Soap legend Helen Worth is best known for her role as Gail Platt on ITV 's Coronation Street, a role that she has played since 1974, but many don't know she's originally from the best side of the Pennines.
The 71-year-old actress, who looks incredible for her age, has been on the cobbles for nearly 50 years and her time in Weatherfield has been a rollercoaster to say the very least.
She's been at the centre of some of the soap's biggest storylines including the unforgettable Richard Hillman saga.
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Thankfully Helen's life off air is much less dramatic, she once admitted she would "be in a mental institution" if her life was like Gail's.
She confessed: "I come home and see friends and go to the theatre. Luckily I find it quite easy to switch off – I'd be a nervous wreck if I didn't."
Here's everything we know about the Gail Platt actress' life away from the camera's.
Who is Helen Worth?
Cathryn Helen Wigglesworth was born to Alfred and Gladys Wigglesworth in Ossett, Wakefield, and later moved to Morecambe, Lancashire where she grew up.
She was brought up in a middle-class family and attended private school.
Tragically Helen's mother was killed in a hit-and-run road accident while she was on a visit to Brighton.
Worth's grandmother lived in Bradford and ran a boarding house for music hall performers, which prompted her desire to perform.
She took dancing lessons from the age of three, and took part in many school theatrical productions.
At the age of ten, she read stories on Granada Television's Scene at 6.30, and appeared in an episode of BBC's Z-Cars.
At the age of twelve she played one of the von Trapp children in a stage production of The Sound of Music, at the Palace Theatre in London, a role that kept her in London for nine months.
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After this period, she returned to Morecambe to finish her education and later attended the Corona Theatre School in London.
She went on to briefly feature in multiple shows and films including The Doctors, Within These Walls and A Woman Of Today to name a few before bagging her infamous role as Gail in in 1974.
Despite working on the cobbles for nearly 50 years, the actress doesn't actually live in Manchester where filming takes place.
Helen has a house in London and makes the lengthy commute to the set, but she's a northern girl at heart.
The actress has previously stated that she does not plan to leave Coronation Street, saying she's happy with Gail's never-ending drama, and that it's a job she loves.
Is Helen married and does she have children?
Unlucky-in-love Gail has had five husbands during her stint on Corrie, four of whom have died, including one notorious serial killer who tried to murder her entire family.
In real life Helen has only been wed twice, her first husband was actor Michael Angelis, who is best known for narrating the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends childrens' series.
The pair were together from the mid 70s and finally tied the knot in 1991, but sadly their marriage came to an end a decade later when Michael had an affair with Welsh model Jennifer Khalastchi, who he later married.
During an earlier interview with our colleagues at The Mirror in 2001, Helen admitted she buried herself into work and felt like she was "drowning" and "being dragged down".
She said: "Nothing can ever prepare you for the day your husband sits you down and tells you he is having an affair.
"My marriage was everything to me. It was the foundation on which everything else was built. I had been with Michael for nearly half of my life. I never imagined that we wouldn't grow old together.
"When he told me, everything just went black. Things started to make sense. Maybe I realised right away that something like that had been bound to happen. Things hadn't been right for some time, but - naively maybe - I didn't think it was serious.
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"I knew there was a problem. I just didn't know it was me."
However, Helen and Michael remained friends despite his infidelity regularly got together for lunch until his tragic death last year.
The actress explained: "He was called a love rat and a cheat. But he wasn't. That's not how it was, things are never that easy. He just met someone who made him happier than I could. It wasn't a crime. It was just desperately sad.
"I know now that Michael suffered as much as I did. He still loved me when he left. It tore him apart that he was hurting me. He would never willingly have caused me pain. He is the gentlest man I know."
Following her divorce from Michael Helen remained single for some time until she met her now husband, deputy headmaster Trevor Dawson.
The pair met at a mutual friend's 90th birthday party and Trevor claimed it was "love at first sight".
Trevor, who is seven years Helen's junior, was familiar with Helen already having regularly watched the show.
He told The Mirror in 2016: "We watch the show together. I had always been a fan going back some years. I used to watch it with my mum. Of course, Gail was my favourite."
Helen and Trevor kept their romance private for over a year before tying the knot at St James's Church in London in 2012, with many of Helen's co-stars present.
Helen Worth has no children.
Helen's charity work
Helen is a patron of the Born Free Foundation, an international wildlife charity working throughout the world to stop individual wild animal suffering and protect threatened species in the wild.
She appeared on television fronting campaigns and joined them at the House of Commons in 2006, to speak about the proposed changes to the Animal Welfare Bill and campaign for the retirement of Anne, the UK's last remaining circus elephant.
She is a supporter of the charity ActionAid and has visited Sierra Leone in support of its work there.
Helen's husband and former church organist Trevor is also a qualified pilot and shares Helen’s passion for wildlife conservation.
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