“Many many men have fallen into that cleavage and drowned”

Pat Phoenix played the wayward Elsie Tanner on Coronation Street for 21 years. But woe betide you if she arrived on set in scarlet satin.

She was the Corrie actress who mixed glamour with gritty realness.

Pat Phoenix was the first Queen of the Soaps and was known across Britain during her heyday playing the brash Elsie Tanner on Coronation Street.

She played street siren Elsie with aplomb from the show’s inception until 1984. The character was known for her multiple affairs and fiery showdowns in the Rovers Return.

But as friends and colleagues have said, there was nobody quite like the woman who played her.

“Many many men have fallen into that cleavage and drowned. Believe me. I watched a few,” her co-star Julie Goodyear MBE said on the ITV show The Unforgettable Pat Phoenix.

“They drowned happily,” added Julie, following a short pause.

The documentary profiles the actress and reveals how her life offscreen was just as colourful as that of her onscreen counterpart.

As Coronation Street creator Tony Warren explained, Pat could be a formidable character.

“Everybody always waited to see what madam was wearing,” he told the programme.

“And if she had blue denim on she’d be a good sport, an old pro, comfortable, easy. Tailored – she’d be stark, professional.

“But woe betide you if she was in scarlet satin. And she was perfectly capable of being in scarlet satin at 9 o’clock in the morning if the mood took her.”

Known for her ever-changing outfits, Pat was a regular customer at Manchester dress agency The Elite.

Co-star Helen Worth, who played Gail Platt on Coronation Street for 50 years, said Pat was always impeccably dressed.

“You never saw her in the same clothes twice, ever,” she told documentary makers. “Because she used to take one lot to The Elite and bring another lot out, wear that lot, take it back to The Elite and bring another lot out. So every day was a surprise.

“I mean she used to turn up sort of in costume every day.”

“Pat went into make up, made up,” added Julie Goodyear. “And I used to say ‘what time did you get up Pat?’.”

Describing Pat’s ‘grand house with a swimming pool’, one friend told the programme the bathroom was entirely mirrored ‘except for the floor which was white fur’.

Her close friend Diana Davies said Pat was a ‘strange mixture’ of glamour and normalcy.

“You’d go in and she’d say ‘we’re having fish and chips tonight kid but there’s some champagne there if you want one,” she said. “The mixture of champagne and fish and chips was Pat.”

Despite her glamorous image, Diana said Pat brought a gritty realness to the soap.

“She’d suddenly yank her bra strap up in the middle of a scene, or she’d have a little bit of a scratch and it was all very Northern, ordinary, real. And I don’t think she even thought about doing things like that. I think she just did what came naturally.”

Though Pat became a star and Elsie became one of the most popular characters ever to grace the cobbles, it almost wasn’t to be.

An experienced repertory theatre actress, Pat was 36 and had been out of work for a year when she auditioned for the part of Elsie. In her own words she said she went to the audition ‘totally aggressive, ready to lose’.

But her performance bewitched Corrie creator Tony Warren, who said that as he fed her the lines it was ‘like making love’. “I had found my actress.”

As the wayward Elsie, Pat tackled some tough storylines. Her legendary character dealt with a turbulent love life which in some ways mirrored Pat’s personal life.

And when actor Alan Browning appeared on the show to play Elsie’s new lover Alan Howard, the two fell in love in real life.

“He was Richard Burton to her Elizabeth Taylor,” said Julie Goodyear.

The couple married and both quit television for the theatre. But Pat returned to the cobbles when they split up. Alan later died of liver failure.

In the years that followed Pat was said to have ‘made herself a universal star in Greater Manchester.’ She was a regular on television talk shows like Wogan and was in constant demand for personal appearances. She would regularly tell her life story to fans at bingo halls across the country.

“She loved going to bingo halls,” Tony Warren told the programme. “She had a contract with a whole chain of them.

“And then she had one – a nice little earner on Saturday mornings – where she used to open butchers shops. If it was there she’d open it.”

In 1980 Pat met up with her old flame Tony Booth – the father of Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie. Twenty-five years after their first relationship, the couple became an item again with Pat nursing Tony back to health after a near fatal accident.

After finding her soulmate, Pat announced she would be leaving Coronation Street for good and Elsie left the street in 1984, emigrating to Portugal.

Pat then starred in a sitcom, worked as a presenter on TVAM and performed on stage with her husband.

But in March 1986, she discovered she had cancer. It was a secret she kept from most people including Tony.

She was rushed to hospital in the summer of 1986 and made headlines when she married Tony on her deathbed.

“Was it one last headline? Was it a thumb in her nose? Who knows?” said Julie Goodyear in the documentary.

Her agent Sara Randall told the programme: “I think she was married on her deathbed because she wanted to make sure Tony was alright but also it was the end of the Princess in the Tower dream.”

The couple were married just a few days before Pat passed away aged 62.

Her funeral was attended by Coronation Street stars as well as Tony’s daughter, Cherie.

Pat has since been portrayed by a number of actresses, including Kym Marsh, Sue Johnston and Jessie Wallace, in various dramas and television programmes depicting her life.

But there can be only one original. As Helen Worth put it: “She just adored Elsie Tanner. She was Elsie Tanner is the truth, I think really.”