Heywood star has played three different characters in ITV soap
The ITV serial opera Coronation Street’s Jess Heywood is best known for Donnaleigh Bailey’s portrayal of her.
When she was introduced as Craig Tinker’s (Colson Smith) mentor in 2017, the 39-year-old soap opera star made her first outing as the persona.
She had previously performed as two different personas, so playing Jess wasn’t her first time on the pavement.
Donnaleigh portrayed an anonymous nurse in 2015 who cared for Simon Barlow (Alex Bain) when he seriously wounded his arm while employed for the Rosamund Street Medical Center.
Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), whose effort to physically stop Simon from leaving their apartment went horribly wrong, brought Simon to the hospital.
Leanne was informed by the nurse that although Simon required sutures, the less painful butterfly kind would be used.
She explained that Simon couldn’t play football while his arm was still recovering and reassured Leanne that there was no long-term harm to his arm.
In contrast to her previous appearance, Donnaleigh’s second stint on the Cobbles would last longer, with PC Woodruff appearing in six episodes over the course of eight months.
Following a report from Sharif Nazir (Marc Anwar) that steroids were being sold through the club, V Court Fitness, she visited with her colleague PC Tyms in April 2016.
The two cops pulled up in their police car and saw Gary Windass (Mikey North) and his associate Dane Everton (Gary Hanks) making a deal. They then performed a physical search and detained Gary for marijuana possession.
When Izzy Armstrong came at the police station to affirm that the marijuana belonged to her and that she used it for pain treatment, PC Woodruff and Tyms were both interviewing Gary.
Gary’s situation was only made worse by this, though, since he was later let go and charged with drug distribution.
In her first three appearances, the character was given the title “Police Officer,” but in her subsequent three, she was given the name PC Woodruff.
Donnaleigh returned to the serial opera as Jess less than a year after her final appearance as PC Woodruff, and she has appeared in 25 episodes as the character since October 2017.
