Curly Watts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Coronation Street character | ||||||||||||
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| Curly Watts | ||||||||||||
| Duration | 1983-2003 | |||||||||||
| First appearance | 11 July 1983 | |||||||||||
| Last appearance | Late 2003 | |||||||||||
| Book appearances | Coronation Street: The Complete Saga | |||||||||||
| Profile | ||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 4 July 1964 | |||||||||||
| Status | Married | |||||||||||
| Home | Newcastle upon Tyne | |||||||||||
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Norman "Curly" Watts was a prominent character in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street from 1983 to 2003. He was portrayed throughout by the British actor Kevin Kennedy. His nickname resulted from him having straight, lank hair. His hobby was astronomy, and he installed a telescope in the loft of his house.
The character was originally a paperboy for Rita Fairclough, before working as a binman with Chalkey Whitely and Eddie Yeats, whilst lodging with Emily Bishop. He later worked for Mike Baldwin alongside Terry Duckworth. Curly's first serious romance was with Shirley Armitage, a black sewing-machinist from Baldwin's factory. Opposition from his old-fashioned parents Arthur and Eunice led to tension between the couple, and Shirley left when Curly threw out the guests at his surprise party so he could revise for a course in Business Studies.
This course led to him getting a job at Bettabuy's supermarket, and he became a protege of Reg Holdsworth. Whilst working there, he had a relationship with employee Kimberley Taylor. Once again, opposition -- this time from both sets of parents -- caused problems. Despite other brief flings with girls such as Anne Malone and Angie Freeman and Reg's future wife Maureen Holdsworth, who tried to get him sacked when he rejected her advances, and Maxine Peacock, who slept with him believing that he was going abroad next day, Curly seemed doomed never to find domestic happiness.
After a prolonged on-off relationship, Curly married Raquel Wolstenhulme, who eventually left him to work as a beautician in Kuala Lumpur, and later moved to France with their daughter, Alice Diana. Curly did not know about the child until Raquel turned up unexpectedly one New Year's Eve to ask for a divorce.
Watts met his second wife, Greater Manchester Police policewoman Emma Taylor (played by Angela Lonsdale) when she came to investigate a series of crimes in the area in which Curly was innocently implicated. The couple married and had a son who was born on Boxing Day 2001 whom they named Ben, after Norris Cole's middle name, as he helped deliver the child. Later, Emma committed perjury in order to protect a colleague, causing friction between herself and the ultra-honest Curly. The couple left the Street during 2003.
