met Tony, I couldn’t quite believe he’d created and written Coronation Street, because he was no more than a young boy.
“It was his boyish energy, even recently when I saw him again, that I’ll remember. I loved Tony’s energy. He was the father of Coronation Street and he gave us all so much.”
Born Anthony McVay Simpson in Eccles, Manchester, Warren adopted his stage name in his early acting career as a child star.
He trained at the Elliott Clarke Theatre School, in Liverpool, and became a regular on Children’s Hour, on BBC Radio.
He also acted in radio plays alongside future stars of Coronation Street, most notably Violet Carson, who played acid-tongued Ena Sharples.
Warren’s idea for the show — a gritty, northern drama, based in the fictional town of Weatherfield — came to him during a late-night train journey to Manchester, in 1959.
Based on an actual street of back-to-back houses in Salford, Granada originally commissioned just 12 episodes, but overnight the show became a success, with Warren continuing to write scripts full-time until 1968, and sporadically until the late 1970s.
Warren also devised the Gerry And The Pacemakers film, Ferry Cross The Mersey, and wrote the ITV series, The War Of Darkie Pilbeam, a trilogy of plays about civilian life in Britain during the Second World War.
He also wrote several novels in the 1990s.
Warren was openly gay when homosexuality was illegal. In a 2010 interview with the Radio Times, he described how the pressure from the success of the show left him addicted to alcohol and morphine.
“I soon discovered it settled not just my tummy, but the cold, lonely, aching place inside, too,” he said.
Warren won the Royal Television Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, on Coronation Street’s 50th anniversary.
Hailed as a “pioneer” and a “giant of British television” by Coronation Street producers, Warren is survived by his cousin, Roy.
ITV confirmed the news of Warren’s death, saying he had “passed away peacefully last night (Tuesday), surrounded by his loving friends, aged 79, after a short illness”.
Corrie actress Helen Worth, who worked with Warren for 42 years, hailed him as a “genius of our time” and “the dearest, funniest and most inspirational man of his generation”.
She said he would “live on forever through Coronation Street”.
Antony Cotton, who has been in the show since 2003, also remembered him, writing on Twitter: “He leaves the greatest legacy. I’ll miss him so much.”
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