JOHNNY BRIGGS

(5 September 1935 - 28 February 2021)

Before he appeared for thirty years in Coronation Street, the actor Johnny Briggs enjoyed a reasonable career in films and television. Born in South London he had a yen to go on the stage and at twelve won a scholarship to the Italia Conti Stage Academy. Following the Academy’s West End showcase, he worked in repertory at Nottingham and Northampton. In films from 1947 he had uncredited parts in Hue and Cry, Oliver Twist, The Lavender Hill Mob and Cosh Boy, etc. Better roles came in Light Up the Sky, The Bulldog Breed and H.M.S. Defiant (in which he was flogged). Television became more prominent in his life during the 1960s, along with occasional films such as The Leather Boys, The Devil-Ship Pirates, 633 Squadron and The Intelligence Men. He had a long run in No Hiding Place on TV as one of Raymond Francis’s police sidekicks. After a few appearances in Crossroads and a couple of Carry Ons, Briggs nabbed the part of the wide-boy factory owner Mike Baldwin in over 1500 episodes of Coronation Street from 1976 to 2006. When the character of Baldwin was killed off, he was in Holby City, Echo Beach and Doctors, his last acting part (in 2009). Johnny Briggs, who has died aged 85 after a long illness, was first married to Caroline Sinclair with whom he has two children, Mark and Karen, and then to Christine Allsop with whom he has four children, Jennifer, Michael, Stephanie and Anthony. Both marriages ended in divorce. He was made an MBE in 2007 and also won a Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2006 British Soap Awards. His memoir, My Life as Mike Baldwin, was published in 2006.

MICHAEL DARVELL