Joan Heath (born 10th December 1912 in Aston, Birmingham, died 17th July 2000 in Redditch, Worcestershire) appeared in Coronation Street in December 1960 as May Hardman, the mother of Christine Hardman and the first character to die in the programme.
Just over six years later she made a reconnection with the programme when she appeared in The Happy Medium, an episode of the spin-off Turn out the Lights.
She regularly worked with the programme's first producer Stuart Latham who directed her in The Way of the World at the Library Theatre in Manchester and also cast her in his 1960 Granada Television production of Kipps which was transmitted in the Friday 7.00pm slot that Coronation Street would occupy after the H.G. Wells serial had finished its run.
She also appeared in Knight Errant Limited, Saki, The Odd Man, Z Cars, Emergency-Ward 10, The Villains, Dixon of Dock Green, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, A Family at War, Crown Court, Emmerdale and Ladykillers.
On stage, she worked for many years at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in the 1930s in roles in plays such as Pride and Prejudice, Years Of The Locusts, Seven For A Secret and Tobias and the Angel.
