То́ни Уоррен: Создатель «Улицы Коронации» и пионер британского телевидения

English television scriptwriter (1936–2016)

Anthony McVay Simpson (8 July 1936 – 1 March 2016) publishing under pen name Tony Warren, was an English television screenwriter and actor, best known for creating the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. He created other television dramas and wrote critically acclaimed novels.

Warren was born in Harrogate but raised at 3 Wilton Avenue, Pendlebury, Lancashire. He attended Clarendon Road Primary School and Eccles Grammar School. He trained at the Elliott Clarke theatre school in Liverpool. He adopted Warren as a stage name in his early acting career. He became a regular on BBC Radio Children's Hour and acted in many radio plays, performing with many actors who later became household names through Coronation Street, most notably Violet Carson who played Ena Sharples and Doris Speed who played Annie Walker. In his memoirs, Over the Airwaves, Children's Hour producer Trevor Hill explains how Warren was an excitable young teenager at rehearsals, so much so that on one occasion Violet Carson warned "If that boy doesn't shut up, I'll smack his bottom!" During a later unexpected transmission break from London while performing at the Leeds studio, Carson played and sang to the children a dialect song called "Bowtons Yard" in which the storyteller speaks about his neighbours. Starting at Number 1 and ending at Number 12, the storyteller describes each person in turn and Warren later admitted this is what gave him the inspiration for Coronation Street.

Warren won a number of awards, all in relation to devising Coronation Street. He received a Special Achievement Award in Soap at the 2000 British Soap Awards and the National Television Landmark Award in 2005. At the Royal Television Society awards, he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The society described the show as "the most successful television programme in British history". In 1994, Warren was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary degree from Manchester Metropolitan University "in recognition for his contribution to ground breaking television and creative writing which has helped put Manchester and Salford on the cultural map". In 2016, following his death, the British Soap Awards announced that they would be renaming their Outstanding Achievement Award (Off Screen) award to the Tony Warren Award.

Warren was openly gay from his early years of Coronation Street, at a time when homosexual acts were illegal. Warren battled with drug and alcohol addiction before attending rehabilitation. He lived in Swinton, Salford, for over thirty years.

Warren died on 1 March 2016 after a short illness, aged 79. His death was announced on Coronation Street Twitter account.