“I’m so thrilled to help tell Nolly’s long overdue and largely forgotten story. Russell’s screenplay is a work of brilliance and I hope I’ll do him and Nolly justice,” she said.

Gordon played Crossroads Motel owner Meg Richardson, later Meg Mortimer, standing firm for 18 years amid the soap’s famously wobbly sets.

Out of the blue, in 1981, she was informed by bosses at ATV that she was to be written out. 

Gordon went to the press, saying she wept all night after an executive disposed of her in tones so emotionless it was “as though he was reading a weather report”.

She appealed directly to Lord Grade, head of ATV, but he refused to intervene. “It is not I who have left Crossroads. It is Crossroads which has left me,” she told a newspaper.

The three-part drama promises to reveal “the truth, the consequences, and the legacy of that terrible day”.

Her sacking made the News at Ten, and was memorably sent up by Julie Walters on the Victoria Wood show.

ATV’s switchboard was swamped with complaints and crowds gathered outside the studio to protest. In the end, Gordon’s character was not killed off but sailed away on the QE2.

Gordon went on to appear in the theatre, including a lead role in a West End production of Gypsy. She was persuaded to return to Crossroads in 1983 for two guest appearances. She died of stomach cancer in 1985, aged 65.