Post by RitaLittlewood on Nov 5, 2006 16:14:44 GMT
From the Sunday Mirror:
5 November 2006
MY HELL WITH CORRIE CHEAT BY JOHNNY BRIGGS' WIFE OF 30 YEARS
MY HELL WITH CORRIE CHEAT REAL-LIFE BY HIS WIFE OF 30 YRS
Exclusive by Deborah Sherwood & Christine Challand
THE ex-wife of Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs today reveals how the legendary Weatherfield womaniser gave her a life of hell.
Christine Briggs - who was married to the actor who played Mike Baldwin for almost 30 years and is the mother of four of his six children - talks for the first time about how he cheated on her while she stayed at home looking after their kids.
And she says he was boring in bed, mean with his money... and drank so much his false teeth would fall out.
Johnny, 71, is now planning his retirement in Florida with make-up artist Lisa Charnley - 42 years his junior. For Christine, 57, it is the final insult... especially as he tried to bed her only six weeks ago as they were already going through their divorce.
"He loves younger women. He married me when I was 25 and he was 40, in his 50s he went off with a 21-year-old air hostess and now in his 70s he's trying to relive his youth with someone who is young enough to be his daughter," says Christine, whose divorce was finalised 13 days ago.
"He is already planning to spend Christmas with her at our holiday home in Florida. It makes me incredibly angry and sad to think of her waking up in the bed I chose, and swimming in my pool and using my shower.
"But will she be as keen when she comes home and sees him, like I've done, sprawled across the kitchen table with his front teeth on the floor? She probably thinks he's loaded, but she'll have a shock. He is not as generous as he likes people to think."
When pictures of make-up girl Lisa, 29, leaving Johnny's flat in Manchester near the Coronation Street studios were published last year, he claimed she had gone round to give him a haircut.
"When he came home I asked him, 'Does it really take 48 hours to cut what is left of your hair?'" says Christine. "He laughed it off. I realised then I didn't feel anything for him. It almost felt good to know I had moved on. He can't hurt me any more."
Johnny and Christine had already been living like strangers for several years in their £650,000 five-bedroomed home near Stourbridge West Midlands.
In April, when more than 13million Street fans were watching Mike Baldwin's death, Johnny was drinking a bottle of wine in front of the kitchen TV in the couple's home.
Christine watched his final scenes on the bedroom TV. "Having watched the compilation of his famous Corrie scenes at the end of his death programme, I came downstairs and said, 'Credit where credit's due - Johnny, I didn't know you were such a good actor and you were pretty good-looking'. He looked up and said, 'Yeah, look what you've done to me'."
CHRISTINE has now divorced the actor on the grounds of his unreasonable behaviour. "He never thought I'd go through with it," she says. "I have always been there for him - putting up the Christmas tree, sorting out the kids and the vet's bills. But it's time for me now."
She claims that Johnny, who was earning around £165,000 a year, is facing a lonely old age. "He could have had it all, retired with his family around him," she says.
"When is he going to wake up and realise he has very little in common with a 29-year-old? It certainly can't be sex with him that she's interested in. There was only ever one position with Johnny - him on top."
Christine recalls how during their long marriage Saturday night was "duty night". She says: "At 9pm he'd lock the bedroom door and we'd have half an hour making love - he'd go on top. Afterwards, he'd open the TV cupboard, turn on the telly and say 'great timing' as the movie would be about to start on TV.
"The sex was boring. He wasn't very adventurous. It became like a duty. I would have thought at his age now he'd be too old for sex and would prefer a good bottle of wine."
That was in the old days. It has now been eight years since they had sex - a world away from the passionate days when they first met when he was 40 and she was 25.
It was the year before he joined Coronation street - he was appearing in Crossroads and was married. "I suspected he was married but I didn't want to know because it would be a complication. I didn't want anything to come between us," says Christine.
In fact Johnny was leading a double life - living with Christine in the Midlands while filming during the week, then going back to wife Carol, son Mark, now 43, and daughter Karen, now 41, in the South of England. This went on for three years until Carol found out and she and Johnny divorced. Christine and Johnny married in May 1977 at Stourbridge Register Office. A month later they had a blessing at the nearby St Peter's Church.
A pool-side reception was held at Christine's parents in Stourbridge. Stars from Coronation Street, including Julie Goodyear, Geoffrey Hughes (bin man Eddie Yeates) and Jack Howarth (pensioner Albert Tatlock), turned up along with cheering crowds.
On New Year's Eve 1977 Christine discovered she was pregnant with their first child, Jennie. Johnny was thrilled.
By now, Mike Baldwin was making his mark as one of the soap's most popular characters.
He had first appeared on screen in late-1976 on a three-month contract. This became a 12-month booking that turned into another year, then another. Because of his hectic schedule, Johnny stayed in Manchester during the week while Christine was left looking after their young family - by then they'd had three of their four children - and only seeing him at weekends.
"I had the kids, he led the life of a bachelor. I asked if we should move to Manchester but he said he needed space and time to learn his lines," she says. It was eight years into their marriage when Christine discovered the extent of his "bachelor" lifestyle. A reporter rang and asked if the girl Johnny was getting on a flight to Barbados with was his daughter. The girl was 21-year old air hostess Hilary MacMillan. Christine discovered they'd had a six-month fling.
When Johnny came home he simply walked in, grinning and saying he'd been "compromised" and making light of his affair.
"We didn't talk about it, we never discussed it, Johnny just wasn't like that. We didn't discuss things," says Christine.
Desperate to hide the cracks in the marriage from their children, Christine agreed Johnny could come home at the weekends and she would go to her mother's. But after two years relations thawed - and in 1988 Christine became pregnant with their son Anthony, now 17.
But as his celebrity status grew, Johnny spent even more time away from home.
"There were two sides to Johnny. He was pleasant in the morning but when the cork came out of the first bottle at lunchtime he was completely different," says Christine "He'd be horrible and put me down. It was easier to just get out of the house, that's how it's been for the last eight years. We've had separate lives, with him coming home at weekends to put in an appearance for the kids.
"There was no point trying to sit down and talk to him about our marriage, he would never listen. I know he always reads his fan mail as he has such a huge ego - so I stuck a letter in a pile of it telling him I wanted a divorce and there was a solicitor's letter coming."
Christine has told the children it's now her turn to make a life for herself. "When I started talking about divorce about two years ago Johnny actually offered me £12,000 a year to carry on as we had been, with me being a glorified housekeeper," she says.
"Six weeks ago, he even suggested we hop into bed again. 'Let's forget all this rubbish', he said one night. 'Let's go to bed and sort it out, Chrissie'."
Despite, knowing that Christine would not change her mind, Johnny turned up at the family home in Stourbridge the night before they were due at the lawyers.
They shared two bottles of wine before retiring to their separate bedrooms. In the morning, they each made their way separately to the barrister's chambers in Birmingham.
"Some people might think it is bizarre.
Johnny still squeezed fresh grapefruit juice for me and brought it up to my room, he did that morning," Christine says. "We were in separate rooms at the lawyers. We didn't see each other.
When I came out I went home and he went back to Manchester."
ASTONISHINGLY, Johnny never shared details of his escalating salary in the Street. "He might have been living the high life on the back of Coronation Street, but I wasn't," says Christine. "My shoes are scuffed and my jumper is from New Look.
"I worked throughout my marriage until three years ago as a supply teacher. He told me at one point, 'If you need a cleaner to do the job you should be doing, you should pay for her'. I even paid the school fees for our daughter."
The only thing Christine says he did for the family was to buy their holiday home in Clearwater, Florida, nearly 10 years ago.
The three-bedroomed house with a pool cost £124,000. Johnny will be getting his money's worth as he plans to live there for three months every year - and, of course, his new love will be enjoying it too.
"All I am going to get is the house in England, which I will have to sell to buy somewhere smaller," says Chrstine. "I've survived on investments of my own. I'll get some of Johnny's smaller pension plans and have a small teaching pension.
"I don't know what he's done with the money he's earned. In 30 years of marriage we never had a joint bank account. He'd give me just enough for housekeeping.
"He said to me recently, 'You know what, Chrissie, if you'd waited until I'd died you could have had the lot'. But look what I'd have to put up with. He is mean, even our children won't ask him for money, they ask me to ask him."
Christine adds: "He has relied on me so much, even to correct his spelling and sort out his fan mail, and this is how he treats me. I will have money problems. I'd love to know where all his money has gone."
The children are now grown up and making their own way. But Christine thinks their famous dad could do more to help.
Their eldest daughter Jennie, 28, is married and works in marketing and is expecting their first grandchild in April. Michael, 26, is going to start work as an estate agent in the New Year. In the meantime, he has applied for a £5 an hour job as a Santa's helper at a Midlands shopping centre.
Stephanie, 24, is trying to follow in her father's footsteps. She gained a masters degree in acting and drama. Anthony, 17, is still at boarding school.
"Johnny loves all the kids. I have tried to protect them from everything that has been going on in our marriage and they respect me for that. I have asked him to help get Stephanie work.
"Johnny has just finished filming Miss Marple at Shepperton and I wanted him to try and get her a small walk-on part. Typically, he promised he'd do something. But when I asked he just said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah...'
"I married him for all the right reasons, I absolutely adored him. But I have moved on - it's relief to know he can't hurt me ever again."
------------------------------------------------
Hasn't she always maintained SHE wouldn't move to Manchester?
Patsy
5 November 2006
MY HELL WITH CORRIE CHEAT BY JOHNNY BRIGGS' WIFE OF 30 YEARS
MY HELL WITH CORRIE CHEAT REAL-LIFE BY HIS WIFE OF 30 YRS
Exclusive by Deborah Sherwood & Christine Challand
THE ex-wife of Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs today reveals how the legendary Weatherfield womaniser gave her a life of hell.
Christine Briggs - who was married to the actor who played Mike Baldwin for almost 30 years and is the mother of four of his six children - talks for the first time about how he cheated on her while she stayed at home looking after their kids.
And she says he was boring in bed, mean with his money... and drank so much his false teeth would fall out.
Johnny, 71, is now planning his retirement in Florida with make-up artist Lisa Charnley - 42 years his junior. For Christine, 57, it is the final insult... especially as he tried to bed her only six weeks ago as they were already going through their divorce.
"He loves younger women. He married me when I was 25 and he was 40, in his 50s he went off with a 21-year-old air hostess and now in his 70s he's trying to relive his youth with someone who is young enough to be his daughter," says Christine, whose divorce was finalised 13 days ago.
"He is already planning to spend Christmas with her at our holiday home in Florida. It makes me incredibly angry and sad to think of her waking up in the bed I chose, and swimming in my pool and using my shower.
"But will she be as keen when she comes home and sees him, like I've done, sprawled across the kitchen table with his front teeth on the floor? She probably thinks he's loaded, but she'll have a shock. He is not as generous as he likes people to think."
When pictures of make-up girl Lisa, 29, leaving Johnny's flat in Manchester near the Coronation Street studios were published last year, he claimed she had gone round to give him a haircut.
"When he came home I asked him, 'Does it really take 48 hours to cut what is left of your hair?'" says Christine. "He laughed it off. I realised then I didn't feel anything for him. It almost felt good to know I had moved on. He can't hurt me any more."
Johnny and Christine had already been living like strangers for several years in their £650,000 five-bedroomed home near Stourbridge West Midlands.
In April, when more than 13million Street fans were watching Mike Baldwin's death, Johnny was drinking a bottle of wine in front of the kitchen TV in the couple's home.
Christine watched his final scenes on the bedroom TV. "Having watched the compilation of his famous Corrie scenes at the end of his death programme, I came downstairs and said, 'Credit where credit's due - Johnny, I didn't know you were such a good actor and you were pretty good-looking'. He looked up and said, 'Yeah, look what you've done to me'."
CHRISTINE has now divorced the actor on the grounds of his unreasonable behaviour. "He never thought I'd go through with it," she says. "I have always been there for him - putting up the Christmas tree, sorting out the kids and the vet's bills. But it's time for me now."
She claims that Johnny, who was earning around £165,000 a year, is facing a lonely old age. "He could have had it all, retired with his family around him," she says.
"When is he going to wake up and realise he has very little in common with a 29-year-old? It certainly can't be sex with him that she's interested in. There was only ever one position with Johnny - him on top."
Christine recalls how during their long marriage Saturday night was "duty night". She says: "At 9pm he'd lock the bedroom door and we'd have half an hour making love - he'd go on top. Afterwards, he'd open the TV cupboard, turn on the telly and say 'great timing' as the movie would be about to start on TV.
"The sex was boring. He wasn't very adventurous. It became like a duty. I would have thought at his age now he'd be too old for sex and would prefer a good bottle of wine."
That was in the old days. It has now been eight years since they had sex - a world away from the passionate days when they first met when he was 40 and she was 25.
It was the year before he joined Coronation street - he was appearing in Crossroads and was married. "I suspected he was married but I didn't want to know because it would be a complication. I didn't want anything to come between us," says Christine.
In fact Johnny was leading a double life - living with Christine in the Midlands while filming during the week, then going back to wife Carol, son Mark, now 43, and daughter Karen, now 41, in the South of England. This went on for three years until Carol found out and she and Johnny divorced. Christine and Johnny married in May 1977 at Stourbridge Register Office. A month later they had a blessing at the nearby St Peter's Church.
A pool-side reception was held at Christine's parents in Stourbridge. Stars from Coronation Street, including Julie Goodyear, Geoffrey Hughes (bin man Eddie Yeates) and Jack Howarth (pensioner Albert Tatlock), turned up along with cheering crowds.
On New Year's Eve 1977 Christine discovered she was pregnant with their first child, Jennie. Johnny was thrilled.
By now, Mike Baldwin was making his mark as one of the soap's most popular characters.
He had first appeared on screen in late-1976 on a three-month contract. This became a 12-month booking that turned into another year, then another. Because of his hectic schedule, Johnny stayed in Manchester during the week while Christine was left looking after their young family - by then they'd had three of their four children - and only seeing him at weekends.
"I had the kids, he led the life of a bachelor. I asked if we should move to Manchester but he said he needed space and time to learn his lines," she says. It was eight years into their marriage when Christine discovered the extent of his "bachelor" lifestyle. A reporter rang and asked if the girl Johnny was getting on a flight to Barbados with was his daughter. The girl was 21-year old air hostess Hilary MacMillan. Christine discovered they'd had a six-month fling.
When Johnny came home he simply walked in, grinning and saying he'd been "compromised" and making light of his affair.
"We didn't talk about it, we never discussed it, Johnny just wasn't like that. We didn't discuss things," says Christine.
Desperate to hide the cracks in the marriage from their children, Christine agreed Johnny could come home at the weekends and she would go to her mother's. But after two years relations thawed - and in 1988 Christine became pregnant with their son Anthony, now 17.
But as his celebrity status grew, Johnny spent even more time away from home.
"There were two sides to Johnny. He was pleasant in the morning but when the cork came out of the first bottle at lunchtime he was completely different," says Christine "He'd be horrible and put me down. It was easier to just get out of the house, that's how it's been for the last eight years. We've had separate lives, with him coming home at weekends to put in an appearance for the kids.
"There was no point trying to sit down and talk to him about our marriage, he would never listen. I know he always reads his fan mail as he has such a huge ego - so I stuck a letter in a pile of it telling him I wanted a divorce and there was a solicitor's letter coming."
Christine has told the children it's now her turn to make a life for herself. "When I started talking about divorce about two years ago Johnny actually offered me £12,000 a year to carry on as we had been, with me being a glorified housekeeper," she says.
"Six weeks ago, he even suggested we hop into bed again. 'Let's forget all this rubbish', he said one night. 'Let's go to bed and sort it out, Chrissie'."
Despite, knowing that Christine would not change her mind, Johnny turned up at the family home in Stourbridge the night before they were due at the lawyers.
They shared two bottles of wine before retiring to their separate bedrooms. In the morning, they each made their way separately to the barrister's chambers in Birmingham.
"Some people might think it is bizarre.
Johnny still squeezed fresh grapefruit juice for me and brought it up to my room, he did that morning," Christine says. "We were in separate rooms at the lawyers. We didn't see each other.
When I came out I went home and he went back to Manchester."
ASTONISHINGLY, Johnny never shared details of his escalating salary in the Street. "He might have been living the high life on the back of Coronation Street, but I wasn't," says Christine. "My shoes are scuffed and my jumper is from New Look.
"I worked throughout my marriage until three years ago as a supply teacher. He told me at one point, 'If you need a cleaner to do the job you should be doing, you should pay for her'. I even paid the school fees for our daughter."
The only thing Christine says he did for the family was to buy their holiday home in Clearwater, Florida, nearly 10 years ago.
The three-bedroomed house with a pool cost £124,000. Johnny will be getting his money's worth as he plans to live there for three months every year - and, of course, his new love will be enjoying it too.
"All I am going to get is the house in England, which I will have to sell to buy somewhere smaller," says Chrstine. "I've survived on investments of my own. I'll get some of Johnny's smaller pension plans and have a small teaching pension.
"I don't know what he's done with the money he's earned. In 30 years of marriage we never had a joint bank account. He'd give me just enough for housekeeping.
"He said to me recently, 'You know what, Chrissie, if you'd waited until I'd died you could have had the lot'. But look what I'd have to put up with. He is mean, even our children won't ask him for money, they ask me to ask him."
Christine adds: "He has relied on me so much, even to correct his spelling and sort out his fan mail, and this is how he treats me. I will have money problems. I'd love to know where all his money has gone."
The children are now grown up and making their own way. But Christine thinks their famous dad could do more to help.
Their eldest daughter Jennie, 28, is married and works in marketing and is expecting their first grandchild in April. Michael, 26, is going to start work as an estate agent in the New Year. In the meantime, he has applied for a £5 an hour job as a Santa's helper at a Midlands shopping centre.
Stephanie, 24, is trying to follow in her father's footsteps. She gained a masters degree in acting and drama. Anthony, 17, is still at boarding school.
"Johnny loves all the kids. I have tried to protect them from everything that has been going on in our marriage and they respect me for that. I have asked him to help get Stephanie work.
"Johnny has just finished filming Miss Marple at Shepperton and I wanted him to try and get her a small walk-on part. Typically, he promised he'd do something. But when I asked he just said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah...'
"I married him for all the right reasons, I absolutely adored him. But I have moved on - it's relief to know he can't hurt me ever again."
------------------------------------------------
Hasn't she always maintained SHE wouldn't move to Manchester?
Patsy
