female hearts a-flutter |
Heart-throb Coronation Street newcomer Stephen Billington has a talent for acting without his clothes on.
However, that ability hasn't been demonstrated--so far--in his role as the smooth, rather "iffy" Greg Kelly, illegitimate son of Les Battersby, no matter how keen on him Sally Webster may seem to be.
Stephen is used to making husbands jealous--on-screen only, of course.
He did it in the leading role in the Jilly Cooper sin-and-stately homes epic, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous.
In the process, he revealed that, while he certainly has a finely-chiseled profile, he also has a finely-chiselled body, which was often on show as he leapt from one bed to another, hotly pursued by jealous husbands.
"It's not all that fun having to act with your kit off," Stephen acknowledges. "But it's worse for the girls than the men. And once you're committed, you just have to steel yourself to the idea that you're going to have to face the day without clothes and that's that!"
Six-foot-two Stephen is continuing to set ladies hearts a-flutter in his Street role, but admits that in real life he's nothing like that. In fact, he says he's quite shy and finds it hard to chat up girls.
He says he got his friend to chat up the first girl he went out with. After that, they saw each other for a few weeks before he finally plucked up enough courage to ask her out officially.
"She said she thought we were going out together, so I'd gone through all that agony for nothing!"
In his latest TV role, Stephen is already having a big impact on Street fans, as the long-lost son of Les Battersby.
Greg now looks like turning out to be very different from the nice guy he seemed to be when he first arrived in Weatherfield in early May.
In fact, he could become quite a nasty piece of work, as fans will no doubt learn.
Though born in Bolton, Stephen was taken to live in South Africa by his parents, Derek and Diana, when he was just three.
"My mum and dad quite bravely and naively upped and left without jobs or anything, with me and my sister who was 18 months old at the time," says Stephen. "It was a kind of mad thing to do, really, with two toddlers."
"Then with apartheid still in position and an increase in violence, they got out when I was 12."
At school, Stephen excelled at sport, particularly making his mark as a swimmer. He reached county level for Lancashire and swam for the northern counties, failing to reach the National Championships by just 200th of a second.
After training in the pool for four hours every day, he gave it up after narrowly missing out for the Great Britain squad.
After school, Stephen planned a career in hotel management, following a course at catering college in Blackpool. It was during this period, while working as a waiter, that he was spotted by a scout for a top model agency and offered work.
Ironically, the most embarrassing occasions came when he was asked to model swimwear because of his swimming background.
"I was skinny and had to stand next to these huge, muscled blokes and I never used to get the job!" laughs Stephen.
He later applied for drama school, something which, initially at least, upset his parents. They'd seen him doing well in the hotel business and envisaged him running his own place one day.
But since his meteoric rise to fame, they now regard acting as a "proper job". They keep scrapbooks on his career and have even caught the acting bug themselves by joining an agency for extras.
Back when he was training for his chosen profession, Stephen earned his living as a trainee hotel manager with London's prestigious Savoy group, working in the world's finest hotels and meeting many of the world's most famous people.
"I was working on reception at the Connaught," he says. "Famous people like to stay there because it's quiet and they have privacy."
"They don't allow photographers or mobile phones in the reception area, so famous people go there to enjoy the peace and quiet and you don't get flashy temperamental types."
You do, however, get people like film stars Sir Alec Guiness and Gregory Peck--with whom Stephen was greatly impressed--and jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.
"Our relationships were purely professional, of course," he says. "But it was a tremendous experience for me. Gregory Peck I found to be a gentle and enigmatic man."
"And I was impressed by my meeting with classical pianist Vladimir Horowicz. I knew he was there, and I went up to his room with some sort of message. I knocked on the door and he was rehearsing when I got in. So he played just for me."
"A private audience with Horowicz--what a privilege! Mind you, I was a bit salutory, too, because I can't actually play any instrument myself."
"When I was a teenager, my mates and I dreamed of a career in music--though they wanted to be pop stars and I wanted to be a classical musician--but I don't really think I had the talent.
"What you want most of all as a teenager is to be sexy, and I concentrated on being sexy. A sexy musician or a sexy actor--the actor won!"
Stephen completed a three-year drama course, and kicked off his career with the role of a young calvary officer in the BBC series, The Buccaneers.
He then graduated to the sci-fi series, Space Precinct, and the the film world, flying to Ireland to appear in Mel Gibson's movie, Braveheart.
When not tied down by his work, Stephen adores travel. His most delightful memory, he says, is of a sun-drenched afternoon on the beach of the Greek Island of Paros.
"It was a perfect afternoon. The sun was hot, the sand was warm and the sea was so clear you could look down and see the fish. I'll never forget it."
The only drawback with playing a seducer, Stephen says, is that, from time to time, on-screen hanky-panky can cause friction with a real-life lover.
It can be tricky, he admits to convince someone that sliding between the sheets with a beautiful woman, with a TV crew leaning over your shoulder, is just business as usual.
"There have been times in the past when that kind of thing did cause trouble," muses, Stephen--without being specific.
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