CORONATION Street star Chris Finch revealed today why he is backing our campaign to save York's Odeon - he worked there for three years and loves the place!

Chris is making soap history by playing Corrie's first openly gay character, Karl Foster, in one of the biggest storylines of 2004.

But until 2001, he worked behind the counter and in the aisles of the Blossom Street cinema.

He once dressed as Star Wars villain Darth Maul and staged a mock laser sword fight in front of a cheering full house in Odeon One, before a screening of the blockbuster movie.

"There was such a buzz when there was a full house," he said. "It was such a great place to work, and the Odeon is just a gorgeous building."

He said the complex just needed an opportunity to rebrand and undergo a refurbishment, and he hoped an agreement could be reached allowing such work to go ahead.

Chris said he had got a part-time job at the Odeon while he was a film and drama student at York St John College, and he stayed on full-time for a year after leaving college before returning to his native Lancashire in search of better acting prospects.

He said the cinema manager had always been very understanding when he had wanted to go for an audition.

Chris recently helped his York girlfriend, Helen Graham, raise more than £1,000 towards a project by conservation charity Earthwatch to save a rare turtle species on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

He packed bags at Asda's Monks Cross supermarket in return for donations from shoppers, and ended up collecting more than his girlfriend and her friends managed between them, as shoppers crowded round to see him.

He fielded what has become the inevitable question wherever he goes - "Are you really gay?" - by explaining that he was just acting.

Chris could give little away about how his Corrie storyline will continue to unfold, other than to reveal tantalisingly that it will come to an explosive conclusion which might surprise some people in the next month or so.

Updated: 10:45 Thursday, May 13, 2004