Elizabeth Mary Driver, MBE (20 May 1920 â€" 15 October 2011) was a
British actress and singer, best known for her role as Betty Williams
in the long-running ITV soap opera, Coronation Street, a role she
played for 42 years from 1969 to 2011, appearing in more than 2,800
episodes. She had previously appeared as Mrs Edgley in Coronation
Street spin-off Pardon the Expression (1965â€"1966) opposite Arthur
Lowe. In her early career she was a singer, appearing in musical films
such as Boots! Boots! in 1934, opposite George Formby, and in Penny
Paradise in 1938, directed by Carol Reed. She was made an MBE in the
2000 New Year Honours.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). Her father had fought in
the trenches during the First World War and later became a policeman.
However, Driver described her mother as "the driving force" in her
life. She commented: "the only way I can explain her behaviour is that
she wanted to live out her ambitions through me."The family moved to
West Didsbury, Manchester, in 1922, where they lived in a
semi-detached house with other police families as neighbours. Driver
went to school at Wilbraham Road and was later joined there by her
younger sister Freda, who shared a class with a young Patricia
Manfieldâ€"later known as Pat Phoenix, the actress who went on to play
the role of Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street.
British actress and singer, best known for her role as Betty Williams
in the long-running ITV soap opera, Coronation Street, a role she
played for 42 years from 1969 to 2011, appearing in more than 2,800
episodes. She had previously appeared as Mrs Edgley in Coronation
Street spin-off Pardon the Expression (1965â€"1966) opposite Arthur
Lowe. In her early career she was a singer, appearing in musical films
such as Boots! Boots! in 1934, opposite George Formby, and in Penny
Paradise in 1938, directed by Carol Reed. She was made an MBE in the
2000 New Year Honours.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). Her father had fought in
the trenches during the First World War and later became a policeman.
However, Driver described her mother as "the driving force" in her
life. She commented: "the only way I can explain her behaviour is that
she wanted to live out her ambitions through me."The family moved to
West Didsbury, Manchester, in 1922, where they lived in a
semi-detached house with other police families as neighbours. Driver
went to school at Wilbraham Road and was later joined there by her
younger sister Freda, who shared a class with a young Patricia
Manfieldâ€"later known as Pat Phoenix, the actress who went on to play
the role of Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street.
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