Betty Williams | |||||||||||||||||||
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Coronation Street character | |||||||||||||||||||
Portrayed by | Betty Driver | ||||||||||||||||||
Duration | 1969–2011 | ||||||||||||||||||
First appearance | Episode 881 2 June 1969 | ||||||||||||||||||
Last appearance | Episode 7610 27 May 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||
Classification | Former; regular | ||||||||||||||||||
Introduced by | H. V. Kershaw | ||||||||||||||||||
Book appearances | Coronation Street: The Complete Saga Coronation Street: The War Years | ||||||||||||||||||
Spin-off appearances | The Women of Coronation Street (1998) | ||||||||||||||||||
Betty Turpin in 1969 | |||||||||||||||||||
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Betty Williams (also Preston and Turpin) is a fictional character from the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, portrayed by former music hall star Betty Driver. Driver was cast as Betty in 1969, after first auditioning for the role of Hilda Ogden, which was given to Jean Alexander. The character arrived in Coronation Street to help her sister Maggie Cooke (Irene Sutcliffe) run the corner shop, and since then had a number of storylines which saw her become twice widowed, and mother to an illegitimate son.
For most of her tenure in the show, Betty worked as a barmaid in the soap's Rovers Return Inn, where she created a signature dish, known as Betty's hotpot.
Driver died in October 2011, and Betty was subsequently written out, with the character dying off-screen from an illness in April 2012.[2]