Corrie's Callard closes pub business

[Perdita]

Coronation Street star Bev Callard has been forced to abandon her pub business after her debts spiralled out of control, a report claims.

The actress, who plays Rovers Return landlady Liz McDonald on the ITV1 soap, has apparently closed The Gallery pub and restaurant in Hale Barns, Cheshire, after becoming a victim of the credit crunch.

According to the Daily Star Sunday, Callard has put the company which ran the pub, BJC Entertainment Ltd, into liquidation following her financial woes.

A source told the newspaper: "She might be able to run the Rovers Return but she couldn't run a real-life pub in this climate."

Callard first admitted that she was facing a financial crisis in July this year.

Speaking at the time, she commented: "If only running a real pub was half as easy as it looks on Coronation Street. The way we run The Rovers on telly is in the realms of make-believe. If it was in the real world it would have shut down years ago."

Meanwhile, Callard's Coronation Street salary is said to have been slashed by 40% in August.


Even celebrities are affected by the credit crunch

[Perdita]

CORONATION Street star Bev Callard wrecked her best friend's life by persuading her to sink £100,000 savings into a doomed pub just EIGHT WEEKS before calling time on the place.

Then actress Bev - who plays Queen of The Rovers Liz McDonald - told pal Ethna Carlin she could not repay her.

Shocked Ethna revealed: "That money was left me by my mum - it was all I had. And Bev rang me on the first anniversary of her death to tell me I'd lost the lot. She said she could not pay me back because she was BANKRUPT. When I heard the news I burst into tears."

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In fact Bev, 52, was NOT declared bankrupt. And now her one-time buddy is demanding Bev repay her out of her £140,000-a-year Corrie wages.

"Bev's ruined me," said angry Ethna, 45. "I trusted her with my inheritance. She's very persuasive and convinced me that she'd turn the pub around.

"Just weeks later she closed down leaving me with absolutely nothing. . . but she's still coining it in on the telly.

"She should have realised it would be virtually impossible to turn things round. I would never have believed she was capable of doing this to me. We were so close, like two sisters."

The women palled up in 2001 when they were both living in Marbella on Spain's Costa del Sol. Ethna recalled: "One day I saw Bev in the supermarket and asked about her aerobics classes. We clicked straight away and became good friends.

"We were inseparable, enjoying nights out and confiding in each other. We were so close."

When Ethna's marriage ended in January, 2004, she returned to Britain. And a few months later Bev flew back too, to star in a Street spin-off filmed in Blackpool.

It was such a hit ITV bosses offered Leeds-born Bev her old role back as landlady Liz McDonald.

In August 2007, Ethna's mum died leaving her the £100,000.

And in early 2008 Ethna visited Bev and her partner Jon McEwan at their pub The Gallery in Hale, Cheshire. Ethna told us: "One night Bev and Jon asked me if I wanted to invest my money into the pub. They said a contract would be drawn up and I'd receive shares in the business.

NOTW

[alan45]

REGULARS are battling to save Coronation Street star Bev Callard's old pub from closing down.

Bev, 53, who plays Rovers Return landlady Liz McDonald, lost her tenancy of Corbans Gallery in Hale Barns, Cheshire, in 2008 when her business crashed with debts of £218,000.

Now brewer Hydes, which owns the pub, has confirmed it has received an offer for the building and plans have been submitted to turn it into offices.

Mark Chadwick of Save Our Boozer said: "The pub's been in the village for 100 years and we don't want to lose it."