Obituary: Jill Summers

As merry widow Phyllis Pearce of the gravelly voice and blue-rinse hairdo, chasing fellow pensioner Percy Sugden in Coronation Street, Jill Summers gained a legion of admirers in her later years, after a lifetime treading the boards in variety across Britain.

Born into a theatrical family in Eccles, Lancashire, in 1910, her father was a circus tightrope walker and her mother, Marie Santoi, a famous revue artist. Her uncle was Johnny Fuller, "The Famous Cat", who frequently acted alongside Fay Compton in the pantomime Dick Whittington. One of four sisters and a brother, who all took to the stage while young, Summers performed a musical comedy double act with her brother.

By 1939, she had left the stage and taken up hairdressing because theatres were going through a bad patch, but that all changed when war broke out. Summers was called on to work in a factory but explained that she would be better as an entertainer, so she joined ENSA and performed her act for the troops. Starting as a singer, she tripped over on stage during one performance and came out with a mouthful of comedy that was to change her career.

She became a stand-up comedienne and revue artist, and her act, The Pipes of Pan, made her famous in London and the provinces. She was billed as "Lancashire Comedienne Jill Summers, The Pin-Up Girl of British Railways" and known particularly for her personae of "the portress", "the waitress" and "the Blackpool tart".

Summers' career was to change again when she took her first television acting role, playing Delilah Hilldrup in the ITV twice-weekly serial Castle Haven, in 1969. Created by Kevin Laffan - later to write Emmerdale Farm - it was set in a town on the Yorkshire coast and followed the lives of residents in two large Victorian houses that had been converted into flats. Other actors in Castle Haven included future Coronation Street stars such as Roy Barraclough and Kathy Staff, as well as Gretchen Franklin, who went on to play Ethel Skinner in EastEnders.

On television, Summers also had her own weekly series, Summers Here, featuring such star guests as Wilfrid Hyde White, Michael Bentine and Terence Alexander. As an actress, she appeared in The Dustbinmen (1969), Queenie's Castle (1970), The Flaxton Boys (1973), Free as a Bird (1973), Lorna and Ted (1973), the award-winning schools series How We Used to Live, the Alan Bennett play Sunset Across the Bay (alongside other Coronation Street stars, Elizabeth Dawn and Madge Hindle, 1975), Jack Rosenthal's Ready When You Are, Mr McGill (1976), the 13-part serial This Year Next Year (playing battleaxe Tessa, 1977) and the John Braine drama Stay with Me Till Morning (1981).

She also acted Nancy's Aunt in Agatha (1979), Michael Apted's speculative production, starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave, about what might have happened to the mystery writer Agatha Christie during her famous 11-day disappearance in 1926.

Summers first appeared in Coronation Street in 1972, as Hilda Ogden's fellow cleaner, Bessie Proctor, at the Capricorn night-club, where Rita Sullivan (then Littlewood) sang. Hilda was officially head cleaner, but Bessie refused to acknowledge her seniority.

Ten years later, Summers returned as Phyllis Pearce, tracking down her grandson Craig Whitely when he moved to the street with his grandfather on the other side of the family, Chalkie (the late actor Teddy Turner, who had played her husband in This Year Next Year). Phyllis's daughter had died of cancer and she was seeking what family she had left. Then, when her own home in Ondurman Street was demolished and Craig emigrated to Australia with his father, Phyllis asked Chalkie if she could move in with him. He refused and, after winning pounds 3,500 on the horses, left for Australia himself.

But Phyllis worked in Jim's Cafe and found a reason for continuing to visit Coronation Street when she set her sights on fellow-pensioner Percy Sugden (actor Bill Waddington), whose war-time memories she would listen to avidly. His attempts at brushing her aside never stopped her infatuation and Phyllis even wrote an "Ode to Percy", which won a brewery competition in 1993. After losing her job in the cafe, she worked as a cleaner for Audrey Roberts and Des Barnes.

During her early years as Phyllis, Summers was reunited with two old friends from music hall days, Bill Waddington and Tom Mennard, who played Sam Tindall until his death in 1989. The Coronation Street cast were like a family to Summers, who was 10 years older than the character she played, and she credited them with helping her through a time of grief after her second husband, Dr Cliff Simpson-Smith, died in 1984. Five years later she was one of those who appeared in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance. Jill Summers acted in more than 500 episodes of Coronation Street.

Jill Summers, singer, comedienne and actress: born Eccles, Lancashire 10 December 1910; twice married (both husbands deceased; one adopted son); died Manchester 11 January 1997.