Former Coronation Street star Paula Wilcox appeared on ITV's Lorraine on Wednesday11:57, 27 May 2026A former Coronation Street star has opened up about a personal heartbreak.‌76-year-old actress Paula Wilcox first appeared on the cobbles back in 1969 as Ray Langton's (Neville Buswell) sister Janice. She then returned to Weatherfield in 2020, playing Elaine Jones, a former abuse victim and first wife of Geoff Metcalfe (Ian Bartholomew), as well as the mother of Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine).‌Elaine made her final appearance on the street back in October 2023. Now, actor Paula is set to appear in a gripping drama called The Fortune.‌The new Channel 5 thriller centres around a woman called Amanda (played by Eleanor Tomlinson), who is handed a large inheritance from a man she's never met.Paula plays Amanda's mum, who has dementia. This connects to the actor's real life, after her mum suffered from the condition several years ago.‌During an appearance on ITV's Lorraine on Wednesday (May 27), Paula said: "It's terribly upsetting."Host Lorraine Kelly added, "It's a horrible, cruel disease. You were saying you maybe couldn't have done this a wee while ago when it was still so raw, because it's close to home, right?"The actor replied, "It is quite close to home, so it was quite painful to think about it for quite a while. People change so much, you don't really know what's going on.‌"This was interesting, because of the in and out nature of [the character's] dementia - you so want her to be able to explain what she knows, and she does, she starts to, and suddenly you've lost her again, and she's looking out into the garden and thinking about trees. That's exactly my experience with my mum."Lorraine concluded: "It's a very accurate portrayal of that disease, it really is. Maybe [it will] give people a better understanding of it as well while they're watching this. Gosh, it's very intriguing.‌"It's very difficult to talk about without giving too much away, because there's lots and lots of twists and turns around the way, obviously."After being handed an enormous inheritance in The Fortune, Amanda's life quickly unravels as she finds herself embroiled in the strange world of the Worrall family - headed up by patriarch Martin (Denis Lawson) - and their buried family secrets.As Amanda's story leads her further into the Northumbrian countryside, she begins to unravel the past, and it seems everything she thought to be true might not be at all.‌Speaking to the Mirror about her new role, Paula admitted: "It's something that I was a bit wary of. My mum had dementia, and it's absolutely awful. I've been asked to play someone with dementia before, and I felt it was a bit too close to it."But actually, this part is very different, because she's a very different woman with a very different story, and also, it's about 15 years ago now, so it's time to move on."The Fortune will premiere on Tuesday, June 2 at 9pm on Channel 5, while Coronation Street airs weekday nights at 8.30pm on ITV1 and ITVXArticle continues belowMore information about dementia is available via the NHS and Dementia UK