{"id":205040,"date":"2025-06-22T11:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T11:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205040\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T11:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T11:57:09","slug":"coronation-street-star-died-penniless-on-benefits-after-23-years-on-itv-soap-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205040\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronation Street star died penniless on benefits after 23 years on ITV soap | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Coronation Street<\/a> star died reliant on benefits despite more than two decades of starring as Len Fairclough in the ITV<\/a> soap. Actor Peter Adamson died<\/a> at the age of 72 in 2002, in his Bury home \u2013 and was a \u201cvirtual recluse\u201d in his last years after his acting career collapsed in the eighties.<\/p>\n

The actor made his name as Len for 1,730 episodes of Corrie<\/a>, from 1961 until 1983. It would turn out to be his final acting project, as the actor was accused of indecently assaulting two eight-year-old girls at Haslingden Baths, where he worked as a swimming instructor, that same year. He was eventually acquitted of the charges at Burnley Crown Court, but his next move would prove controversial to ITV bosses.<\/p>\n

He decided to sell his story to The Sun at the time \u2013 while heavily drunk \u2013 and appeared to admit to the crime in a rambling interview. He was quoted as saying: \u201cI am totally guilty of everything the police said. But what I hope you will print \u2013 there was no sexual intent.\u201d He was paid \u00a3110,000 for the interview.<\/p>\n

That was the end of Adamson\u2019s career, and he was sacked by ITV bosses and written out of the soap for good. A desperate Adamson fled to Canada to start a new life, but soon returned to the UK and was declared bankrupt in 1991.<\/p>\n

After years on a \u00a310,000 a year salary from Corrie<\/a> \u2013 the equivalent of around \u00a3190,000 in today\u2019s money \u2013 he was forced to live in a rented flat and relied on benefits to get him through when he could no longer find work.<\/p>\n

Adamson died on benefits, but that wasn\u2019t his first run-in with financial trouble. The actor was drinking heavily on the job and by the late 1960s owed tens of thousands to Inland Revenue, before he was suspended from Corrie<\/a> in 1969 due to his alcoholism.<\/p>\n

The legal bill from his trial compounded his financial woes, and when his wife Jean died shortly after the trial, things went from bad to worse for the actor.<\/p>\n

His final projects included acting work on radio and a West End production of Dial M for Murder, along with a stint in Vanburgh\u2019s The Relapse in 1988. The star left behind two sons when he died in 2002.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Coronation Street star died reliant on benefits despite more than two decades of starring as Len Fairclough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[203,236,77,208,27843,82627,82631,82634,82633,82630,82632,27844,82629,82628,237,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-205040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-celebrity-deaths","9":"tag-coronation-street","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-itv","12":"tag-itv-soap","13":"tag-itv-soaps","14":"tag-len-fairclough","15":"tag-len-fairclough-coronation-street","16":"tag-len-fairclough-corrie","17":"tag-peter-adamson","18":"tag-peter-adamson-indecent-assault","19":"tag-soap-news","20":"tag-soap-star-dead","21":"tag-soap-star-deaths","22":"tag-soaps","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114726898412802179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}