Actress. As star of British television in the 1980s and 1990s, she shall be best remembered as Aveline Boswell from the late-1980s series “Bread”. Born Gillian Helen Coman to a theatrical family, she was raised in Liverpool, studied at the Shelagh Elliot-Clarke School of Drama from age eight, appeared in commercials, and refined her craft at the Liverpool Playhouse. Her first television role in 1978 as Judy on the long-running “Coronation Street” was followed by later appearances on the show as stripper Sugar La Marr and as a receptionist. Coman took roles in “Boys from the Backstuff” (1982) and other movie and television pieces before landing the part of Aveline in 1986; appearing in the series’ first four seasons, she made the ditzy miniskirt and heels wearing girl a central part of the cast. The 1988 episode in which the Catholic Aveline marries a Protestant clergyman was to be one of the highest-rated shows in British television history. Coman left “Bread” in 1989 to have her first child, but was kept busy through the 1990s with the part of Carol Jones on “Children’s Ward” (1990-1991) and of Denise in “Brookside” (1992). She was to earn particular praise as abused wife Linda McNeill in 1994’s “Snatched” and as neglected wife Marigold Lockton from “The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous” (1997). Retiring from show business after the 2000 “Nature Boy” to concentrate on raising her children, Coman lived in Wirral, and was contemplating a return to the theatre when she died of a heart attack. (bio by: Bob Hufford)