Meg Johnson, who has died aged 86 after suffering from dementia, was a showbusiness all-rounder who went from singing and dancing in provincial pantomimes and performing with amateur operatic societies to appearing in West End musicals. However, it was the role of Pearl Ladderbanks in the ITV soap Emmerdale that brought her stardom.
Perhaps with the benefit of having belted out showstoppers, Johnson gave Pearl a loud, bawdy persona – complete with a colourful, flowery dress sense – when she made her debut in the Yorkshire serial in 2003. The effect Pearl had on the widowed Len Reynolds (Peter Martin) led the prudish, churchgoing Edna Birch (Shirley Stelfox) to brand her a “trollop”, starting what became a long-running sparring partnership on screen. “Edna is shocked at her brashness and how she flirts with the men,” said Johnson.
Len and Pearl grew closer and moved in together, but Pearl harboured the secret that her son was in jail for rape. When the truth came out, Len stood by her. Pearl then lost money in an internet scam, but worse heartbreak came with Len’s death in 2007. Johnson’s final appearance in Emmerdale came in March 2020, before she left to shield during the coronavirus pandemic.
Born in Manchester, Margaret was the daughter of Eleanor (nee James), a former bus conductor, and Stan Green, a brewery foreman. During the second world war she was evacuated to Bolton and made her stage debut there, aged six, singing and dancing at the Grand theatre. After developing asthma, she started singing lessons to help her breathing.
On leaving St Chad’s school, Cheetham Hill, she worked in secretarial jobs, then as a dental nurse. Performing with amateur dramatic and opera groups led her to appear in a show at Oldham repertory theatre (later Oldham Coliseum) in 1960, beginning a four-decade association with the venue. She continued to perform with Lancashire operatic societies and turned professional in 1971.
Johnson made her West End debut as Widow Corney in Oliver! (Aldwych theatre, 1983-84), and followed this with the role of Stella Deems in Follies (Shaftesbury theatre, 1987-89), when one critic described her as “a dead ringer for Shelley Winters”.
Her other London roles included Maggie Jones in 42nd Street (Dominion, 1991 and 1992), Dolly Tate in Annie Get Your Gun (Prince of Wales, 1992-93), Nettie Fowler in Carousel (Shaftesbury, 1993-94) and the prison warden-cum-talent agent Matron “Mama” Morton in the London revival of Chicago (Adelphi, 1997-98).
Johnson appeared as a singer on the ITV talent show New Faces in 1974, in an episode won by the Manchester soul group Sweet Sensation, although she had by then spent more than a decade on television in small acting parts.
Her first extended run on screen was in the second world war sitcom Yanks Go Home (1976-77) as Phoebe Sankey, pulling pints behind the bar at the Balaclava Arms in a Lancashire village where the airfield is taken over by US air force pilots.
In Coronation Street she had a long stint (1981-82) as Eunice Nuttall, a divorcee who became the wife of the lazy, slobbish Rovers Return potman Fred Gee when he was looking to run his own pub. His scheme to show the Newton & Ridley brewery he was a family man was thwarted when the brewery discovered that Eunice had been sacked as a barmaid at another pub for allegedly stealing from the till.
Eunice eventually left Fred but reappeared in 1999 running a bed-and-breakfast where Jack and Vera Duckworth (Bill Tarmey and Elizabeth Dawn) stayed, telling them that Fred – from whom she was long divorced – had died.
Johnson had earlier popped up in two fleeting parts in Coronation Street: credited as a “tipsy woman” (1972) in a brawl with Rita (Barbara Knox) in her singing days at the Capricorn club, accusing her of flirting with her husband; and as Brenda Holden (1976), this time one of Rita’s singer friends looking after the Kabin newsagent’s while Rita was on holiday.
Johnson was back in soap from 2000 to 2003 to play Brigid McKenna, matriarch of the Murray family, in Brookside’s final days. During her run, she coached her fellow cast member Claire Sweeney for the role of Roxie Hart in Chicago in the West End.
On television, Johnson was also a member of Victoria Wood’s rep company in the series As Seen on TV (1985-87) and Victoria Wood (1989).
Her marriage to Hibbert Johnson in 1956 ended in divorce. In 1981, she married Charles Foster, a Granada Television announcer; he died in February this year. She is survived by Nicholas and Stephanie, the children of her first marriage.
• Meg (Margaret Mary) Johnson, actor and singer, born 30 September 1936; died 1 July 2023
