Post by RitaLittlewood on Dec 28, 2008 11:30:17 GMT
And all my sympathy evaporated when I read about how they complain over cash cutbacks when they get paid enough and normal people have to struggle on the minimum wage! From the People:
28 December 2008
Corrie legend John Savident tells why his family comes before stardom
By Jon Wise Jon.Wise@People.Co.Uk
Corrie legend John Savident has spoken for the first time about the REAL reason he quit the soap and admit ted: "It was breaking my heart."
John had played butcher Fred Elliott for 12 years when his character was killed off in 2006.
The actor was yearning to spend more time with his beloved wife, children and grandchildren.
He hoped the Street's bosses would find a way of making life easier for him. Instead they decided it was better to write him out of the show - and John, 70, is still bitter about the decision.
"I did think they might find some way to accommodate me," he told The People. "Quite honestly I was surprised and disappointed that they didn't try a bit harder.
"I told them a year in advance that I was going and then they took me out for dinner and said, 'We're not going to insult you, John, by trying to make you stay'.
"And I'm sitting there thinking, 'Please, go on, insult me'."
John cited "personal reasons" at the time he left the show.
There were suggestions that the veteran actor was tired of life in the spotlight - particularly after he was stabbed at his Manchester flat in December 2000.
John had invited back Michael Smith, 30 - later jailed for seven years for the attack - to talk about theatre after they met in a nightclub.
"That was a deeply unpleasant experience," said John.
"But it was the show itself that did for me - it was breaking my heart."
The star - who has a key role in ITV1 cop drama Above Suspicion this week - explained how his Corrie commitments meant him staying in Manchester all week.
He desperately missed his wife Rona, daughter Romany, son Daniel and D a n i e l ' s ch i l d r e n Molly, 12, and Charles, 10, who were back home in Hertfordshire.
John said: "They are really great kids, both sporty and so full of life and fun.
"I regret missing out on seeing them during a part of their growing up. I was becoming an absentee husband, father and grandfather by spending so many hours working on The Street. I couldn't go on any longer - the whole situation was becoming ridiculous and deeply distressing."
In the show Fred combined butchery with being co-owner of the Rovers, swapping banter with pint-pullers Liz McDonald (Bev Callard and Shelley Unwin (Sally Lindsay).
John said: "If they'd made things a little easier for me by letting Fred give up either The Rovers or the butcher's shop I'd probably have stayed but that option was never presented to me.
"So I just served out my notice.
I was stuck up in Manchester, filming maybe one scene on Monday, a couple onWednesday and another on Friday - in total only about a day's work - while pining for my family down south. In the end, I was glad to leave."
Millions of viewers saw Fred die of a heart attack as he was about to marry Bev Unwin (Susie Blake) after calling on Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls) - who had also hoped to be his bride.
John rarely watches ITV1's hit show these day s - bu t seems ready to shar pen his butcher's knives as he talks about the way some cast members were "reduced to tears" by the makers Granada.
He claimed: "Granada were becoming increasingly mean. All the nice little extras that the cast enjoyed were being whittled away.
"The subsistence allowance - basically for working away from home - only got paid for the first couple of years you were in the show, not for five, as it had been.
"Holiday pay was slashed. I think Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth, was in floods of tears and someone like Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) must have lost a small fortune.
And then Granada reduced the weekly retainer we got for showing 'loyalty' to the programme, from £470 to £100 a week.
"Loyalty clearly doesn't mean a thing now, especially in television."
John, whose TV roles have spanned everything from Dickens series to Lovejoy, added: "I'd never deny that I made a decent living out of Coronation Street and I had made a nice pile before I went into the show."
But he is not impressed by all of the modern Corrie cast.
He said: "There are some great actors in Coronation Street - always have been, always will be.
"But some younger stars don't necessarily seem to want to be great actors, they just want to be famous.
"They arrive in soaps and gradually you see their performances deteriorate as they take shortcuts to get through scenes. It's very sad.
"For example, if a character is upset or angry the actor will always be upset or angry in the same way.
In real life, you get angry and upset in different ways, there isn't a stock response.
"And don't get me started on having 'star names' to play characters in drama on TV.
"The public will tell you that someone such as Dawn French, Russell Brand or Johnny Vegas is wonderful - but it's the person who they think is wonderful, not necessarily their performance.
"A proper actor in the role would be able to bring so many other elements to it. The character would become so much richer and deeper.
But this obsession with celebrity seems to be everywhere."
As a "proper actor' himself, Channel Islands-born John is delighted to be in two-parter Above Suspicion, which starts next Sunday. He plays sleazy ex-cop Barry Southwood who has turned his Spanish villa into a porn movie studio. Viewers will catch a fullfrontal glimpse of a naked woman but John wasn't fazed.
He recalled: "I was a copper before I got into acting and was seconded to the vice squad in Manchester.
"One girl used to take particular pleasure in leaving her curtains semi-drawn so we could see everything - and I mean everything - that was going on. She would put on an act for us.
"She'd lie there with this poor chap and would be shouting all the right things to turn him on - 'Oh darling, you are wonderful, don't stop, don't stop' - while eating her way through a bag of chips on the bedside table. Me and my mates were killing ourselves laughing.
"That's probably the kind of sight my character in Above Suspicion would have seen before he either got kicked out of the force or retired. Now he's just a sleazy ex-cop on the Costa del Crime."
As John relaxed at home with Rona, he recalled the saucy mail that poured in from fans.
He smiled: "Some of the letters were enough to make your hair curl. One young girl was in love and in lust with Fred.
"If the picture she sent was really her she was an extremely attractive young woman yet she was saying things like, 'I love you, Fred. I go to sleep at night looking at your picture and I wake up in the morning looking at it again'.
"I'd have told her, 'For goodness sake find yourself a nice, young man, not a fat, bald, northern butcher'.
"She wasn't the most explicit. Women of a certain age clearly wanted to do more with Fred - and with me - than just hand over a few quid for a pound of steak.
"I am a happily married man and wasn't going to be swayed however tempting the offer."
Although John has no regrets about leaving Corrie he misses mates on the show, including Bill Tarmey, Sue Nicholls, Barbara Knox and Steven Arnold, who played Fred's son Ashley.
But the actor said: "Now I see more of my grandkids and I have disappeared off the radar a bit, which suits me down to the ground.
"People like Sue Nicholls handle fame brilliantly but I never could. I just wanted to act and then go home for the night."
John added: "With me back on TV in the New Year, I may get a few second glances in Sainsbury's. But it will never be as intense as it was during the Corrie years. And I can't tell you how happy that makes me."
'I was disappointed the bosses did not try harder to keep me on'
'Granada were mean. Some of the loyal cast were in tears. I don't watch it any more. It's not as good'
28 December 2008
Corrie legend John Savident tells why his family comes before stardom
By Jon Wise Jon.Wise@People.Co.Uk
Corrie legend John Savident has spoken for the first time about the REAL reason he quit the soap and admit ted: "It was breaking my heart."
John had played butcher Fred Elliott for 12 years when his character was killed off in 2006.
The actor was yearning to spend more time with his beloved wife, children and grandchildren.
He hoped the Street's bosses would find a way of making life easier for him. Instead they decided it was better to write him out of the show - and John, 70, is still bitter about the decision.
"I did think they might find some way to accommodate me," he told The People. "Quite honestly I was surprised and disappointed that they didn't try a bit harder.
"I told them a year in advance that I was going and then they took me out for dinner and said, 'We're not going to insult you, John, by trying to make you stay'.
"And I'm sitting there thinking, 'Please, go on, insult me'."
John cited "personal reasons" at the time he left the show.
There were suggestions that the veteran actor was tired of life in the spotlight - particularly after he was stabbed at his Manchester flat in December 2000.
John had invited back Michael Smith, 30 - later jailed for seven years for the attack - to talk about theatre after they met in a nightclub.
"That was a deeply unpleasant experience," said John.
"But it was the show itself that did for me - it was breaking my heart."
The star - who has a key role in ITV1 cop drama Above Suspicion this week - explained how his Corrie commitments meant him staying in Manchester all week.
He desperately missed his wife Rona, daughter Romany, son Daniel and D a n i e l ' s ch i l d r e n Molly, 12, and Charles, 10, who were back home in Hertfordshire.
John said: "They are really great kids, both sporty and so full of life and fun.
"I regret missing out on seeing them during a part of their growing up. I was becoming an absentee husband, father and grandfather by spending so many hours working on The Street. I couldn't go on any longer - the whole situation was becoming ridiculous and deeply distressing."
In the show Fred combined butchery with being co-owner of the Rovers, swapping banter with pint-pullers Liz McDonald (Bev Callard and Shelley Unwin (Sally Lindsay).
John said: "If they'd made things a little easier for me by letting Fred give up either The Rovers or the butcher's shop I'd probably have stayed but that option was never presented to me.
"So I just served out my notice.
I was stuck up in Manchester, filming maybe one scene on Monday, a couple onWednesday and another on Friday - in total only about a day's work - while pining for my family down south. In the end, I was glad to leave."
Millions of viewers saw Fred die of a heart attack as he was about to marry Bev Unwin (Susie Blake) after calling on Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls) - who had also hoped to be his bride.
John rarely watches ITV1's hit show these day s - bu t seems ready to shar pen his butcher's knives as he talks about the way some cast members were "reduced to tears" by the makers Granada.
He claimed: "Granada were becoming increasingly mean. All the nice little extras that the cast enjoyed were being whittled away.
"The subsistence allowance - basically for working away from home - only got paid for the first couple of years you were in the show, not for five, as it had been.
"Holiday pay was slashed. I think Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth, was in floods of tears and someone like Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) must have lost a small fortune.
And then Granada reduced the weekly retainer we got for showing 'loyalty' to the programme, from £470 to £100 a week.
"Loyalty clearly doesn't mean a thing now, especially in television."
John, whose TV roles have spanned everything from Dickens series to Lovejoy, added: "I'd never deny that I made a decent living out of Coronation Street and I had made a nice pile before I went into the show."
But he is not impressed by all of the modern Corrie cast.
He said: "There are some great actors in Coronation Street - always have been, always will be.
"But some younger stars don't necessarily seem to want to be great actors, they just want to be famous.
"They arrive in soaps and gradually you see their performances deteriorate as they take shortcuts to get through scenes. It's very sad.
"For example, if a character is upset or angry the actor will always be upset or angry in the same way.
In real life, you get angry and upset in different ways, there isn't a stock response.
"And don't get me started on having 'star names' to play characters in drama on TV.
"The public will tell you that someone such as Dawn French, Russell Brand or Johnny Vegas is wonderful - but it's the person who they think is wonderful, not necessarily their performance.
"A proper actor in the role would be able to bring so many other elements to it. The character would become so much richer and deeper.
But this obsession with celebrity seems to be everywhere."
As a "proper actor' himself, Channel Islands-born John is delighted to be in two-parter Above Suspicion, which starts next Sunday. He plays sleazy ex-cop Barry Southwood who has turned his Spanish villa into a porn movie studio. Viewers will catch a fullfrontal glimpse of a naked woman but John wasn't fazed.
He recalled: "I was a copper before I got into acting and was seconded to the vice squad in Manchester.
"One girl used to take particular pleasure in leaving her curtains semi-drawn so we could see everything - and I mean everything - that was going on. She would put on an act for us.
"She'd lie there with this poor chap and would be shouting all the right things to turn him on - 'Oh darling, you are wonderful, don't stop, don't stop' - while eating her way through a bag of chips on the bedside table. Me and my mates were killing ourselves laughing.
"That's probably the kind of sight my character in Above Suspicion would have seen before he either got kicked out of the force or retired. Now he's just a sleazy ex-cop on the Costa del Crime."
As John relaxed at home with Rona, he recalled the saucy mail that poured in from fans.
He smiled: "Some of the letters were enough to make your hair curl. One young girl was in love and in lust with Fred.
"If the picture she sent was really her she was an extremely attractive young woman yet she was saying things like, 'I love you, Fred. I go to sleep at night looking at your picture and I wake up in the morning looking at it again'.
"I'd have told her, 'For goodness sake find yourself a nice, young man, not a fat, bald, northern butcher'.
"She wasn't the most explicit. Women of a certain age clearly wanted to do more with Fred - and with me - than just hand over a few quid for a pound of steak.
"I am a happily married man and wasn't going to be swayed however tempting the offer."
Although John has no regrets about leaving Corrie he misses mates on the show, including Bill Tarmey, Sue Nicholls, Barbara Knox and Steven Arnold, who played Fred's son Ashley.
But the actor said: "Now I see more of my grandkids and I have disappeared off the radar a bit, which suits me down to the ground.
"People like Sue Nicholls handle fame brilliantly but I never could. I just wanted to act and then go home for the night."
John added: "With me back on TV in the New Year, I may get a few second glances in Sainsbury's. But it will never be as intense as it was during the Corrie years. And I can't tell you how happy that makes me."
'I was disappointed the bosses did not try harder to keep me on'
'Granada were mean. Some of the loyal cast were in tears. I don't watch it any more. It's not as good'
