Maria Connor
fictional character from the British soap opera Coronation Street
Maria Connor (also Sutherland) is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street, played by Samia Longchambon. The character made her first appearance during the episode broadcast on 19 May 2000. During her time on the show, Maria has been the centre of major storylines. In late-2009, Longchambon took maternity leave and Maria was off-screen from November 2009 until June 2010. Longchambon went on maternity leave again in 2015 and Maria was off-screen from October 2015 until April 2016.
Casting
Maria was created as a love interest for Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall), and first appeared working as a kennel maid at her parents' kennels. Auditions were held for the role in 2000, and actress Samia Ghadie beat several rivals, including singers Kimberley Walsh (of Girls Aloud) and Suzanne Shaw (of Hear'Say), to win the part. Describing Maria's development as a character since her arrival on Coronation Street, the official website states: "Maria has blossomed from working as a kennel maid to one of the Street's most glamorous young women. She laps up the male attention that her good looks bring her but playing footloose and fancy-free with the men in her life has gained her a bit of a reputation." Jenny Cockle, writing for the Sunday Mirror, has similarly observed that during the character's duration on the show, Maria has evolved from a "dowdy kennel maid" to a "sexy siren". Reflecting on her early days at the programme, Ghadie said: "I thought I'd do my three months and then I'd be off.
“Maria Connor” enters the record as fictional character from the British soap opera Coronation Street. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maria, Connor and fictional can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maria Connor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.