Marlene Sidaway was born on Teesside and is a British television and film actress best known for playing Brenda Taylor in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. In 1961 she was accepted into the East 15 Acting School in London. She is also President of the International Brigade Society,(succeeding the late Jack Jones when he died) commemorating the volunteers who enlisted to fight Fascism in the Spanish Civil War, she met her much older partner, David Marshall, having been a member of the Brigade. They lived together from 1990 until his death in 2005.
Sidaway has appeared in many television programmes such as: Coronation Street, Lovejoy, Casualty, Doctors, Holby City, Heartbeat, Andy Robson, Miss Marple, All Creatures Great and Small, Jeeves and Wooster, Midsomer Murders, Accused, Bad Girls, The Bill, The Vicar of Dibley, Foyle's War, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Survivors and Being Human.