Maureen Lipman, the 79-year-old actress best known for her role as Evelyn Plummer on Coronation Street, has married businessman David Turner in a private ceremony, her friends confirmed. Lipman and Turner, both 79, exchanged vows at a weekend service after announcing their engagement last year.
Lipman has said she proposed to Turner during a train journey last September, citing the Jewish minor festival of Tu B'Av as the spur for the on-the-spot proposal. The actress wrote about the moment in the Spectator, saying she slid under a table and asked for his hand; Turner accepted.
Guests at the reception were briefly startled when a nationwide government emergency alert sounded across many mobile phones in the early hours of the morning, with reports placing the tone at about 3 a.m. Gyles Brandreth, a longtime friend of Lipman's who had disclosed the wedding date on his podcast the previous week, said on ITV's This Morning that he heard the alert "under quite exciting circumstances." Brandreth recounted an anecdote in which a rabbi told officials about the forthcoming wedding and joked that the prime minister had arranged for the sirens to sound around the country.
Photographs from the event showed Lipman in a blush-pink coat dress paired with a cream fascinator and pointed mid-heel shoes; she later removed the coat to reveal a chic dress for the evening. Turner was pictured in a dark grey suit and bow tie and wearing a traditional kippah.
Friends and family were present for the ceremony. Lipman and Turner each have children from previous relationships: Lipman and the late television writer Jack Rosenthal, to whom she was married for 30 years until his death in 2004, share two children, Amy and Adam; Turner has three children from a previous relationship. Lipman has written that the couple told their grown children about the engagement together and described their reactions as warm but individual.
Lipman first went public with her relationship with Turner in autumn 2023, when she said she planned to bring a "gentleman friend" to that year's National Television Awards. The couple made a joint public appearance at the Oldie of the Year Awards later that year, where Lipman referred to Turner as her "significant other."
Lipman had a long relationship with Italian businessman Guido Castro after Rosenthal's death; Castro died in 2021 after becoming seriously ill following COVID-19, according to Lipman. In her writing and interviews she has described finding love again later in life as a gift and said she was overjoyed to be sharing life with Turner.
Brandreth, who has frequently appeared publicly with Lipman, had mentioned the wedding date on his Rosebud podcast last week and attended the ceremony. He told listeners he would be going "to her wedding" and called getting married in one's 80th year "fantastic." The emergency alert briefly interrupted the celebrations but attendees described the wedding as elegant and relaxed afterward.
Lipman continues to appear on television and in theatre; her marriage to Turner marks a new chapter after decades in the public eye and following the personal losses she has written about publicly. Further details about the venue and guest list were not disclosed.