Jean Mavis Hodgkinson (11 October 1926 â€" 14 October 2016), known by
the stage name Jean Alexander, was a British television actress. She
was best known to television viewers for her long running role of
Hilda Ogden in the soap opera Coronation Street, a role she played
from 1964 until 1987, and also as Auntie Wainwright in the
long-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine from 1988 to 2010. For her
role in Coronation Street, she won the 1985 Royal Television Society
Award for Best Performance, and received a 1988 BAFTA TV Award
nomination for Best Actress.Alexander was born at 18 Rhiwlas Street in
Toxteth, Liverpool, in 1926, to Nell and Archie Hodgkinson; her father
worked as an electrician and the family lived in a terraced house with
no indoor lavatory. Alexander had an elder brother, Kenneth. She
aspired to become an actress from an early age, and later said that
she was inspired by variety acts she saw at the Pavilion theatre in
her home city. She attended St Edmund's College for Girls in Princes
Park, Toxteth and as a teenager, she joined an amateur theatre group
and took elocution lessons.Alexander spent five years as a library
assistant in Liverpool before she began her acting career in 1949 at
the Adelphi Guild Theatre in Macclesfield. She first appeared as
Florrie in Sheppey by Somerset Maugham. She later worked in rep in
Oldham, Stockport and York. Most of her parts were minor, and she also
worked as a wardrobe mistress and stage manager. Her television debut
is variously given as in the police series Z-Cars (1962) or in
Deadline Midnight (1961).
the stage name Jean Alexander, was a British television actress. She
was best known to television viewers for her long running role of
Hilda Ogden in the soap opera Coronation Street, a role she played
from 1964 until 1987, and also as Auntie Wainwright in the
long-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine from 1988 to 2010. For her
role in Coronation Street, she won the 1985 Royal Television Society
Award for Best Performance, and received a 1988 BAFTA TV Award
nomination for Best Actress.Alexander was born at 18 Rhiwlas Street in
Toxteth, Liverpool, in 1926, to Nell and Archie Hodgkinson; her father
worked as an electrician and the family lived in a terraced house with
no indoor lavatory. Alexander had an elder brother, Kenneth. She
aspired to become an actress from an early age, and later said that
she was inspired by variety acts she saw at the Pavilion theatre in
her home city. She attended St Edmund's College for Girls in Princes
Park, Toxteth and as a teenager, she joined an amateur theatre group
and took elocution lessons.Alexander spent five years as a library
assistant in Liverpool before she began her acting career in 1949 at
the Adelphi Guild Theatre in Macclesfield. She first appeared as
Florrie in Sheppey by Somerset Maugham. She later worked in rep in
Oldham, Stockport and York. Most of her parts were minor, and she also
worked as a wardrobe mistress and stage manager. Her television debut
is variously given as in the police series Z-Cars (1962) or in
Deadline Midnight (1961).
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