Carlos puts the world to rights whilst Marilyn Gates tries to lather up some enthusiasm for the washing up in the motel kitchens back in the mid-1960s.
Lovely, squawky Brummie waitress Marilyn Gates, played by Sue Nicholls, was a fixture at the motel in the mid-to-late 1960s. Village girl Marilyn was apt to get into scrapes and often bemoaned the romantic complications in her life.
Sue Nicholls had auditioned for the part of Meg's daughter Jill, complete with Brummie accent. Can you imagine how posh Meg would have coped with such a daughter? It might have been fun, but with Jane Rossington getting the part of Jill and Sue the part of Marilyn, we had the best of both worlds.
Marilyn was popular at the motel - a good friend to Diane, Carlos and Josefina.
Marilyn squeezed a lot of living into her youthful years in King's Oak. She became a beauty queen and even tried her hand at singing - a ballad called Where Will You Be? which was released as a record in real life. Marilyn also accompanied Meg and other staff to Tunisia after a wartime bomb blew up the Crossroads kitchens.
Back in England, Marilyn fell in love with the dishy new King's Oak vicar Peter Hope, but feared she wasn't good enough for him. His mother, Tish, thought otherwise, and finally Marilyn and Peter were married.
And then things went a bit odd.
Sue Nicholls left the serial, and her character was recast. Following the template laid down by early Coronation Street, recasting in English soaps wasn't very common back then, but Crossroads bravely recast Marilyn, completely altering the character in the process.
New actress Nadine Hanwell's Marilyn spoke very good middle class English, while Sue's Marilyn's accent had been of the glorious Brummie variety. Ms Hanwell's portrayal of Marilyn was perfectly all right, she was obviously a highly competent actress, but, at first, the new Marilyn seemed too different to Sue's version.
The new Marilyn was the perfect English country village vicar's wife. The old one strove to be that, but she was dead common (like me) and given to comic storylines.
We adapted to the new Marilyn and grew to like her very much indeed. Nadine Hanwell played the role with great integrity and it wasn't long before we took the new Marilyn to our hearts.
What a shame so few episodes featuring Marilyn #1 and Marilyn #2 exist today!
2 comments:
I agree with the blog above. As I remember, Sue Nicholls left Crossroads for a career as a pop singer following the success of her song Where Will You Be both in-character and in real life. She should have kept the day job! I don't think it worked changing both the actress and the character, I don't know what they were thinking of. I remember that on the day they swapped, a short explanation was broadcast before the programme showing a picture of Nadine Hanwell and explaining that this was now Marilyn Hope.
Yes, I think Nadine Hanwell was excellent - and I grew to really like the new Marilyn, but it was a jolt. I sometimes wonder if the changes made to the character were to avoid Nadine having to imitate Sue Nicholls! Sue's Marilyn was a highly distinctive Sue Nicholls masterpiece - and Sue is a tough act to follow! After a while, Nadine's Marilyn worked well for me. It's not easy to step into a character established by somebody else.
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