Acting
May 19, 1920
Leicester, Leicestershire, England, UK
Betty Driver
Acting
Biography
Betty Driver was born in 1920 at the Prebend Nursing Home, Leicester, the elder of two daughters of Frederick and Nellie Driver She weighed 5.5 kg (12 lb). Driver said she fell in love several times in her teenage years, but each relationship was ruined by her mother, who wanted to keep her daughter single so as not to lose her free "meal ticket". All the earnings Driver made before she turned 21 and was in charge of her own finances were squandered by her parents. Birthdays and Christmases were ignored and we never saw a pay-cheque. My pushy mother stuck to us like a wart and we were rarely out of her sight." Her mother died of lung cancer in 1956 after a long illness. In December 1953, in London, she married South African singer Wally Peterson, something Driver claimed she did out of "defiance" to her domineering mother who she has said "always felt Wally was only interested in my bank account". Peterson had appeared as part of a double-act on The Betty Driver Show in 1949, where they met and fell in love. Driver reluctantly agreed to marry him. She commented, "Before the wedding, he had started to change the way I looked and sang. Up to this point, I'd always worn glamorous gowns. Wally said that look was too dated. He wanted me in short knee-length wide skirts, which I loathed. I went along with it because I loved him. Wally said my act was corny and old-fashioned. I became very cowed and did as he said, as I had with Mother. We toured with this new look and singing style, but audiences were lukewarm". Driver became pregnant with Wally's child but suffered a miscarriage. Doctors then discovered she had fibroids in her womb and insisted on a hysterectomy. The couple considered adoption, but were turned down. Lew Levisohn, the husband of Driver's good friend Winifred Atwell, once told Driver that he had punched Peterson after discovering an affair Peterson was having. Driver said to Lew, "Good". Driver and her husband moved to South Africa but she returned a few months later, penniless, ending the marriage after seven years because of her husband's various infidelities. She was in such a bad financial state that her sister had to send her money to allow her to return home to the United Kingdom. Driver lived with and cared for her sister Freda until Freda's death in December 2008. She was godmother to William James Roache, the youngest son of Bill Roache, who plays Ken Barlow in Coronation Street. Roache's son James had a role as Ken's long-lost grandson who was also called James. Despite Driver's character being well known for her Lancashire hotpot, in real-life she was a vegetarian who seldom cooked, describing herself as a poor cook.On 11 May 2011, Driver was rushed to hospital, suffering from pneumonia. She died on 15 October, aged 91, after around six weeks in hospital.
Feature Films (7)
A Liverpool tug boat captain finds he's won a fortune on the penny pools and it changes his life. However, after giving up his job and throwing a large expensive party, he discovers that he may not really have won after all.
Penny Paradise
An Irishman sets out to become famous as a singer on the radio. Due to a mix up he is instead entered as a contestant on a quiz show.
Let's Be Famous
Documentary featuring a cavalcade of Northern comedy stars including the great Frank Randle, George Formby, Arthur Askey, Norman Evans and many more. The North of England has always enjoyed its own very particular brand of comedy, best seen today in Coronation Street. 80 years ago however Mancunian Studios produced feature films for the northern masses. Funny Up North tells the story of the Mancunian Studios, its eccentric owner John E Blakeley and its cavalcade of stars including such household names as Arthur Askey, Jimmy Jewell, George Formby and the legendary Frank Randle. Hosted by Professor Chris Lee, the authority on northern cinema, Funny Up North takes you on a journey from its humble beginnings to its sad demise in the 1960s.
Funny Up North
In a programme broadcast 70 years to the day after the outbreak of WWII, people who were alive at the time speak of their memories.
Outbreak 1939: When War Broke Out
Television & Series (4)
Pardon The Expression! is an ITV sitcom made by Granada Television, that was first broadcast from Wednesday 2 June 1965 to Monday 27 June 1966. The sitcom was one of only four spin-offs from the highly popular soap opera Coronation Street. Pardon the Expression itself had a spin-off: Turn out the Lights broadcast in 1967. There wasn't to be another spin-off until the 1980s with The Brothers McGregor, which reused two characters who appeared in a single episode. Leonard Swindley was the central character. Formerly the manager of the fashion retail store "Gamma Garments" in Coronation Street, in this series he is the deputy manager of the department store Dobson and Hawks. His boss in the series was Ernest Parbold played by Paul Dawkins who was replaced by Wally Hunt played by Robert Dorning in series 2. Other regulars were Betty Driver as canteen lady, Mrs Edgeley and Joy Stewart as Miss Sinclair, the boss's secretary.
Pardon the Expression
The story of the big names that have shaped the musical genres, plus an occasional stopgap for the new rock 'n' roll - comedy.
Legends
The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap.
Coronation Street
The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap.