Love her or hate her, Vera Duckworth has become, over the years, one of the UK”s best known soap stars. The long suffering mother of Terry Duckworth played by Nigel Pivaro and the nagging wife of Jack Duckworth a role played by William Tarmey, was finally laid to rest in January 2008.

Elizabeth Dawn was born on November 8^th 1939 in Leeds, England. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Elizabeth began to take performing seriously when she became a night club singer. By the late 1960’s she had ventured into acting taking on small parts in TV programs and appearing in television commercials.

Two of Dawn’s earlier TV roles saw her appearing in All Creatures Great and Small in the 1970’s in which she played alongside, Christopher Timothy, Robert Hardy and Peter Davison and in the play Leeds United where she starred with Lynne Perrie who would later have a long running role in Coronation Street with Elizabeth.

Known better in the world of stage and screen as Liz Dawn, she was born Sylvia Butterfield but adopted the stage name Elizabeth Dawn from her daughter Dawn Elizabeth.

By 1974 Elizabeth had landed the role of Vera Duckworth working in the Mark Brittan mailorder warehouse on Coronation Street, and became a particular friend of Ivy Tilsley played by Perrie. She moved into No.9 Coronation Street in 1983, much to the dismay of her new neighbours. She was married to Jack Duckworth, but they argued frequently although she still made an effort with Jack, often using the comically spoken phrase "Don't you love me any more, Jack?". Despite their problems, Jack and Vera still cared about each other. Together, they formed a very popular comedy couple who have been voted the most amusing soap characters.

Elizabeth had the honour of being presented with the big red book on This is Your Life in 1990and by 1993she had written her own book called Vera Duckworth-My Story.

In her real life in 2000, Dawn was chosen as the Lady Mayoress of Leeds and was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II in October of that year for her services to charity, having helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for hospitals in the Manchester and Leeds area.

Sadly in 2004 Elizabeth was diagnosed with the incurable lung disease emphysema and so in 2007, Granada Television announced that Dawn would be written out of the series. This was not a decision taken lightly by the producers but was requested by the actress herself as she learned of further complications with her emphysema.

On January 18^th 2008 audiences around the UK saw the demise of the character of Vera Duckworth when she passed peacefully away in her sleep of heart failure. She has left behind her husband jack who will continue in the role for the foreseeable future.

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