The actor, 76, has spent an incredible 30 years in the role of Roy Corpper – the ITV soap’s much-loved cardigan-wearing café owner
It’s almost been 30 years since he made his debut in Coronation Street and now David Neilson is being celebrated with a special award.
The actor, 76, has spent an incredible three decades in the role of Roy Corpper – the ITV soap’s much-loved cardigan-wearing café owner – having made his debut on the cobbles back in July 1995.
Roy started out living in the Crimea Street flats alongside fellow tenant Deirdre Barlow. He ended up working at Jim’s Café in Rosamund Street.
But after a year, Roy bought Alma Baldwin’s majority share of the business and renamed it Roy’s Rolls, as it still remains today. Roy was initially a ‘secondary character’, but was given a more prominent role in 1997.
Roy has since been featured in numerous high-profile storylines, most notably marrying the first transgender character in a British soap opera, Hayley Patterson, played by Julie Hesmondhalgh.
There was also the time when Tracy Barlow spiked Roy’s drink at a wedding reception before taking him home and putting him in her bed. Tracy later announced she was pregnant with his child, leaving Hayley devastated.
The truth later came out and Roy and Hayley ended up becoming godparents to Tracy’s daughter, Amy, who she shares with Steve McDonald.
Then, in 2010, the pair officially married when the law was changed to recognise their union. Tragically, Hayley took her own life in Roy’s arms, in January 2014, by drinking a lethal cocktail after living with terminal pancreatic cancer.
But, David and Julie, who is still famed for playing Hayley, have been seen enjoying a sweet reunion as she was on hand to present David with the Outstanding Achievement award at this year’s British Soap Awards, which took place on Saturday (May 31) and aired for fans to see on ITV on Thursday (June 5).
But away from the awards, what do viewers really know about the actor behind the much-loved character as he’s set to approach three decades on the cobbles?
Prior to joining Corrie, David had a few other TV roles. He actually appeared in the long-running soap’s BBC rival EastEnders way back in 1991.
He made his Walford debut in August of that year, playing the role of Mr Webster who turned up at Nick Cotton’s house intending to buy it. If you were to find his appearance, you’d see the actor adopting a cockney accent and with his dark hair slicked back, worlds away from how fans recognise him now.
David also made appearances in Young at Heart, Blue Heaven by Frank Skinner, Casualty, and Heartbeat, among others. But before getting into TV, he also had a number of odd jobs.
He was 20 when he moved to London from Loughborough to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. To fund his studies, David worked as a gas fitter, ice cream salesman and pulled pints as a barman.
But David has suffered tragedy in his life as his mum, Phyllis, passed away just before he took on his career-defining role in the nineties. But she provided him with one of his signature props that viewers know and love – and that’s his shopping bag.
He previously told the Mirror: “That bag went around Loughborough market for many years! It will be 30 years old now. My mother died just before I joined the show so I was chucking stuff out and thought it would be good for Roy.
“He was always knocking on Deirdre’s door, asking if she needed a bit of shopping and initially they gave me a carrier bag. But you see guys standing at bus stops with bags like that and I thought I’d introduce it. It’s also very handy to carry my scripts round in!”
He added: “Roy’s key on the piece of knicker elastic attached to the bag was also my mother’s. We fastened it onto the bag for her, because she kept locking herself out. She was forever calling out the police or the glazier to get her back in and they’d have to break the window.”
However, there has been a special person by David’s side through it all. The soap star has been married to his wife Jane Neilson for around 48 years. The pair share a son, Daniel, who also has two children, making him a grandfather.
While Roy continues to play a major part in the soap, the actor’s real life is very different to his life in Weatherfield with his wife. He has previously told the Mirror how he lives in Barcelona in order to escape the fanfare from the show. He explained: “I need to get away from Roy and be myself and they don’t know Roy in Barcelona.
“If I’m in Spain for a few days I forget what I do for a living, which is the important thing. It means when I come back and someone shouts ‘Roy’, for a moment I forget they’re actually talking to me. And it’s only a couple of hours on the plane so I can commute to Manchester easily enough.”
“Another reason we moved was for excitement. I like to do different things and it’s been good to learn a language and get into a different culture. Our son Daniel had left for university and we were in Bristol in a big house and we thought, ‘What shall we do?’”
More recently, David found himself going ‘viral’ – and not for anything to do with his Corrie role. The soap star was seen at a football game, supporting his home team, and a video of him joining in on the chants swept across social media.
The club itself was also thrilled to have the iconic actor in attendance, taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to call itself ‘Roy Cropper’s Blue Army’.
Colson Smith, who played Craig Tinker in Corrie up until last month, later recalled the moment on the On the Sofa podcast he co-hosts with fellow soap stars Jack P Shepherd and Ben Price, and remembered how he walked into work the next day cheekily saying: “I’ve gone viral haven’t I?”
Colson also praised David’s acting skills, saying: “I think it’s a compliment to Dave as an actor and to Roy as a character. Roy is a very complex character and the amount of dialogue that Roy gets…”
