Sue Johnston

Susan Johnston, OBE (née Wright; born 7 December 1943) is an English actress known for playing Sheila Grant in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside (1982–1990), Barbara Royle in the BBC comedy The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2006, 2008–2010, 2012), Grace Foley in the BBC drama Waking the Dead (2000–2011), Gloria Price in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (2012–2014) and Miss Denker in the ITV drama Downton Abbey (2014–2015). She won the 2000 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actress and was nominated for the 2000 BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Performance[1] for The Royle Family.

For the 19th-century English-American actress, see Susan Johnstone.

Sue Johnston OBE
Born	Susan Wright (1943-12-07) 7 December 1943 Warrington, Lancashire, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1980–present
Television	Brookside Crime Traveller The Royle Family Waking the Dead Jam and Jerusalem Coronation Street Being Eileen Downton Abbey
Spouse(s)	Neil Johnston (m. 1967; div. 1970) David Pammenter ​ ( m. 1976; div. 1980)
Children	1

Early life

Johnston was born in Warrington, Cheshire, and grew up in Prescot, Merseyside.[2] She is the daughter of Fred and Margaret Jane Wright (née Cowan). She was educated at Whiston Infants School, Eccleston Park Junior School and Prescot and Huyton Grammar School for Girls which she left aged 17 after one year of her A-level course, having decided to become an actress.[3]

After working as a Higher Grade tax inspector,[2] when her boyfriend was one of the pop group The Swinging Blue Jeans, she worked for Brian Epstein. From the age of 21, Johnston attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.[4]

Acting career

Johnston made her television debut, aged 38, with a minor recurring role on Coronation Street in the summer of 1982, playing the role of Mrs. Chadwick, the wife of a bookmaker.[5]

From 1982 to 1990, she appeared as Sheila Grant in the soap opera Brookside. She appeared in the show's first ever episode on 2 November 1982 – aired on the day that Channel 4 went on air – and her last episode was aired in September 1990, when the character was written out of the series following her divorce from Bobby Grant (Ricky Tomlinson) and remarriage to Billy Corkhill (John McArdle).

Since then she has appeared in many drama series and films, including Inspector Morse, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, Brassed Off and My Uncle Silas. In 1992, Johnston appeared in the three-part award-winning drama Goodbye Cruel World, in which she portrayed a woman coming to terms with a muscle-wasting illness.[6]

Johnston may be best known as Barbara Royle in the BBC comedy series The Royle Family, appearing with her former on-screen husband in Brookside, Ricky Tomlinson, from the show's inception in September 1998 until it ended at Christmas 2000. She also appeared in a one-off special which aired in October 2006. From 2000 to 2011, she starred in the television series Waking the Dead, in which she played the role of psychological profiler Grace Foley, alongside Trevor Eve.[7]

In 2004, she appeared in one episode of the series, Who Do You Think You Are?, in which she traced her family tree.[8]

She starred in Jennifer Saunders's comedy drama Jam & Jerusalem on BBC One, alongside Joanna Lumley, Maggie Steed and David Mitchell. The first series aired in 2006, the second series began on New Year's Day 2008 and the third in August 2009. Also in 2008, she played Affery Flintwinch in the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit. In May 2008 it was confirmed Johnston would return as Barbara Royle for another episode of The Royle Family, which aired on Christmas Day 2008 on BBC One.[9] The show returned for further Christmas specials in 2009, 2010 and 2012. She shared a role with Billie Piper in the television adaptation of A Passionate Woman which aired on BBC One on 11 April 2010.[10]

On 2 April 2012, Coronation Street series producer Phil Collinson announced Johnston had joined the soap opera as Gloria, the mother of Stella Price (played by Michelle Collins). She made her first screen appearance on 5 September 2012.[11] It was announced in June 2013 that Johnston would leave the soap opera in 2014 to pursue other acting roles.[12] She departed on 21 February 2014.[13]

In December 2011, she played Eileen Lewis in the BBC one-off drama Lapland, a role which she reprised in 2013 for a series, Being Eileen.[14][15]

In May 2014 it was announced that Johnston would guest star in the fifth series of the period drama Downton Abbey. She played Denker, a lady's maid to the Dowager Countess, played by Dame Maggie Smith.[16]

In 2018 Johnston played Ivy-Rae in the BBC drama series, Age Before Beauty[17] and in August 2019, she played Joan in the second series of Hold the Sunset.[18]

Personal life

Johnston has campaigned on behalf of the Labour Party and has been a long-time gay rights campaigner.[19] She is a supporter of Liverpool F.C. and St Helens R.F.C..

In 1967, she married her first husband Neil Johnston and became pregnant at the age of 24. She suffered a miscarriage shortly after and the couple later divorced but she kept his surname as her professional name.[20] She has one son, Joel, from her second marriage to David Pammenter.[21] She has two grandchildren.[22]

Johnston is strongly opposed to smoking.[23] Despite playing the role of heavy smoker Barbara Royle in The Royle Family, Johnston gave up smoking in 1978, but had to smoke low-tar cigarettes while playing the role. This was because the cast and crew including Johnston could not stand the smell of herbal cigarettes. In fact, in most episodes of The Royle Family, Johnston's character Barbara when lighting a cigarette did not actually inhale. She also seldom actually put the cigarette to her lips. In all the Christmas specials Johnson's character Barbara was not seen to smoke at all.

Johnston was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.[24] In November 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by University of Chester at Chester Cathedral.[25]

In 1989 Johnston, assisted by Lesley Thomson, published her first book, a memoir titled Hold on to the Messy Times.[26] In 2011, she published another memoir titled Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother.[27]

In 1970, Johnston was sexually attacked at the age of 27 which inspired her storyline in Brookside as Sheila Grant, where she was raped.[28]

In her autobiography, Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother,[29] she states that she was originally going to be called Margaret Jane Wright, after her mother and grandmother, but her father thought that it would be best to call her Susan.

Filmography

Film

Title	Year	Role	Directed by
Brassed Off	1996	Vera	Mark Herman
Preaching to the Perverted	1997	Esmeralda	Stuart Urban
Face	1997	Alice	Antonia Bird
New Year's Day	2001	Mrs. Fisher	Suri Krishnamma
Imagine Me & You	2005	Ella	Ol Parker
500 Miles North	2011	Stein	Luke Massey
Golden Years	2016	Nancy	John Miller
Walk Like a Panther	2018	Gladys	Dan Cadan

Television

Title	Year	Role	Notes
Coronation Street	1982	Mrs. Chadwick	3 episodes
Brookside	1982–1990	Sheila Grant	Series regular
Goodbye Cruel World	1992	Barbara Grade	Miniseries – 3 episodes
Medics	1992–1995	Ruth Parry	29 episodes
In Suspicious Circumstances	1992	Edith Rosse	Episode 2.2 – "Maundy Money"
Inspector Morse	1992	Mrs. Bailey	Episode 6.4 – "Absolute Conviction
Screenplay	1992	Miriam Johnson	Episode 7.4 – "Bitter Harvest"
A Touch of Frost	1992	Phyllis Bowman	Episode 1.3 – "Conclusions"
Full Stretch	1993	Grace Robbins	6 episodes
Luv	1993	Terese Craven	18 episodes
Performance	1994	Mistress Overdone	Episode 4.2 – "Measure for Measure"
Into the Fire	1996	Lyn	Miniseries – 3 episodes
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates	1996	Helga Allowby	Episode 2.2 – "Poison Pen"
Crime Traveller	1997	Kate Grisham	8 episodes
Verdict	1998	Hazel De Vere Q.C.	Episode 1.3 – "The Doctor's Opinion"
Duck Patrol	1998	Val Rutland	6 episodes
The Jump	1998	Maeve Brunos	4 episodes
The Royle Family	1998–2000 2006–2012	Barbara Royle	All 25 episodes
Sex, Chips & Rock n' Roll	1999	Irma Brookes	Miniseries
Waking the Dead	2000–2011	Dr. Grace Foley	9 seasons – 92 episodes
My Uncle Silas	2001–2003	Mrs. Betts	9 episodes
Cutting It	2004	Caroline Ferraday	Episode 3.4
The Street	2006	Brenda McDermott	Episode 1.2 – "Stan"
Little Dorrit	2008	Affery Flintwinch	Miniseries – 7 episodes
Jam & Jerusalem	2006–2009	Sal Vine	3 seasons – 16 episodes
A Passionate Woman	2010	Betty	2 episodes
Sugartown	2011	Margery	3 episodes
Gates	2012	Miss Hunter	5 episodes
Coronation Street	2012–2014	Gloria Price	Series regular, 169 episodes
Being Eileen	2013	Eileen Lewis	7 episodes
Downton Abbey	2014–2015	Miss Denker	8 episodes
Rovers	2016	Doreen
Kiri	2018	Celia Grayson	Guest role – 1 episode
The Good Karma Hospital	2018	Virginia	Series 2
Age Before Beauty	2018	Ivy-Rae
Hold the Sunset	2019	Joan
The Cure	2019	Isabella Bailey
The Cockfields	2019	Sue	3 episodes

Television film

Title	Year	Role	Notes
The Things You Do for Love: Against the Odds	1998	Pat Phoenix
Score	2001	Maggie
Happy Together	2002	Val
The Turn of the Screw	2009	Sarah Grose	Broadcast on BBC One
Lapland	2011	Eileen Lewis

Additional credits

• Brookside: The Lost Weekend ... Sheila Corkhill (1997 video special)
• Brookside: Friday the 13th ... Sheila Corkhill (1998 video special)
• The Unseen Royals ... Narrator (1999 TV documentary)
• Caring for the Recently Deceased ... Marjoram Bryon (2014 short)

References

1. "Sue Johnston on the oddness of women". inews.co.uk. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
2. Lucia, Carmella de (13 September 2018). "The famous faces you may not know are from Cheshire". chesterchronicle. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
3. Daily Mail Weekend Interview. 31 March 2012, p. 6
4. "Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art". www.zaitseva.com. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
5. Sue Johnston returns to Coronation Street as Stella Price's mother. Mirror.co.uk (29 August 2012); retrieved 4 January 2013.
6. "Goodbye Cruel World (1992)". BFI.
7. "BBC One - Waking the Dead". BBC.
8. "Who Do You Think You Are? with Sue Johnston". Who Do You Think You Are?. 26 October 2004. BBC. BBC Two.
9. BBC in talks with Aherne and Cash over Royle Family return. Guardian (7 May 2008); retrieved 4 January 2013.
10. "BBC - Press Office - Top British cast in Kay Mellor's A Passionate Woman for BBC One". www.bbc.co.uk.
11. "Sue Johnston to play Stella's mum Gloria". Itv.com. 27 May 2011. Archived from the original on 8 May 2012. Retrieved 9 May 2012.
12. "Sue Johnston to leave 'Coronation Street'". BBC. 20 June 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
13. "'Coronation Street': Gloria Price star Sue Johnston to leave soap – Coronation Street News". Digital Spy. 20 June 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
14. "BBC One commissions new six part comedy series, 'Lapland'". BBC. BBC Online. 4 October 2012. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
15. "Being Eileen". BBC. Retrieved 29 January 2013.
16. "BBC News – Sue Johnston to join Downton Abbey as lady's maid". BBC. 29 May 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
17. bradfordzone (26 July 2018). "Age Before Beauty | Sue Johnston is Ivy-Rae Regan". Bradford Zone | TV FEATURES 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
18. "BBC - Sue Johnston joins the cast as Hold The Sunset returns - Media Centre". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
19. "Never larger than life: Ruth Rolands meets the Brookside star and gay rights campaigner". Gay Times. Millivres (131). August 1989. ISSN 0950-6101. The dangers of that Clause [28] really hit me and I felt angry. I've got to come in on this, I thought – so I did. That's when I 'came out' as an ally of gays.
20. "Sue Johnston: My secret battles with depression and bulimia". Daily Mirror. 22 August 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
21. Cook, Emma (10 August 2012). "Sue Johnston: My family values" – via www.theguardian.com.
22. Sue Johnston: 'I took Corrie job to be closer to grandson' – Coronation Street News – Soaps, DigitalSpy.co.uk, 11 August 2012; retrieved 4 January 2013.
23. "Drama – People Index Sue Johnston". BBC. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
24. "No. 59090". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 2009. p. 11.
25. "Brookside veterans Phil Redmond and Sue Johnston reunited at graduation". chester.ac.uk. 5 November 2010. Retrieved 9 January 2011.
26. Johnston, Sue, 1943- (1989). Hold on to the messy times. London: Pandora. ISBN 0-04-440497-2. OCLC 20088841.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
27. Johnston, Sue, 1943- (2011). Things I couldn't tell my mother : a memoir. London: Ebury. ISBN 978-0-09-193889-5. OCLC 752824495.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
28. "Sue Johnston: 'Night I thought stranger was going to kill me'". Mirror. 24 August 2011.
29. Johnston, Sue, 1943- (2011). Things I couldn't tell my mother : a memoir. London: Ebury. ISBN 978-0-09-193889-5. OCLC 752824495.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Sue Johnston on IMDb