Peter Dudley was an English character actor best known for his role as Bert Tilsley in the ITV television series Coronation Street; a role he played from 1979 until his death in 1983.
14 Facts About Peter Dudley
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Peter Dudley then took a job in a grocer's shop before he joined the Bolton Hippodrome where he stayed for six months.
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Peter Dudley then worked as a window dresser and a salesman before doing his national service with the army.
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Peter Dudley became a leading actor with Manchester's Library Theatre Company.
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Peter Dudley made his first appearances on Coronation Street in the late 1960s, first playing a waiter and later a delivery man.
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Peter Dudley appeared in a small part as a lorry driver in the film The Ragman's Daughter and on television in The Siege of Golden Hill, Against The Crowd, Have Bird Will Travel, Here I Stand, Shabby Tiger, Strangers and Crown Court.
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Peter Dudley played two further small roles in Coronation Street during this time, as Duggie Bowker in 1973 and as Donald Anderson in 1978.
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Peter Dudley was openly gay to the cast and crew of Coronation Street.
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Peter Dudley chose to be tried in the Crown Court rather than a magistrates' court, which prolonged the affair and made it highly public.
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The strain became too much and Peter Dudley suffered a stroke, losing much of the use of his left side, and briefly his speech.
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Peter Dudley spent time in physiotherapy but wanted to continue to act in Coronation Street, so a storyline of Bert being injured falling off a ladder at work and suffering a mini-stroke was devised.
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Peter Dudley was then written out of the show in mid 1983 so that he could prepare for his pending retrial, but before the second trial was heard, he suffered two heart attacks and a further stroke.
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Peter Dudley died on 20 October 1983 in Salford Royal Hospital, at the age of 48.
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Peter Dudley was cremated at Blackley Crematorium, Manchester on 25 October 1983.