CLEAVER
Susan

• 1. Career

Susan Cleaver is an English actress. She is best known for portraying the role of Eileen Grimshaw on the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, which she played from 2000 to 2025. In 2024 Cleaver became a panellist on Loose Women.

Career

She studied at the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre, and her first television appearance was a small part in an episode of A Touch of Frost. She went on to star in the acclaimed drama series Band of Gold before landing a role in the film Girls' Night alongside Julie Walters and Brenda Blethyn.

In 1998, she played Duty Sgt. Standish in the first series of The Cops, and also played Glenda, a woman delivering baked goods in Victoria Wood's BBC comedy series dinnerladies on a recurring basis between 1999 and 2000. She appeared as PC Sylvia Holland in This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, a miniseries, in 2000. She also had a small part in the Johnny Depp and Cate Blanchett film The Man Who Cried. It was after filming that role in 2000 that she was cast as Eileen Grimshaw on Coronation Street. Cleaver won praise for her portrayal of Eileen, the mother of a son, Todd, who struggles with his sexuality and comes out as gay.

Cleaver covered for Denise Robertson as the agony aunt on the ITV daytime programme This Morning until Robertson's death in 2016. Cleaver also completed three years of training to become a psychotherapist.

In 2022, Cleaver was a contestant on the twenty-second series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. She placed 9th after sixteen days in the jungle.

In 2023, Cleaver made a guest appearance on the ITV show Loose Women, and then became a regular panellist.

In 2024, Cleaver wrote and published her first book, A Work In Progress, through Bloomsbury.