Corrie legend Ken Morley is convinced he was the first celebrity victim of the coronavirus.
The veteran actor, who played Reg Holdsworth in the soap, says he cheated death when he was hospitalised for three days.
He believes he fell victim to an early strain of the illness – 12 months before the world had heard of Covid-19.
He said: “I can honestly say I’ve never felt as close to the final curtain.”
Ken, 77, fell ill at Christmas 2018 while starring in Cinderella in York – ironically playing Ugly Sister Covonia.
He was staying in a university area of the city, and medics told him the then-unnamed illness had mainly hit Chinese students living there.
Ken said: “In the hospital I was told there was no name for the virus, but that it was mainly affecting the local Chinese students, who were there studying either medicine or English.
Ken Morley says he cheated death when he was hospitalised for three days (Image: Getty Images Europe)
“I had suffered severe flu several times before in my life, but nothing to compare to that virus. What I went through was entirely different to anything I had ever had before.”
The soap star added: “The run-in with what I thought was the flu, but am now convinced was a precursor to coronavirus, was looking like the final nail in the coffin – I can honestly say I’ve never felt as close to the final curtain as when I collapsed after being helped off stage.
“I had never been that seriously ill ever before and was taken by ambulance to the hospital in York, where I was literally in a daze for three days.”
It was not Ken’s first brush with death. He has had a burst appendix, prostate cancer and angina, and had a quadruple heart bypass.
Ken Morley believes he fell victim to an early strain of the coronavirus (Image: Daily Mirror)
But he admitted: “Open heart surgery, the cancer scare, everything else in the past 77 years – nothing was as bad as that bout of virus.
“I was sure at the time that if it got a grip, it could kill people. It was that bad.” Over a year on, Ken still feels the effects of his illness. And he warned: “It just comes on you so fast. I went from normal to dazed, confused and disorientated in less than 15 minutes. It was so dramatic.”
Ken, from Chorley, Lancs, is able to laugh about his “miracle Morley” recoveries as he revealed the title of his latest autobiography is “From Here to Infirmity”.
He added: “I know I have been exceedingly lucky to dodge the Grim Reaper as many times as I have.
‘The NHS is a fantastic institution and I know I am not alone in owing the tremendous doctors and nurses who work in it my life – just in my case it’s several times over already, and they are doing a marvellous job.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
