Anne Kirkbride (21 June 1954 – 19 January 2015) was an English actress, best known for her long-running role as Deirdre Barlow in the ITV soap Coronation Street, which she played for 42 years from 1972 to 2014.

[2] Kirkbride was noticed by casting directors for the British soap opera Coronation Street when she acted in a Jack Rosenthal play, Another Sunday and Sweet F.A.

From then on, the character of Deirdre Langton, later Barlow became known for her very large spectacles and her husky voice (a result of Kirkbride's own chain smoking).

[1] On 29 September 2014, it was announced Kirkbride would have a three-month break from the show[3] and prior to her death, she had filmed no official last scenes, making her final scenes the ones aired on 8 October 2014 with her character's absence in the soap being explained as staying with a friend until July 2015, when the death of her character Deirdre was announced by Bev Unwin (Susie Blake) returning to tell Ken and Tracy that she died on the day of her 60th birthday party and homecoming.

[7] They met on the set of Coronation Street, when Beckett joined the cast as her character Deirdre's boyfriend.

The actor Adam Woodyatt dedicated the Best British Soap award EastEnders won to Kirkbride, referring to her as "the Weatherfield One",[15] referencing the Coronation Street storyline which saw Deirdre wrongly imprisoned for fraud.