Emmerdale legend Paula Tilbrook who played Betty Eagleton for 21 years dies aged 89 – five years after leaving soap
Emmerdale actress Paula Tilbrook has passed away aged 89.
The soap legend was best known for playing show regular Betty Eagleston on the long-running ITV programme for 21 years from 1994.
Paula died in December and the sad news was announced on theatre industry website The Stage on Wednesday afternoon.
Sad news: Emmerdale actress Paula Tilbrook has passed away aged 89
The obituary read: ‘Paula Tilbrook will be best remembered for her 21-year stint in ITV soap staple Emmerdale as the sherry-loving village gossip Betty Eagleton.’
Joining the show as the ex-Tiller Girl returned home in 1994, she effortlessly established Betty as an iconic, straight-talking northerner who quickly moved to the centre of many of the soap’s most popular storylines.
When she retired in 2015, Inside Soap magazine remarked of her final episode: ‘Funny, feisty and smart as a whip. They don’t make ’em like actress Paula Tilbrook any more!’
On-screen love: The soap legend was best known for playing show regular Betty Eagleston on the long-running ITV programme for 21 years from 1994
Paula took on the role of Betty in 1994 and left the ITV programme in 2015, before returning for a cameo the same year.
Paula’s character Betty left the soap after finding love down under and planning to move away to Australia permanently.
She returned to the Yorkshire village to inform her friends that her short-term stay in Australia would now be forever after falling in love.
Paula was delighted with her exit storyline and told Digital Spy at the time: ‘
Announcement: Paula died in December and the sad news was announced on theatre industry website The Stage on Wednesday afternoon (pictured in 2015)
I’m absolutely overawed by it. I’m over the moon and I fill up every time I think about it! I don’t think we do this very often.
‘I did ask our producer, bless her, not to have me murdered because I was fed up of murders! It’s a very, very dangerous place to be – you’re better in the Bronx than in Emmerdale village!
‘She said, ‘Oh no, of course I won’t’ – and she hasn’t. It’s a proper ending and it’s a happy one. Who doesn’t like a happy ending?’
The star also appeared in Coronation Street in 1973 for a short 11-episode run.