Inside Alison King’s life away Coronation Street including co-star romance and iconic TV advert role
Alison King has played Carla Connor in Coronation Street since 2006 and her character has been at the centre of some huge storylines - but her life off screen is very different
Alison King, a familiar face on the cobbles for 18 years since joining the cast in 2006, has been at the heart of numerous major storylines during her time on Coronation Street. At 51, Alison’s character has faced a series of dramatic events, including being targeted by serial killer Stephen Reid, enduring kidnapping, rape by her boyfriend Frank Foster, battling alcoholism, engaging in an affair, and even being suspected of murder.
Currently, her character is caught up in a fresh romantic storyline, with Carla growing increasingly close to DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) in recent months. Thankfully, Alison’s real life away from the Cobbles is vastly different – and significantly less dramatic – than that of her character.
Born in Leicester, she moved to Newquay at 18 to work in a surf shack. A keen surfer in her spare time, she spent four years working as a dental nurse before enrolling at the North Cheshire Theatre School at 22.
In the following years, Alison modelled in the late 1990s, becoming the face of Boddington beer and featuring regularly in Daz adverts.
Her subsequent role and most recognised apart from Corrie is as Lynda Block in Sky One’s Dream Team. She began dating her co-star Jim Alexander, to whom she got engaged, but they ended their relationship shortly afterwards.
In 2004, she graced the Corrie screen as a one-off character named Mrs Fanshaw, brought in to add some zest to Ryan Thomas’ character Jason Grimshaw. After impressing the soap bigwigs, Alison was selected to portray Carla Connor and made her debut on the cobbles in 2006.
Away from the cobbles, Alison was once engaged to Adam Huckett, a sound technician on Coronation Street, with whom she shares a teenage daughter Daisy. The former couple never made it down the aisle and split up in 2012, and Alison subsequently embarked on a five-year romance with Corrie colleague Philip Middlemiss, who played Des Barnes.
In November 2018, Alison was spotted with a new ‘mystery man’, who she revealed to be IT consultant David Stuckley when they announced their engagement in OK! magazine a year later. However, in May 2022 it emerged that the couple had gone their separate ways after ‘growing apart’ during lockdown.
The actress divulged that she’s previously taken measures to improve her smile due to early childhood habits. She candidly discussed how thumb-sucking as a child left her feeling insecure about her dental appearance.
To rectify her crooked teeth, she chose cosmetic surgery during her drama student days, but admitted in 2015 to having further aesthetic treatments.
In a candid discussion with dentistry.co.uk, she disclosed: “As an actress onscreen I’d begun to notice how my top and bottom front teeth had been pushed into the middle where my thumb had been. The inside bottom four teeth around the gum line were much shorter than the rest of the teeth. It was during my time at drama school that I decided to undergo cosmetic surgery at a dental practice in London. However, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the final result and always felt there was room for improvement.”
