If Amanda Barrie’s life story landed on the desk of a Hollywood movie mogul tomorrow he would laugh it out of town. “You can’t make that,” he’d exclaim, chomping on a cigar. “No-one’s going to believe it - a kid who’s on the stage from the age of three. Runs away from home and is brought up by prostitutes in Soho. Makes it big as a soap star then leaves in a blaze of publicity after her character is controversially killed, while facing the real-life fact that she could be going blind! “Get outta here!” he’d laugh, before showing you the door.
But in Amanda Barrie’s case the story wouldn’t be an exaggeration or outlandish - and only partly covers her remarkable climb into the British public’s consciousness.
When we meet, the 63-year-old actress is in Bradford to publicise her forthcoming appearance as the Wicked Queen in the annual panto extravaganza Snow White, a far cry from the heavy storyline in which her Coronation Street character Alma Halliwell died after suffering cancer.
The story was followed by sensational headlines in The Sun proclaiming how appalled the veteran actress was by the way Alma’s exit had been insensitively handled by the soap’s producers At the height of the Alma controversy Amanda turned on the Corrie bosses, telling the newspaper: “If you are going to take an issue like this and use it for entertainment you have to be just so very, very careful. From the moment I first learned what was going to happen I was extremely anxious about it. “And as Alma’s illness and deterioration proceeded with such amazing speed I really did feel I was being asked to take part in a cheap ratings ploy. I didn’t like it one bit.”
Today, though, the actress with the enticing hazel eyes is on top form and far from the grey, wan, figure that Alma had become in her dour last months. Dressed in a loud red and pink trouser suit, she seems at peace with her decision to quit Corrie after two decades and the controversy that surrounded her exit. Sipping at her tea she takes off her wraparound shades and relaxes.
“I had to rush out into Soho last night to look for a wig for the panto,” she says with a wicked glint in her eye. “I was looking around all the drag shops and there’s some very strange things hanging on the walls in those places! I’m looking forward to being a bit wicked for a change!
“Pulling out of something like a soap when you’ve been doing it for such a long time is strange because it becomes so much part of you. “But having played a part that is partly yourself so for so long it will be nice to be something completely different and outrageous for a while. “Now poor old Alma’s gone it’s time for something else. “I gave my notice last year but it took me about three years to pluck up the courage to do it. Something like Coronation Street builds a structure around you and it becomes your friends and it becomes your life - the more you do it the more you think you can’t do anything else.
“I still don’t feel like I have left quite yet. I still speak to Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts) everyday and I’m very close to Barbara Knox (Rita Sullivan) and John Savident (Fred Elliot). “Leaving was like jumping off a diving board at first - I just couldn’t breathe. I knew what the reasons were for leaving but I’ve never been out of work before and this was a bit of a leap in the dark.
“But my feet haven’t touched the ground since. I’ve been even busier than when I was on The Street. I haven’t had a day off since. “Since I left I’ve realise the power of the Street with everybody coming up to me and telling me how sorry they were for Alma. I absolutely worship the Street and it’s been a total and utter privilege to be in it. “Now I just want to do anything where you can rehearse. You can’t rehearse on the Street.”
For a while Amanda was unsure whether she would be able to return to her first love, the stage, because of an eye condition which meant at one point she feared she could go blind. The actress suffered a retina vein occlusion - where the blood supply to the retina is prevented by a blockage and your sight is marred by black lines. She said: “I do have to say I wouldn’t have been quite so apprehensive about leaving the Street if hadn’t had my eye problems. “I didn’t know what it would be like going on stage because you do use a lot of energy and have to project and I didn’t want to aggravate my eye problems. And I didn’t want to fall off stage! It’s the one thing they can’t treat. The specialist thought it was quite major at first when my eye nearly went completely - it was horrible. But since then I’ve recovered. “I’ve actually given my condition a name - Walter. I’ve done quite a lot of talking to Walter at night telling him to sort himself out. “It actually worked and my eye grew a new a new blood vessel. It’s was a fantastic relief and I’m sure I’ll be able to cope with the strains of a panto season now.”
Although it is as Alma that Amanda will always be best remembered, along with her memorable appearance as the sexpot Egyptian Queen in Carry On Cleo, it was on the stage that the young actress first made her name. “I was doing eight shows a week when I was three years old. I had to sing ‘I’m the Fairy on the Christmas Tree’,” she says with a certain fondness. “I had to be put in a box on stage for quite a long time waiting for my cue. “I would sit in the box and could hear my mother in the wings going absolutely mad because I was stuck in this tiny, hot, little airless box. All I was thinking was I wish she would shut up - I know what I’ve got to do! After that I was always on stage. “I ran away from home, or home sort of ran away from me, when I was 13 and I went to live in Soho in the Theatre Girls Club. Then I was told that I had a rather common accent and asked to get rid of it if I wanted to be in the theatre. So I did, darling! “I was looked after by all the prostitutes - who kept their eye on all the little dancers who used to live there. They were a very kind, protective, bunch. “I’ve lived in Covent Garden ever since. I’ve been there so long they call me a honorary market trader now.
“I can’t understand why people still keep bringing up Carry on Cleo after all these years,” she says in mock-horror. “I used to think I looked incredibly ugly in that film. I was doing a show at night and by the time I got back on set it was five o’clock in the morning and I was totally knackered!”
“One of the things that convinced me to get back on stage here in Bradford was the Alhambra theatre. It was possibly the first theatre where I had a leading role in The Merry Widows in the mid-50s - I think. “I had planned to get back on stage because you are so sedate on Coronation Street. You come in, in the morning and sit around waiting all day. “One of the reasons that I wanted to leave was that I thought if I left it any longer I wouldn’t ever have the guts to check out. There comes a point when you think to yourself you have to get back up on stage and remember how to project or you will never do it.” She said: “I’m looking forward to it. I think that panto still works today because kids today want interaction with all their video games and television they want to be busy pressing buttons and things like that. “With panto they get the chance to join in and interact so it gives them something they’re used to. I’m also looking forward to being a bit wicked!” she exclaims arms aloft, fingers grasping.
And with that flourish Amanda is whisked away by her agent away from all the hulabaloo for three weeks of R&R in Spain. Just enough time to charge her batteries for her forthcoming Alhambra exertions.
Maybe she should spend the time writing her life story down for an Hollywood movie mogul.