Nigel Pivaro says the deaths of his on-screen parents Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn were like a double loss.
The 58-year-old actor played bad-boy Terry Duckworth – the son of long-suffering Jack and Vera Duckworth – in the ITV soap ‘Coronation Street’ and the trio were extremely close off screen.
Nigel admitted that Bill’s death from a heart attack in 2012 and Liz’s demise last year after a long battle with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) were tough to deal with but he is still close with both of their families.
Speaking on ITV’s ‘Loose Women’ on Friday (17.08.18), he said: "I loved working with them on ‘Coronation Street’ and then to know them offstage as well. We said goodbye to Liz last year and it was very sad and to Bill before that. A huge loss. I’m still in touch with the family now. It’s like a double bereavement, you leave the show and say goodbye to people and then you lose them in real life too."
Nigel was appearing on the show alongside two of ‘Coronation Street’s other main villains, Brian Capron, who played murderous Richard Hillman and Owen Aaronovitch, who starred as Jon Lindsay.
Owen’s storyline as duplicitous faux pilot Jon, where he framed his onscreen lover Deirdre Rachid as the brains behind his criminal activities, leading her to be jailed, was one of ‘Coronation Street’s biggest storylines and even politicians got involved to "Free the Weatherfield One".
Anne Kirkbride – who played Deirdre – passed away in 2015 and Owen paid tribute to the "consummate professional".
He said: "Working with Anne was lovely. Everybody misses her and I am sure that people on the programme must be bereft. She was a consummate professional."
He revealed that the pair used to sing songs together during breaks from filming and joked that notoriously husky voiced Anne would take the lower part.
He said: "We used to sit around and talk about our families and sing croony songs together. She’d take the base part."
Nigel Pivaro: Deaths of Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn were double blow’
