Tony Warren

Anthony McVay Simpson (8 July 1936 – 1 March 2016), publishing under the pen name Tony Warren, was an English television screenwriter and actor, best known for creating the ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street''. He created other television dramas and wrote critically acclaimed novels.

Early life

Warren was born in Eccles and raised at 3 Wilton Avenue, Pendlebury, Lancashire. He attended Clarendon Road Primary School and Eccles Grammar School. He trained at the Elliott-Clarke theatre school in Liverpool. He adopted Warren as a stage name in his early acting career. He became a regular on BBC Radio ''Children's Hour'' and acted in many radio plays, performing with many actors who later became household names through ''Coronation Street'', most notably Violet Carson who played Ena Sharples and Doris Speed who played Annie Walker.

In his memoirs, ''Over the Airwaves'', ''Children's Hour'' producer Trevor Hill explains that Warren was an excitable young teenager at rehearsals, so much so that on one occasion Violet Carson warned, "If that boy doesn't shut up, I'll smack his bottom!" During a later unexpected transmission break from London while performing at the Leeds studio, Carson played and sang to the children a dialect song called "Bowtons Yard" in which the storyteller speaks about his neighbours. Starting at Number 1 and ending at Number 12, the storyteller describes each person in turn and Warren later said that this was what gave him the inspiration for ''Coronation Street''.

Career

Warren acted on stage and in several early ITV ''Plays of the Week''.

According to BBC producer Olive Shapley, who had worked with Warren on ''Children's Hour'', the idea for ''Florizel Street'' (which became ''Coronation Street'') came to him late one night in 1959 while they were returning to Manchester by train. Shapley recalled:

In 1960, Harry Elton at Granada commissioned a script from Warren for a show about "a street out there". Warren wrote all 13 episodes of the serial that ITV initially decided to air. When the show became a success, as creator of the show he continued to write scripts until 1968, after which he moved on to other fields. However, he continued to write occasional scripts until the late 1970s. He was also retained by ITV Studios as a consultant to ''Coronation Street''. "Created by Tony Warren" appears in the closing credits of every ''Coronation Street'' episode to this day.

Warren made a cameo appearance in the 50th-anniversary live episode of ''Coronation Street'' in December 2010. He was played by David Dawson in the BBC drama '' The Road to Coronation Street'' in September that year.

In the 1990s he wrote a series of critically acclaimed novels: ''The Lights of Manchester'' (1991), ''Foot of the Rainbow'' (1993), ''Behind Closed Doors'' (1995) and ''Full Steam Ahead'' (1998).

He was the subject of a '' This Is Your Life'' television programme on 11 October 1995.

Awards and honours

Warren won a number of awards, all in relation to devising ''Coronation Street''. He received a Special Achievement Award in Soap at the 2000 British Soap Awards and the National Television Landmark Award in 2005. At the Royal Television Society awards, he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The society described the show as "the most successful television programme in British history".

In 1994, Warren was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary degree from Manchester Metropolitan University "in recognition of his contribution to ground-breaking television and creative writing which has helped put Manchester and Salford on the cultural map". In 2016, following his death, the British Soap Awards announced that they would be renaming their Outstanding Achievement Award (Off Screen) as the Tony Warren Award.

Personal life

Warren was openly gay from his early years of ''Coronation Street'', at a time when male homosexual acts were illegal. Warren battled with drug and alcohol addiction before attending rehabilitation.

He lived in Swinton, Salford, for over thirty years.

Death

Warren died on 1 March 2016 after a short illness, aged 79. His death was announced on ''Coronation Street'' Twitter account.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Warren, Tony
1936 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English LGBTQ people
20th-century English male actors
21st-century English LGBTQ people
Alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University
Coronation Street
English gay actors
English gay writers
English LGBTQ screenwriters
English male screenwriters
Gay screenwriters
LGBTQ people from Yorkshire
Actors from the City of Salford
Members of the Order of the British Empire
People from Pendlebury
People from Swinton, Greater Manchester
British television show creators
Writers from Lancashire