Coronation Street legend Amanda Barrie admits she kept her sexuality a secret as she reveals all about wedding to wife Hilary
The actress is married to writer Hilary Bonner
CORRIE legend Amanda Barrie has admitted she kept her sexuality a secret for fear she wouldn't get work if the truth was revealed.
Amanda, who played beloved character Alma Halliwell for thirteen years, told The Mirror she'd suffered from "tremendous anxiety" as a result of her secret.
Commenting on how attitudes have altered, she added: "Everything changes so quickly – in a wonderful way."
The 80-year-old, who tied the knot with writer Hilary Bonner in 2014, confessed only a few close friends on the long-running soap knew the truth.
Amanda explained: "Nobody at Coronation Street knew but my very close friends Helen [Worth], Sue Nicholls and Barbara Knox."
Amanda was with Hilary ten years before they wed at London's Drury Lane Theatre, but the Carry On favourite admits she wasn't at first very keen on the idea.
"I’d been with Hilary for years and we didn’t want to get married before. I kept going, ‘Oh my God, I can’t bear one of those receptions. Ugh!’
She went on: "Then when I did pantomime I asked my Dandini [Cinderella’s sidekick] where he got married and he said Drury Lane Theatre. And I went, ‘Hilary! That’s it, we’re doing it!’
"It’s my favourite theatre – the first place I went when I arrived in London at 13. I said my prayer on Drury Lane steps, ‘Please can I be in the theatre?’
"I’ve never played there except a charity show, although that was my ambition. So we married there instead."
Before coming out at the age of 67, Amanda was married to actor Robin Hunter.
They wed in 1967 when Amanda was 31, but separated in the 1980s.
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