Geoff Hinsliff, the former Coronation Street star, has died aged 87 after a short illness.
Hinsliff, who also had minor roles in the films O Lucky Man and I, Claudius and played a wireless operator in Richard Attenborough’s epic A Bridge Too Far, won the role of Don Brennan on the soap after previously appearing in one episode a decade earlier, in 1977, as a minor character named Eric Baile.
His family said: “Geoff was a working-class boy from a family of five who left school in Leeds aged 15 with no qualifications, yet went on to study at Rada with a scholarship and to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was an English teacher who encouraged him to act, and all his life he fervently believed in the power of education.”
He joined the Coronation Street cast playing Brennan, a taxi driver, in 1987. Brennan was a dastardly character, involved in serious crimes including kidnapping and attempted murder, who met his demise behind the wheel after crashing his car into a viaduct.
Hinsliff’s other credits included appearances on Z-Cars, Holby City, Doctor Who and Brass. His final on-screen role was on Heartbeat in 2003.
His family added: “He thoroughly enjoyed playing the forelock-tugging George Fairchild in the cult ITV satire Brass, a pastiche of gritty northern dramas which said so much, and so cleverly, about class divides and the north of his childhood.”
Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt in Coronation Street, paid tribute to Hinsliff on behalf of the cast. “Geoff was a lovely, quiet man who will be sadly missed by us all,” she said. “His partnership with Lynne Perrie [who played Ivy Tilsley] was something rather special and they gave the viewers huge pleasure for many years.”
Hinsliff’s widow, Judith, together with their daughters Gaby – a Guardian columnist – and Sophie, said he was “restless, curious, adventurous and funny – he loved nothing better than setting the world to rights around the dinner table. But it was family and home that ultimately mattered to him most.”
In a statement, ITV said: “His partnership with Lynne Perrie was something rather special and they gave the viewers huge pleasure for many years.”