Carlos was the Spanish neighbour of Bet Lynch and lived across the hall from her bedsit at 44 Victoria Street from July 1974 to sometime in early 1976.
An unassuming yet friendly man, Carlos spoke good English but occasionally needed help with a word or phrase he wasn't sure about. His cousin ran a restaurant in Manchester and Carlos worked as a waiter, although he didn't have a work permit to stay in the country.
Five months after moving in, Carlos was asked by Ray Langton to play a trick on Mavis Riley by phoning her and arranging a meeting, pretending to be Pedro Diaz, a Spaniard she'd met on holiday in Majorca. After he'd done the deed, though, Carlos felt bad and showed up at the meeting point so he could come clean with Mavis. Mavis was angry at first but when Carlos suggested dinner by way of apology, Mavis agreed and they ended up enjoying themselves.
Recognising he was onto a good thing, Carlos arranged more meetings with Mavis, even getting her to agree to spend Christmas Day with him. Unbeknown to Carlos, Mavis was spurred on by Jerry Booth's obvious jealousy; Mavis and Jerry were close friends but, tired of waiting for Jerry to make a move on her, Mavis decided to play it cool and not make herself too available by dumping Carlos to satisfy him.
Despite this, Mavis did have genuine feelings for Carlos. In January 1975, when the couple had The Kabin flat for the evening, Carlos asked Mavis to marry him, and she went on to accept the proposal. Carlos wanted to marry immediately and get a work permit, but once his romantic bride-to-be realised that his reason for wanting to marry wasn't love, she broke it off, turning down his offer of money to go through with it.
Following the incident Carlos mostly kept to himself, although occasionally checked on Bet, who he was on friendly terms with. He moved away early the following year.
- Twenty years before he first played Norris Cole, actor Malcolm Hebden portrayed Carlos, whose surname was never given.