Sophiya Haque (14 June 1971 – 17 January 2013) was an English actress, singer,
video jockey
A video jockey (abbreviated VJ or sometimes veejay) is an announcer or host who introduces music videos and live performances on commercial music television channels such as MTV, VH1, MuchMusic and Channel V.
Origins
The term "video jockey" come ...
and dancer. She is best known for playing the role of
Poppy Morales in ''
Coronation Street
''Coronation Street'' is an English soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres around a cobbled, terraced street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner-city Salford.
Origi ...
'' between 2008 and 2009.
Early life
Haque was born Syeda Sophia Haque in
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, Hampshire to a
Bangladeshi
Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay.
Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...
father and a
British Jewish mother.
She was the youngest of three daughters.
She was brought up by her mother, Thelma, a schoolteacher. She attended Priory School in Portsmouth, and took dancing lessons from the age of two and a half at Mary Forrester's Rainbow School of Dance before moving at the age of 13 to London (where she lived with her father, Amirul Haque, a restaurateur, and his second wife), training full-time at the
Arts Educational Schools, London
Arts Educational Schools, or ArtsEd, is an independent performing arts school based in Chiswick in the London Borough of Hounslow.
Overview
ArtsEd provides specialist vocational training at secondary, further and higher education level in m ...
.
Career
Haque started as the lead vocalist in the band Akasa; they signed a deal with
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
in 1988.
Subsequently, she worked as a video jockey for
MTV Asia
MTV was a pan-Asian music pay-television channel which launched on 3 May 1995 as a standalone pay television channel. It was owned by Paramount Networks EMEAA.
History
MTV Asia was officially launched on 3 May 1995 as a 24-hour English-languag ...
for seven years and
Channel V
Channel '' ("V" standing for the letter, not the Roman numeral "5") is a Chinese and former Asian pay television musical network originally launched by Star TV Hong Kong (now Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific). It was part of the unit of Disne ...
.
Haque was employed as a presenter at
STAR TV Star TV may refer to:
* E! (Canadian TV channel) (formerly Star!), a Canadian entertainment news channel
* Las Estrellas (Spanish for The Stars), the Mexican television network
* Estrella TV (Spanish for Star TV), the American Spanish-language net ...
in Hong Kong in 1992. From 1994, she began appearing on TV in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and in 1997 she moved to
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
full-time to work on the Channel V India service. Her first Bollywood film was ''
Khoobsurat'', and she later made several more including ''
Mangal Pandey: The Rising''.
In 2002, Haque returned to the United Kingdom to star as Rani in
Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''
Bombay Dreams
''Bombay Dreams'' is a Bollywood-themed musical, with music by A. R. Rahman, lyrics by Don Black and the book by Meera Syal and Thomas Meehan, originally produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The London production opened in 2002 and ran for tw ...
''. In 2005, she starred as Janoo Rani in the West End theatre musical production of ''
The Far Pavilions
''The Far Pavilions'' is an epic novel of British-Indian history by M. M. Kaye, published in 1978, which tells the story of an English officer during the British Raj. There are many parallels between this novel and Rudyard Kipling's ''Kim'' th ...
''. In 2012, she starred as Soraya in ''Wah! Wah! Girls''.
In 2008, she took a small supporting role in the film ''
Wanted''.
Between December 2008 and June 2009,
she played
Poppy Morales, the barmaid and assistant manager of the
Rovers Return
The Rovers Return Inn is a fictional pub in the long-running British soap opera '' Coronation Street''.
The Rovers Return occupies a corner of the fictional Coronation Street and Rosamund Street set location in the show. The pub was built by ...
, in ''
Coronation Street
''Coronation Street'' is an English soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres around a cobbled, terraced street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner-city Salford.
Origi ...
'' and by coincidence, shared her dressing room with Coronation Street's Auntie Pam played by actress
Kate Anthony, who was also her first cousin.
In 2012, she appeared in
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' as Senkhara.
'', playing the role of, Sylvia Morgan, a Welsh-Indian singer and dancer performing for the
in 1948.
, Surrey, with her partner, musical director David White, and the couple were in the process of building a houseboat when she fell ill.
Around Christmas 2012, Haque was diagnosed with cancer. She developed a lung clot and
and in the early hours of 17 January 2013, she died in her sleep in a London hospital, while undergoing tests.