Corrie- Beverly Callard feature

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Soap star Beverley recovered quickly from a hysterectomy...then her hormones went haywire
By MOIRA PETTY
18 December 2007

Read the story by clicking HERE

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Good grief, she's had Cancer of the cervix, Cancer of the womb, and a hysterectomy, been put on Seroxat, Zisprin, Clomipramine, Climaval, HRT, Restandol, and Prozac, and she's come through it all.

After all that's happened to her body and all the drugs she's been on, its amazing she's come out of it looking relatively unscathed, and able to tell her story to others who may be going through similar problems.

Well done Bev, shame the Daily Mail had to print such a god awful picture - the perm went out years ago.

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Coronation Street Bev has £218k debt
Had to fire my TV son and sell home
By Matthew Acton & Robbie Collin
July the 6th 2008

CORRIE landlady Bev Callard has told how her real pub business has crashed with £218,000 debts. Worried Bev—Rovers boss Liz McDonald—confessed that she is a victim of the credit crunch after running out of cash to pay her bills.

In a frank interview with the News of the World, the 51-year-old soap star revealed: Bailiffs have POUNDED on her door to demand money for creditors. She had to LAY OFF five staff members, including her bar manager and friend for 19 years Nick Cochrane, who played her telly son Andy. A CANCER scare added to her money worries when a kidney scan meant she had to be written out of Corrie for a three-week hospital stay. Her six-bed dream home in Salford had to be SOLD for £390,000 so her business could keep trading — and she now lives in a small rented cottage. She had to CALL OFF her wedding to long-time partner Jon McEwan, 43, because they can't afford to marry.

"If only running a real pub was half as easy as it looks on Coronation Street," Bev said. "The way we run The Rovers on telly is in the realms of make-believe. If it was in the real world it would have shut down years ago. They have more people working behind the bar than they do customers, and the other day I read in the script that someone bought a large gin and tonic and a large whisky for £2.60. Prices haven't been that low since the reign of Queen Victoria."

With Jon beside her, Bev revealed that they have defaulted on bank payments for the £32,000 tenancy of the White Horse in Eccles, Manchester—the pub they took over in 2005—and the lease of upmarket bar The Gallery in Hale, Cheshire. Their business BJ Leisure went into administration in March and county court judgements from creditors demanding money from the couple now stand at £30,823. Bev admits they've made mistakes, such as pitching her pub menus too upmarket, offering punters scallops and £200 bottles of Cristal champagne.

But she angrily blames the government's failure to protect small businesses during the credit crunch for her financial strife. "I need to spend a couple of hours at least with Gordon Brown," she fumed. "MPs are keeping their second home allowances but many small family businesses are losing their first homes. It makes your blood boil. I was so scared that people would find out that I was in financial trouble. But now I WANT to speak out because it's tough for real people running their own businesses and I want the government to take note of that. They are not in touch with real people. I wrote to Gordon Brown to ask him to come to our pub and talk to the people who live in our area and find out how difficult it is. But I'm not holding my breath."

Bev and Jon had to let staff go, including good friend Nick, who managed The Gallery for £35,000 a year after he was written out of the Street. "That was awful," Bev said. "I've known Nick since he was 14— he's almost as close to me as a son. But because he worked at The Gallery he knew the way the business was going and I don't think it came as much of a shock. Nick still comes to the pub as a customer. He's great guy."

Bev and Jon have NOT gone bankrupt because they still believe they can weather this cash storm and make their business work. "I've still got a few years of fight in me left," she said. "Going bankrupt would have been the easy thing to do because everything gets written off and we could have started again. But we don't want to give up. It will be tough but we can make this work. The Gallery is a brilliant pub and the trade is building. We are taking £14,000 a week, enough to break even and keep up with the payments. The White Horse has gone into administration. But we have a new company running The Gallery."

Bev said that after she spent £50,000 on doing up the White Horse takings boomed for a while. "We wanted to impress people," she said. "We wanted people to come in and say, ‘that Liz McDonald's toilets are great'." The couple also converted the tap room into a posh restaurant. Their initial success there led them to take on The Gallery two years later. "I fell in love with it and bought it straight away," she said. The lease cost £60,000 and again they went on a lavish spending spree to do it up.

"I was involved at every stage of the way," Bev said. "I didn't just walk in wearing a fur coat once it was done. I scrubbed the s*** off the bathroom tiles myself. We spent £800 on a chandelier and £100 apiece on leather chairs for the customers," she said. "Then when the smoking ban came in we had to build a smoking shelter outside which cost £12,000. We also stocked up on Cristal champagne at £140 a bottle and planned to sell it for £200. It's fair to say that we really went for it."

But even with some Man United players as regulars and a six-figure Corrie salary to back up the business, the debts mounted. At the same time, Bev was struck down with a kidney infection that might have been cancer and her elderly mum Mavis was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. But despite the setbacks she has no regrets. "Everything in my life seemed to be going wrong at once," she said. "But I'll fight back."

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Blaming the government for her business failing seems pretty rich. Paying 12k for a smoking shelter? That's just ludicrous!

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Bev Callard says breakdown was down to losing everything

Coronation Street Star Bev Callard who plays Liz McDonald revealed for the first time that she had a nervous breakdown which forced the Coronation Street favourite into rehab, since admission she has received overwhelming support from loyal Coronation Street Fans for her honesty.

The Rovers Return landlady was not seen on screen for some time last year where the storyline said she was abroad on holiday spending time with her other son when in reality Bev Callard, 52, was receiving therapy in rehab for a nervous breakdown. The cause of the breakdown was the huge pressure that was placed on the popular actress after her Cheshire pub collapsed leaving Bev Callard in financial ruin. Owning the pub was Bev Callard dream and she put all of her life savings into the business but with the credit crunch and the smoking ban affecting trade, Bev and her partner Jon McEwan were left devastated when the business collapsed.

Bev Callard says she is now recovering and wants to make people aware of what depression can do to people and is helping the charity Mind make people more aware. The actress who sold her house to help buy the pub has now been forced to rent a small two-bedroom townhouse in Salford Quays, Manchester after losing everything.

A spokesman for Coronation Street said: “Everyone at ITV has been behind Beverley through this very difficult time. We are extremely proud of the huge progress she has made.”

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Mmmm...methinks the small 2-bed Salford Quays townhouse is probably not as small as it sounds...or as cheap! But hey, at least she's getting herself together.

Glad she's back in Corrie again though - been good to see the scenes with her & Becky recently.

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On GMTV last week...

And CLICK HERE for the second part of her big interview with the NOTW today.

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Life has never been boring
Grant Woodward
23 April 2010
yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk

Beverley Callard's life story has as many plot twists as that of her Coronation Street character Liz McDonald. From her battle with depression that left her contemplating suicide to a shocking family secret that scarred her childhood, teen pregnancy and three failed marriages.

Soap queen Beverley Callard lay curled up in a ball in the hospital bed, dreaming of ways to end her life. First she had stockpiled her tablets in a bid to build up a stash big enough to overdose on, but that plan had been discovered. Now she thought about smashing the lightbulb in her room and using the glass to slash her wrists. But however it happened, she knew she no longer wanted to live.

She had been rushed to the Priory Clinic near Manchester on Valentine's Day, lost in the black fog of clinical depression that had left her unable to set foot on the Coronation Street set. Looking a world away from the brassy glamour of landlady Liz McDonald, her frizzy hair was matted around her face and on the rare occasions she made it out of bed she was hunched over and only able to take the tiniest of steps.

"I didn't want any visitors, but the few people who did come and see me – my partner Jon (McEwan] and some very close friends – said I looked like a 100-year-old lady," says Beverley now in a quiet, measured voice. "I didn't take a step for weeks, I couldn't walk. My consultant said my body had gone on complete shutdown. Most of the time I was curled up on my bed talking to myself.

"I was in a black hole and literally in torment. And when you get to that place it's not a cry for help, you just want it to end. They had tried all sorts of medications but eventually I had to have ECT (electric shock therapy), which is a last resort. It's a frightening, controversial procedure which conjures up images of Frankenstein and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. But I wasn't afraid of ECT because at that point I wasn't afraid of anything. You just want what you have become to stop."

Born on March 28, 1957 to Mavis and Clive Moxon, who lived in Morley and ran a chain of baker's shops, the young Beverley grew up wanting to become an actress. Every Saturday afternoon she and her mum would sit next to each other in the red fold-down seats of the Majestic in City Square, revelling in the escapism of a world inhabited by tall, dark and handsome men and women whose lipstick never faded.

And at Waterloo Junior School in Pudsey she bagged the lead role in the school play, even though it was a boy's part, and instantly found herself at home in the spotlight.

Yet the happiness of her childhood was shattered when her beloved grandad confessed to killing a man in an argument sparked by his growing gambling addiction. He subsequently died in Armley jail, despite many believing he had acted in self-defence. It was to be the first of many revelations that would jolt Beverley throughout her life.

"Life has never been boring," she says, with a great big dollop of understatement. "But it's not all been bad, there have been some great times. It's been a mixture."

At 16 she discovered she was pregnant by her boyfriend Paul and the pair duly tied the knot, two months before her 17th birthday, at Dewsbury Register Office. But even though the arrival of daughter Rebecca helped her overcome the heartbreak of losing that child to a miscarriage, she says Paul started drinking heavily and one night beat her after a blazing row, breaking her nose. Divorce followed and a second marriage to David, who she had met through a drama group, fizzled out.

When she tied the knot to Steve and the couple had son Josh, she hoped it would be a case of third time lucky. But she says Steve cheated on her twice and she ended up divorcing him. "My mum thought I was going to turn into another Liz Taylor and I did think of giving up on men, I really did," she admits with a giggle. "I just thought, Ok, I'm an independent woman, that's it. But that's usually when something changes in your life and, luckily for me, I met my partner Jon, who's a builder, and now life is very good."

Throughout the dramas in her personal life, Beverley's career in front of the cameras continued to blossom. She remembers her dad getting her to circle potential jobs in the family's Yorkshire Evening Post and for a time she worked on the make-up counter in Boots. But acting was always the career she imagined for herself and she managed to secure an Equity card on the back of her first professional role in an early Ibsen play called The Vikings at Helgeland, performed inside York Minster.

Small parts in other things followed. She had five lines in a sitcom with Mollie Sugden called That's My Boy! and Minder star George Cole recommended her after she appeared alongside him and Peter Bowles in The Bounder. A break came when she landed the role of Angie Richards in what was then Emmerdale Farm. Contracted to do four episodes, she ended up staying for six months and briefly dated co-star Ian Sharrock, who played Jackie Merrick.

It led to an audition for Coronation Street, resulting in a six-week stint as June Dewhurst, who befriended Brian and Gail Tilsley, only to lead Brian astray. But it was the role five years later of army wife Liz McDonald that was to make her a household name.

Liz, fiery husband Jim and sons Steve and Andy, arrived on the street in 1989 and immediately became firm favourites with the show's legions of fans.

"At first going into a show like that is very daunting because there is a lot to live up to," she says. "It's a programme that has gone on nearly 50 years and you're surrounded by all these talented people. Also you're acting with someone who you don't know and you have to look as though you've been married to them for years.

"But me and Charlie Lawson (who played Jim McDonald) hit it off straight away and had a lot of fun. We grew very close and we still are to this day. I just love playing Liz. It's such a great role and so much fun to play. She goes from high drama to very funny comedy, so I've got the best of both worlds."

Beverley's first stay on the street lasted nearly ten years before she left to return to the stage and do more comedy. The Beckhams were at her leaving party and Cliff Richard sent a bouquet. But by 2003 she was back and has no intention of leaving the soap any time soon. "I love it," she says. "It's like opening a present when you get that script and as long as I keep getting that buzz then I'll stay."

Beverley, who now lives in Salford Quays, would love the entire McDonald clan to be reunited for this year's 50th anniversary but the decision is down to the scriptwriters.

Incredibly, she was back on the Coronation Street set just four months after last year's terrifying breakdown, which saw her undergo no fewer than 12 rounds of electric shock therapy. She is still receiving treatment in her ongoing battle with depression. She now hopes her new autobiography and its frank account of her struggle with the condition will help others to come to terms with their own problems.

"There is still a massive stigma attached to depression," she says. "There shouldn't be but there is. No one ever really knows what causes it, but what I want to get across in the book is that clinical depression is a physical thing. It's one of the valves in the limbic system in the brain that isn't working properly and we think in my case it was triggered by a hormone imbalance.

"I tried to battle on without really telling anyone. You think you're being strong, but you have to be strong enough to say 'I need help'. I'm still undergoing treatment and I'm not a 100 per cent better, but
I'm a million times better than I was at that stage. When I look back
on it I wonder how on earth I ever got through it. But I'm a fighter," she says. "I always bounce back and I'm proud of that. I'm definitely on the climb back up."

* Unbroken: A Story of Survival by Beverley Callard is out now published by Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99.

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Beverly Callard interviewed on BBC Radio 2 - 2010-04-22