Steve McDonald

Steven James "Steve" McDonald is the son of Jim and Liz McDonald, and the twin brother of Andy.

Steve grew up in army lodgings and first moved to Coronation Street in 1989 when Jim was demobbed. Steve started out as the family failure; he was impetuous, reckless, and a liar. He was always in trouble, be it with family, women, or the police. He wanted to get into business and used gambling winnings to buy MVB Print and married heiress Vicky Arden, but a year later he was sent to prison for handling stolen whisky and perverting the course of justice, and Vicky left him when he tried to put the blame on her in court.

In 2000, Steve set up Street Cars with Vikram Desai. He was beaten to near death by drug dealer Jez Quigley's thugs in revenge for testifying against Jez in court on a murder charge. The following year, he married Karen Phillips for a bet but they fell in love anyway and (Karen) decided to get divorced just so they could get married again in style. While separated from Karen, Steve had a one-night stand with Tracy Barlow and nine months later their daughter Amy was born. Steve wanted nothing to do with Amy but Tracy gatecrashed his wedding and announced to everyone that he was Amy's father. Karen married Steve anyway and they tried to make their marriage work but her battles with Tracy eventually proved too much for Steve and they separated.

After divorcing Karen, Steve waged war against Tracy for access to Amy. In 2006, he bought the Rovers Return and employed Liz as landlady. The following year, he was granted full-time access to Amy in 2007 when Tracy was sent to prison for murdering Charlie Stubbs and in 2009 he married Becky Granger after an affair while he was engaged to Michelle Connor. Steve and Becky were also driven apart by Tracy; in 2010 Tracy was paroled and used Becky's illegal guardianship of her nephew Max Turner to cause trouble, and Becky's poor handling of the situation resulted in Steve throwing her out and Steve had to sell the Rovers to sort out the financial mess his problems with Becky had left him in.

After another one-night stand with Steve, Tracy became pregnant with twins. She and Steve married in 2012, but they separated at the reception when Steve learned that Tracy had lied about her miscarriage being caused by Becky pushing her down the stairs.



Steve currently lives at the Rovers with Michelle Connor after rekindling their relationship.

Arrival in Coronation Street
Steve arrived in Coronation Street at the age of 15 in October 1989, with twin brother Andy and parents Jim and Liz McDonald. From the start, the lads were high-energy tearaways initially causing aggravation for Alf Roberts. Steve and Andy got up to a lot of mischief, including a joyride in an industrial earth mover, breaking Alf's shop window. The lads were brought up mainly by their mother because their father Jim was in the army and away more than he was home. When he was home, the hot tempered Jim, whose tirades were often fuelled by whiskey and beer, had boys fearing and resenting him. Steve grew up with little respect for his father but a great deal for his mother. It didn't stop him from getting into scrapes, no matter how much it worried his mother. Schoolboy pranks turned into illegal activities when Steve was sure he could pull off a scam or two only to find out that the long arm of the law was only a few steps away. in 1991, Steve was caught selling stolen car radios and arrested, but refused to name his accomplices. Andy however did give some names and this resulted in him getting beaten up. The stress caused Liz, who was pregnant with her third child, to go into labour and give birth to a very premature daughter who only lived for a day. Steve was guilt-stricked at having inadvertently caused his sister's death and went straight to the police and named everyone involved in stolen car radios, allowing him to get off with a fine.

At one point, Steve ran away with a teenage love to the Lake District and had to be retrieved and defended against Jim by his mother. The McDonalds didn't have a lot of money and this seemed to fuel Steve's ambitions, always looking for a way to make money.

Steve started working with Jim in a building business but Jim was drinking a lot and during an argument and scuffle on scaffolding, Jim fell into a skip and was paralyzed for a time. After Jim's recovery, things started to improve between father and son. They seemed to come to an acceptance of each other.

Steve was a bit of a rogue within his family, serving two short prison sentences. He became involved with local gangster Jez Quigley, from whom he foolishly borrowed money to invest in a mini cab firm with friend Vikram Desai. When he couldn't pay it back when Jez demanded it, Jez threatened Steve by revealing he'd murdered Tony Horrocks the previous year and would do the same to him. Terrified, Steve went to the police and reported Jez's confession and decided to testify against him in court despite Jez's thugs attempting to scare him off. However Jez was acquitted and he quickly arranged to have Steve killed in revenge and had his thugs deliver a vicious beating. Despite his terrible injuries, Steve barely survived and when Jim found out Jez was responsible went after him and delivered his own beating. Jez was admitted to hospital, and found that by coincidence Steve was on the same ward. Jez decided to finish Steve off himself, but on his way to Steve's room fell over and ruptured his spleen, killing him. Jim confessed to having assaulted Jez and went to jail where he served a jail sentence until his release in late 2007. Steve is now regarded as a rehabilitated and respected member of the community, co-owning the local taxi firm Street Cars, firstly with Vikram Desai, later with Dev Alahan and currently with Lloyd Mullaney.

Marriages and relationships
He married young to Vicky, the granddaughter of Rovers Return landlord Alec Gilroy, who had come into a bit of money when her parents died. This seemed to be nothing more than another scam to get his hands on the cash, something Alec could never convince Vicky of, but, as predicted, it didn't last long. He got caught in possession of stolen booze and this time, he went to jail. Vicky divorced him and left town.

Steve has been married to Karen McDonald (twice). This was when Steve was the cool kid. During his separation from Karen in 2003, he had a one-night stand with Tracy Barlow, consequently making her pregnant. Tracy gave birth to their daughter Amy Barlow, though she initially was named Patience by Roy Cropper when he was deceived into believing Amy was his daughter. Tracy later decided she wanted to bring up her daughter herself, and revealed that Steve was the baby's father on Steve and Karen's second wedding day. Karen was horrified but later forgave him. Tracy was persistent in causing disruption for Steve and Karen which lasted from February to December 2004, until Steve finished his relationship with Karen on Christmas Day, admitting it was getting too much for him. In March 2005 he began dating single mum Louise Hazell but the dalliance soon fizzled out partly due to Tracy's presence on the Street. For a brief period shortly after, he dated Tracy, but his intentions were to try and secure his name as the father on Amy's birth certificate, not because he had feelings for Tracy. Tracy became aware of Steve's scheme, and attempted to prevent Steve access to Amy. The case was taken to court, where Steve was granted legal rights to see his daughter.

In 2005, he started dating Street Cars employee Ronnie Clayton, a local gangster's estranged wife. In 2006, she tried to frame him when she accidentally ran down a pensioner in her taxi, but she was eventually caught. Steve's alibi for the crime was that he spent the night with his new business partner Lloyd's girlfriend Kelly Crabtree. This led to the temporary closure of Street Cars, when Lloyd refused to work with Steve. Lloyd eventually decided to forgive Steve for his deception, and they were able to re-open the business. Later that year, Steve bought the Rovers Return pub from Fred Elliott and installed his mother Liz Tomlin as landlady and stepfather Vernon Tomlin as cellarman.

Tracy was sentenced to fifteen years in Redford Prison for the murder of her lover, Charlie Stubbs, and Steve took on Amy. He began a relationship with barmaid Michelle Connor, but cheated on her in June 2008, having a one-night stand with Becky Granger after he and Michelle had a row. Lloyd Mullaney, Steve's friend and colleague, told Michelle that Steve had a plan to propose in order to explain Steve's strange behaviour. This put Steve under pressure to follow through with this story, and so Steve proposed to Michelle. However, Michelle found out that the proposal was "false" and Steve later revealed that the "slept on a girls couch" (but claims he didn't sleep with her). Michelle responded by throwing Steve out of his own home and throwing the expensive engagement ring that cost £7,500 in a skip. Becky then tried to get Steve and Michelle back together but Michelle still told Steve to leave. Michelle and Steve were reunited after he gave her an ultimatum - we get back together or you move out.

In 2011, he got back together with Tracy. She and Becky had a row, as Tracy was upset about losing her baby twins. She began to take all of her anger out on Becky and Tracy staged a "fall" down the stairs to make it look like Becky had pushed her.Steve and the other Street residents came and saw Tracy lying on the floor. Becky was immediately blamed for the incident.

It was soon revealed that Steve and Tracy had become engaged. Becky heard about the couple's wedding plans and threw all of her wedding photos of her and Steve in the bin before setting fire to them. As the flames began to grow, the smoke made Becky feint. The fire brigade were quickly on scene and got Becky out of the burning building.

The wedding day soon came, and Becky found the papers that contained the evidence that she was innocent, she brought them to the wedding reception in the Rovers making Steve hate Tracy and dissolve their marriage.

Quotes
"Mam, why did we have to have the back bedroom?" (First line, to Liz McDonald)

"No, the plant pot is your alibi!" (Steve, to Peter Barlow)

"Homer's me flippin' role model!" (Steve, being sarcastic to Michelle Connor)

"Hipper than a hypnotised hippy with a hip replacement doing the hip hop in the hippodrome." (Talking about his new campervan)

"Let's get down, let's get funky!" (Preparing to help Amy with her dance in the school talent show)

"Baking......it's the new football!" (Telling the punters about his new hobby in 2014)

Background information

 * A four-part spin-off series entitled Street Car Stories was released on 3rd, 5th, 10th and 12th February 2014 and featured comic scenes between Steve and Lloyd Mullaney in the Street Cars cab office.