1991: October 19-25

Wandin Valley party
The Seven Network’s A Country Practice turns ten years old next month.  The planned celebration for cast, crew and media is to be held later this month in Sydney – but for three cast members it will also be a farewell party.  Gordon Piper, Syd Heylen and Matt Day are leaving the series, to be followed in the new year by Georgie Parker and John Tarrant.  But one cast member who has been there since day one is Shane Porteous (pictured, with Parker), who recalls a discussion early in the show’s run about its chances of lasting ten years.  “We talked about it, but quickly woke up to ourselves!” he says.  “The most amazing thing about celebrating 10 years is there are kids now in high school who cannot remember A Country Practice not being on TV!  It’s a feather in the cap of the formula.” 

Skipping back!
TV Week has visited the set of The New Adventures Of Skippy, the Nineties remake of the 1960s classic.  The series, being made at the Habitat Wildlife Park on the Gold Coast, stars Andrew Clarke (pictured), Fiona Shannon, Moya O’Sullivan, Kate McNeil, Simon James… and a new Skippy, although unlike the original this one does all her own stunts – no close-ups of fake stick-like paws that do anything from starting lawnmowers to cracking bank safes.  The New Adventures Of Skippy has already been pre-sold to the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, France and Italy.

Mummy dearest!
Production is underway on the fifth season of the ABC’s Mother And Son – and Ruth Cracknell is having a great time playing geriatric Maggie Beare.  “Never will I think twice about playing Maggie,” she told TV Week.  “Maggie is a character you slip back into pretty quickly.  The thing that makes the show a success is that you get a crowd around you while you’re filming – people who are just as rapt in the show.  They all come – it’s most extraordinary.  That level of interest will always be there as long as the scripts are kept to the standard they are now.”  One of the guest stars to feature in the latest series is former A Country Practice and E Street star Joan Sydney, who joins Maggie for a spot of gambling at the races.  “They have a wonderful day together and get stuck into the champagne,” says Cracknell.

Briefly…
Production is due to start in the new year on a third series of ABC’s Embassy, although this time around there will be a number of cast members missing.  Bryan Marshall, Nina Landis and Janet Andrewartha will not be appearing in the new episodes as producers give the show “a new direction”.

Former Home And Away and Hampton Court star Adam Willits has spoken of being “bashed” by British police when it was suspected he was breaking into the hotel he was staying at while on tour for the Home And Away musical.  “I couldn’t understand why they wanted to arrest me when I had the key in my hand.  They tried to cuff me and I resisted.  The police thought that the only way to get me in cuffs was to give me a few thwacks around the head,” he said.  “I never touched them.  I only tried to resist them putting the handcuffs on me.”  He was later released without being charged.   

Actor Cameron Daddo and fiancee Alison Brahe (pictured) have set a date for their wedding.  Engaged earlier this year, the pair are set to marry before Christmas.  They are currently living in Melbourne, where Daddo is working on the spin-off series from the Bony telemovie.  Model Brahe is set to start work soon on a new children’s show, Guess What?, to be produced for the Nine Network.

John Laws says…
”Did you notice that the sky hasn’t fallen in at SBS?  Did you notice the network hasn’t lost its credibility?  Did you notice that the SBS range of programs remains as diversified as ever?  I say this because it’s some months now since SBS began screening advertisements and we can all recall the prophets of doom who were predicting that SBS as we know it would be besmirched and changed forever – for the worst – if it accepted advertising.  The predictions, of course, were nonsense.  Advertising has been accepted into the SBS format with absolutely no problems.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, October 19-25):
Saturday:  ABC presents live coverage of the First Quarter-Final and Second Quarter-Final of the Rugby World Cup. 

Sunday:  Ten crosses to the Gold Coast for the Uncle Toby’s Ironman Super Series, while Nine crosses to Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix.  Sunday night movies are A View To A Kill (Seven), Ghostbusters II (Nine) and Dragnet (Ten).

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), the strange behaviour of Matron Prior’s (Maureen Edwards) son conceals a mystery, and plumbers apprentice Grant Frazer (Rob Carlton) hides a personal problem – until it’s almost too late.  In Col’n Carpenter (Ten), Colin (Kim Gyngell) starts to doubt his own sanity and agrees to see a psychiatrist.

Tuesday:  In Chances (Nine), Alex’s (Jeremy Sims) loyalty and love for Paris (Annie Jones) is tested when her father makes an offer that Alex may not be able to refuse.  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Maxine Gray reports on a drug which, when administered to addicts, triggers massive, rapid withdrawal that leaves their bodies opiate free.

Wednesday: In Hey Dad! (Seven), it’s council clean up day and Martin (Robert Hughes) rouses the troops to do their bit.

Thursday:  Test cricketer Merv Hughes makes a guest appearance in The Flying Doctors (Nine) as the Coopers Crossing Crusaders take on the Broken Hill Brumbies.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  19 October 1991.  Southdown Press

1990: December 8-14

Cover: Olivia Newton-John

Hey Hey it’s… London…?
Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers is set to make an appearance on Aussie expat Clive James’ popular British show, Saturday Night Clive. Somers is hopeful that the appearance could lead to Hey Hey being sold to an international audience.  “I feel we’ve given England such a diet of soapies that it’s about time they copped some comedy/variety/night-time/morning type of stuff.  They just want to talk about me being on TV for a long time, and the show I do, which is unique.  I know Clive and he’s very aware of that uniqueness,” Somers told TV Week.

Oscar winner aims for Oz glory!
Oscar-winning American actor Denzel Washington is likely to win the lead role in the Seven Network mini-series Tracks Of Glory, which goes into pre-production soon.  Producers Barron Films have also been negotiating with LA Law star Blair Underwood, but Washington is now the favourite for the lead role of American champion cyclist “Major” Taylor.  Among the Australian cast list for the mini-series are Cameron Daddo (Bony), Justine Clarke (Home And Away) and John Wood (Rafferty’s Rules).  Tracks Of Glory is set in the 1920s and follows the story of Taylor as he comes to Australia to compete in the richest cycling event in the world.

The show will go on!
Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s Daryl Somers is choosing his words carefully when he announces the disintegration of DAS Entertainment, the nine-year partnership between himself, Gavan Disney and Ernie Carroll, which produces the popular Nine Network program:  “We’ve discussed it.  It’s a mutually agreed split.  Hey Hey will continue, as we are contracted to do until the end of 1991, and we all looking forward to it in a very positive way.  We want the split to be as professional and businesslike as possible, and because we are involved in working that out – the entanglement of contractual obligations with DAS and the (Nine) network and so on – I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go into great detail at this stage.  But I think it’s safe to say that DAS will be no longer.  Next year the program will be produced by another entity.” Somers and Carroll are expected to take over producing the show – although plans to bring Jacki MacDonald back into the program appear to have stalled.

Briefly…
As the financial situation at Network Ten continues to crumble, producer Ian McFadyen (pictured) is confident that the network will pick up a proposed sitcom he has been discussing with them – a concept based around the lives of employees at a television station.  McFadyen is also confident that Ten will renew sitcom Let The Blood Run Free for a second series.  Meanwhile, his company, Media Arts, also has a deal to produce a sitcom, Newlyweds, for the Seven Network in partnership with Crawfords Australia.  The new sitcom is set to be a starring vehicle for former Neighbours star Annie Jones.

ABC has renewed drama series Embassy for a second series.  The renewal comes after controversy, as Malaysia accused the show’s fictional setting of Ragaan of “making fun” of their country and consequently cancelled official visits to Australia and suspended trade talks, prompting Prime Minister Bob Hawke to step in and reassure Malaysians that the program is entirely fictional.

Aussie actress, former Number 96 and Skyways star Carmen Duncan (pictured), playing the role of bitchy Iris Carrington Wheeler in the US soap Another World, has been named by Soap Weekly magazine as one of the “most desirable women on American television”.  Her character has also been voted one of the most popular on American daytime TV.

Seven Network series A Country Practice has clocked up 800 episodes.  Given the current financial situation at Seven, still in receivership, the cast and crew of the series were allowed only a small celebration at Seven’s Sydney studios.

Neighbours star Ashley Paske has announced that he will not renew his contract with the Network Ten series when it expires in January.  He is expected to be seen on-air until May.

John Laws says:
“SBS has had a great year.  Its fine coverage of the World Cup soccer – possibly more extensive than any other station in the world – was the highlight.  It, more than anything, put the station on the map.”

Program Highlights (December 8-14):
Sunday:  Tennis (Colonial Mutual Men’s Invitational) on ABC.  Golf (Johnnie Walker Classic) on HSV7 and cricket (Benson And Hedges World Series) on GTV9.  Sunday night movies are North Dallas Forty (GTV9) and Stones For Ibarra (ATV10).  HSV7 presents the first instalment of mini-series George Washington.

Monday:  ABC presents a repeat of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals, featuring John Halfpenny, Glenn Wheatley, Keith Williams and Wilson Tuckey.

Tuesday:  Prime Minister Bob Hawke presents the Walkley Awards, buried in a broadcast of the National Press Club Luncheon, on ABC at 1.00pm.

Friday:  The final 1990 edition of the late-night Robbo’s World Tonight on GTV9.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 8 December 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: September 1-7

Get me to the church on time…
The upcoming A Country Practice wedding between Lucy Gardiner (Georgie Parker) and Matt Tyler (John Tarrant) will continue Wandin Valley’s tradition of dramatic weddings.  “The problem is the parents,” Parker tells TV Week.  “And whether the ceremony is going to be held in an Anglican or Catholic church.  Matt’s father Gilbert (George Mallaby) is pompous and doesn’t think Matt is coping without good financial backing.  My parents are supposedly splitting up and my father Patrick (Jonathan Hardy) refuses to come because it’s not being held in a Catholic church.  My mother Lois (Jill Perryman) turns up without him.”  The lead-up to the wedding has also been marred by Lucy’s cancer scare and the couple’s house being burnt to the ground in recent episodes.  “Post-marriage is much calmer,” Parker hastily points out.

The Great Soap Shake-Up!
A number of key cast shake-ups are about to unsettle popular soaps Home And Away, A Country Practice and E Street, while cop drama Skirts is about to lose one cast member.  Julian McMahon and Sharyn Hodgson (pictured), who play Home And Away newlyweds Ben and Carly, are leaving the show over the coming months.  Their exit from Home And Away follows recent news that original cast member Adam Willits is about to leave the show – and Craig McLachlan is also planning to leave the show but will return for guest appearances during 1991.  James Davern, producer of Seven’s A Country Practice, has confirmed that the series is about to lose cast members Michael Muntz, Mary Regan and child actor Georgina Fisher.  Actors Muntz and Regan are leaving to pursue other opportunities, while the young Fisher is leaving after two years with the show.  “I spoke to her parents and two years are enough for a child actor,” Davern told TV Week.  Meanwhile, Network Ten’s E Street is about to lose cast members Paul Kelman and Lisbeth Kennelly, whose contracts have not been renewed.  Also tipped to be leaving E Street are Chelsea Brown and Rebecca Saunders.  And Skirts star Kate Gillick is leaving the police drama to return to the theatre.

Caught in the crossfire
Tragedy strikes Neighbours when Kerry Mangel (Linda Hartley, pictured, with Mark Little) is left fighting for her life after being accidentally shot while taking part in a duck-shooting protest.  “This storyline brings out the side of Kerry’s character that I’ve always liked the most,” Hartley tells TV Week.  “She has been in a very domestic situation lately, but no-one can forget their past.  I’m pleased the opportunity came up for her to be more forthright about things she cares about.”    

Briefly…
The Comedy Company producer Ian McFadyen (pictured) has admitted that the show’s return has been tougher than expected.  “We’ve obviously got a mandate to deliver a big audience pretty soon and that’s a lot of pressure to carry.  Our ratings are worse than I thought they would be.  60 Minutes has an enormous following – a very strong loyalty – and we’re working on that at the moment.”  Meanwhile, McFadyen’s other project, Mark Mitchell’s The Big Time, has been taken off air after a short time and is set to be re-worked.

Robbo’s World Tonight host Clive Robertson insists he couldn’t care less that his show is being beaten by Tonight Live With Steve Vizard in the ratings.  “If they don’t want my show after next March (when his contract runs out), that’s fine,” he told TV Week.  “I’ll do something else.  I wouldn’t mind going back to Seven or even the ABC.”  He also admits to not liking the name of his own show.  “”Robbo’ sounds a bit silly,” he says.  If he had his choice, he’d call it something like ‘The Final Word, With Mr Robertson’.

Denise Drysdale and Ernie Sigley have spoken to TV Week about their daytime show, In Melbourne Today.  “We really are like an old married couple,” Drysdale says.  “We can have a go at each other, and it’s all part of the fun.”  While Sigley says it is a battle to try and stay ahead of the gags that the studio crew have in store for them.  “They once blew up a chook on the set and scared the living daylights out of me,” he said.

John Laws says…
”SBS’ The Movie Show with David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz is certainly a reflection of two completely different personalities.  Pomeranz is bubbly, earnestly sincere and prone to gush the extremities of praise and criticism; Stratton is cool, laidback and possessed of both gentlemanly charm and viper-like attack.”

Program Highlights (September 1-7):
Saturday:  HSV7 starts its celebrity-led assault on the top-rating Hey Hey It’s Saturday with two new shows, Celebrity Family Feud and Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune.

Sunday:  With More Winners now finished up, ABC starts screening the original Winners series of children’s dramas that had originally screened on the Ten Network.  Tonight’s episode is The Other Facts Of Life starring Ken Talbot, Dennis Miller and Anne Grigg.  Sunday night movies are Stakeout (HSV7), Children Of A Lesser God (GTV9) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (ATV10).

Monday:  Tonight Live With Steve Vizard (HSV7) starts a week of shows presented live from London.

Wednesday:  John Bach, Oliver Tobias, Rebecca Gilling and Peta Toppano star in ABC’s new mini-series The Paper Man, screening over three consecutive nights.  Australian Democrats politician Janine Haines is this week’s guest on Speaking For Myself (SBS).  HSV7 screens the long-awaited telemovie Bony, starring Cameron Daddo, Burnum Burnum, Catherine Oxenberg, David Reyne and Tom Richards.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  1 September 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: August 18-24

‘Whatever happened to old-fashioned romance?’
Being an actress since the age of nine, 16-year-old Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) has not had the most normal of childhoods and often yearns to be 'just an average teenager'.  Although while she let go of her childhood earlier than most, she believes young people should not rush to reach adulthood.  “There is no hurry to grow up,” she told TV Week.  “I think that a lot of teenagers miss out on so much.  They go out with each other and on the first night they are doing things that shouldn’t happen until a relationship has developed further.  Whatever happened to old-fashioned romance and innocent friendship?”  Meanwhile, her Home And Away character Sophie is about to embark on a simple 'old-fashioned' romance with Blake (Les Hill) and Elmaloglou hopes her character can be a good role model for teenage viewers.

Number 96 set to re-open its doors!
The Ten Network, battling flagging ratings, has been the subject of many rumours and reports around the television industry – only two weeks ago the network was reported to be seeking an exclusive output deal with Grundy Television.  TV Week now has it on good authority that Ten is considering a revival of Australia’s most infamous soap, Number 96, thirteen years after it ceased production.  Some network executives have believed that there is room on the network for a strong adult drama, much tougher than its current teen-based soaps Neighbours and E Street.  TV Week is informed that a group of Ten bosses have been viewing old episodes of the series with a plan to produce a 1990s version of the show.  Some of the show’s original cast may be joined by fresh faces in the revival.  When Number 96 debuted in 1972 it was dubbed ‘the night Australian television lost its virginity’ with a cast including sex symbol Abigail (pictured).  The series went on to shock and titillate its audience for the next six years with its popular mix of sex, drama and comedy.  The show won a swag of TV Week Logies, including several for best drama and a Gold Logie for cast member Pat McDonald.

Everyone’s Friend
Former Neighbours star Rachel Friend (pictured) is rapidly becoming one of TV’s hottest properties.  The 19-year-old has a lead role in the Nine Network’s big-budget mini-series, Golden Fiddles, and will soon play a ditzy hairdresser in the Ten Network’s upcoming comedy series Lipstick Dreams.  Then in December, she’s off to England to play the princess in the pantomime Aladdin’s Lamp.  “Neighbours seems a long time ago, and yet it’s not really,” she told TV Week.

Briefly…
The audience response to Seven’s Skirts might be lukewarm but that hasn’t stopped some of the show’s stars attracting the interest of producers of other shows.  Ben Mitchell, who plays Constable Bevan “Beverley” Quinn, is currently being targeted by the producers of Neighbours and has apparently already been offered a role should Seven not renew Skirts for another series.  In the meantime the producers of E Street are keen to sign up co-star Antionette Byron.

The Nine Network has had to revoke plans to move Graham Kennedy's Australia's Funniest Home Video Show to the Wednesday 7.30pm timeslot following an ultimatum from the host.  The new timeslot would have seen the show put up against Seven's comedy Hey Dad! which is produced by a close friend of Kennedy's, Gary Reilly, and the Nine Network host refused to put both shows into a ratings battle.

Former Chantoozies band member and manager David Reyne has decided to move from the music business and concentrate on acting.  The 31-year-old has already completed roles in the Seven Network mini-series Flair, the telemovie Bony, and is to star in the Nine Network mini-series Golden Fiddles.

John Laws says…
”If there’s one thing you don’t get on SBS’ Dateline current affairs program it’s a good laugh.  Dateline has a knack of looking at just about every issue from a worst-case scenario.  There is precious little middle ground as far as its reporters are concerned.  Issues are black and white.  Mostly black.  When Dateline’s hour is over, there’s just one more piece of “news” – the following week, announces host Paul Murphy, Dateline will reveal the shocking story of the plight of poverty-striken Indian peasants in war-wracked Guatemala.  Goodnight Paul.”

Program Highlights (August 18-24):
Sunday:  Mark Mitchell and newsreaders David Johnston and Tracey Curro present ATV10’s coverage of the 1990 Young Achievers’ Awards from the Hilton Hotel, Melbourne.  Sunday night movies are Starflight One (HSV7), Choices Of The Heart (GTV9) and Blue Collar (ATV10).

Monday:  ATV10 debuts a new Australian series A Waltz Through The Hills, based on the classic children’s novel which tells the story of two children living in a small Western Australian town in 1954.

Tuesday:  The debut of comedy series Let The Blood Run Free (featuring Jean Kittson and Peter Rowsthorn, pictured) on ATV10.  Meanwhile, ABC crosses to Canberra for a one-hour telecast of the 1990 Budget. 

Wednesday:  ABC’s Wednesday night special is Ladies In Line, a 90-minute documentary focusing on the successes and failures of a group of female recruits in the Australian Army. 

Friday:  HSV7 presents a re-run of the 1989 special Oz TV’s Greatest Commercials, taking a look back at some of the commercials that have been imbedded in the minds of Australian audiences.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.           
18 August 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: August 4-10

Is it goodbye to the Valley?
A Country Practice star John Tarrant (pictured, with co-star Georgie Parker) has flagged the possibility that it may soon be time to move on from the popular drama.  “At the moment I don’t know if I could do another year,” he told TV Week.  “There are a lot of issues. It is not just  me wanting to keep doing the show.  It’s a matter of the producers wanting me.  They might not.  Maybe if it can be arranged, I’d feel like another six months.”  The 26-year-old has plans to pursue a stage acting career as he hasn’t worked in the theatre since leaving drama school.  Looking further ahead, Tarrant has ambitions of working in Hollywood either on screen or behind the camera.

No Sale!
Despite the Ten Network’s current financial state, that hasn’t stopped network managing director Steve Cosser trying to pull off a couple of huge television coups.  Industry reports say that Ten had been trying to lure the top-rating Sale Of The Century away from the Nine Network – and it doesn’t stop there.  Mr Cosser is also believed to have tried to secure an output deal with Grundy Television Productions for all of their product – a deal that could have seen Wheel Of Fortune, Sale Of The Century, Family Feud and even the recently-completed Bony telemovie go across to Ten in one fell swoop.  However a spokesperson from Ten insists that the reports circulating the industry are fiction. 

Bert’s British invasion!
TV Week Gold Logie winner Bert Newton (pictured) is set to return to TV with his own show – but it won’t be in Australia.  Newton received an offer from an English producer who saw him hosting his Seven Network daytime show last year and he is heading over to London in September to tape a pilot.  The show, as yet unnamed, is expected to take on the format similar to the UK’s Aspel And Co show.  “English viewers have no idea who I am or what I’ve done.  I’m a total unknown in their eyes and I think that’s a good thing,” he told TV Week.  Since the demise of The Bert Newton Show late last year, Newton has completed a stint at Cairns radio station 4CA.  “It’s been a great experience.  It’s my first time on radio in two years and my first radio job outside Melbourne.  The audience reaction has been wonderful, so either I’ve fooled them or I’m doing OK!”  But despite the possibility of a future in England, Newton would accept an offer to return to Australian TV.  “Obviously, the situation here at the moment wouldn’t hold too much promise for a show of my own,” he says.  “I’ll just wait for Kerry Packer to fix things at Nine.  When he does, I can imagine the out-of-work TV people from all over the world who’ll be ringing him for a job.  At least he’s a guy you can trust.”

Briefly…
Adam Willits, one of the original cast members of Home And Away, has decided to leave the series.  “He’s been with the show since the beginning and he wants to explore other avenues in acting,” producer Andrew Howie told TV Week.

Jude and Joy, the down-to-earth housewives who love a chat over the fence in ABC’s The Big Gig have spoken to TV Week about their lives and ambitions.  “I’m very ambitious,” Jude (Denise Scott) told TV Week.  “I’ve got a bunny suit that I made myself, and I’ve already worked at the shopping centres… as an Easter bunny, not one of those other bunnies!”  Meanwhile, much of Joy’s (Jean Kittson) energy is spent yelling at the kids or keeping track of her husband, Wal, whose wandering eye has caught sight of local glamour queen Loretta.  “She’s a big worry, that woman,” Joy says.  “She’s so glamorous, I don’t know how she does it.  Leather mini-skirts and all! Jude and I have let ourselves go just a bit – but we do scrub up all right!”  The Big Gig is set to return later this month in a new series.

The Ten Network says that negotiations to film a double episode of the US series The Wonder Years in Australia are well under way.  Should the negotiations between the Queensland Film Commission and the show’s producers, New World Television, be successful then the show’s cast will be touching down in Australia as early as September.

John Laws says…
”(SBS) has been crowing loudly about the new one-hour, once-a-week program Sports Machine as innovative, adult and hugely important – which is all very well and sounds great.  But SBS viewers with sharp memories will recall that last year the station had a similar sports program every night of the week.  A total, then, of 2-and-a-half hours coverage every week.  What do we get now?  One hour, all in one go.  Frankly, I’ve never been able to figure out why SBS axed the previous sports program.  It was a gem of a half-hour and managed to cover a host of different sports, something that rarely happens on ABC or the commercial networks.”

Program Highlights (August 4-10):
Sunday: Actor Peter Ustinov is Peter Ross’ guest on ABC’s arts program, Sunday Afternoon.  HSV7 crosses live to the Sydney Cricket Ground for AFL between Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles.  Sunday night movies are Extremities (GTV9) and Bat 21 (ATV10).  HSV7 presents the three-hour Queen Mother’s 90th Birthday Gala.

Tuesday:  New Zealand actress Judy McIntosh (pictured) makes her debut as Dr Nicola Tanner in ABC’s GP.  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), Amanda Keller examines China’s state policy of one child per family.

Wednesday:  Michelle Fawdon stars in an ABC docu-drama, This Time Next Time, as a crusading journalist assigned to write a feature article on the dangers of alcohol-related brain damage.

Thursday:  In The Flying Doctors (GTV9), Dr Tom Callaghan (Andrew McFarlane) is buried alive when a mine shaft is deliberately collapsed on top of him as he tries to rescue an injured man.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.          
4 August 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: July 28-August 3

‘There’s no point in denying it any longer.’
TV Week Gold Logie winner Craig McLachlan has announced his engagement to former Neighbours colleague Rachel Friend.  “We are very, very happy.  It’s obvious we are in love.  There’s no point in denying it any longer,” he told TV Week.  The marriage will be the first for Friend but the second for McLachlan, whose marriage to first wife Karen Williams ended amicably over a year ago.  The newly-engaged couple (pictured) first met as cast members on Neighbours and when McLachlan left the show to join rival series Home And Away, Friend soon followed him to Sydney.

Steve sued over newsreader role
Jennifer Keyte might be enjoying success as the newsreader on Seven’s Tonight Live With Steve Vizard, but it seems she was not their first choice for the part.  Virginia Haussegger, a reporter and producer for the Melbourne edition of The 7.30 Report, was approached several months before the show was to launch and performed the newsreading role in the show’s pilot episodes.  Haussegger quit The 7.30 Report but was informed just prior to Tonight Live’s debut in January that she would not be required for the show.  Consequently, Haussegger sued the Seven Network and Steve Vizard’s production company and has since settled out of court with the network for an undisclosed sum, while returning to The 7.30 Report.  “Seven, Vizard and I have had our differences but fortunately it’s all over.  This has been a lesson in the politics of commercial television,” she told TV Week.

Ta-ta to tartar!
After fifteen years of “tuff teef” and dunking chalk into glasses of blue water, the character of “Mrs Marsh” is to be phased out of Colgate-Palmolives’ ad campaign for toothpaste.  But while the role of Mrs Marsh has been very good for actress Barbara Farrell (pictured), it was also limiting her ability to find work.  “It was inhibiting, because the face was so firmly identified with the product,” she told TV Week.  And while the Mrs Marsh character was initially formed as a carbon copy of a US concept, as the campaign continued she was allowed to develop her own persona and had softened a little after research showed that mothers thought she was a little too authoritarian.  But one person who was not always thrilled with the fame of Mrs Marsh’s was Farrell’s husband.  “He objects to being called Mr Marsh.  He’s not pleased with that at all!”  

Briefly…
Cameron Daddo has joined the cast of ABC’s GP as doctor who makes a fatal error in prescribing drugs to a patient without knowledge of the side-effects, and the results are tragic.  The 25-year-old, who recently completed work on the Seven Network telemovie Bony, is also about to start work on the mini-series Golden Fiddles for the Nine Network.

Also starring in Golden Fiddles is Wheel Of Fortune hostess Adriana Xenides (pictured) in her first major role away from the popular game show.  The $5.1 million mini-series, a Canadian-Australian co-production being made by the South Australian Film Corporation, also stars Rachel Friend, David Reyne and John Bach. 

The Seven Network this week debuts its two-part mini-series, Flair, tracing the lives of two sisters involved in the ruthless world of high fashion.  The $4.5 million mini-series stars Andrew Clarke, Gary Day, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Rowena Wallace, Elaine Smith, David Reyne, Imogen Annesley and US actress Heather Thomas.  Also starring in the series is Irish-born actor James Healey who grew up in Australia before working in London and the US, where he starred as Joan Collins’ lover in Dynasty.   Healey is now back in the US, starring in the daytime soap Santa Barbara.

John Laws says…
”Is it really possibly that a combination such I am going to describe can actually win enough ratings to maintain a slot in prime time?  Here’s that combination:  A veteran actor who sleepwalks through his leading role, scripts so lacking in credibility you could drive an express train through the holes, and a cast of support actors so wooden you could hammer a nail into them and not draw blood.  This is Nine’s (American) Matlock series.”

Program Highlights (July 28-August 3):
Sunday:  ABC presents The Party’s Over, a 90-minute documentary in the Hindsight series presented by Geraldine Doogue (pictured), looking at the story of the Communist Party of Australia, an organisation that had as many as 100,000 members over its 70-year lifespan before it was quietly wound up after the fall of Eastern Europe.  Sunday night movies are Invasion USA (HSV7), Nuts (GTV9) and Emerald City (ATV10).

 

Monday: Neighbours stars Kristian Schmid and Amelia Frid (pictured) battle the blue slime in a celebrity edition of children’s game show Double Dare (ATV10).

Tuesday:  Cameron Daddo joins the cast of GP (ABC) in tonight’s episode, Playing It By The Book.

Wednesday/Thursday:  HSV7 screens the two-part mini-series, Flair, where Tessa Clarke (Heather Thomas) returns to Australia intent on establishing her own design empire.  However her plans are crushed when a former employer wins a court claim on her designs and she flees to the Gold Coast where she falls for a handsome nightclub owner who drags her into a seedy world.

Friday:  With Graham Kennedy’s Funniest Home Videos clocking up ratings for GTV9, HSV7 tonight digs out an episode of Graham Kennedy’s World Of Comedy.  ATV10 screens the 1985 Australian movie Cool Change, starring Jon Blake, Lisa Armytage and David Bradshaw.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.         
28 July 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: April 14-20

‘I didn’t think I would ever get married’
Home And Away star Nicolle Dickson (pictured, with co-star Craig McLachlan) is soon to walk down the aisle to marry her fiance James Bell, but confesses that she had never considered the thought of ever being married:  “It’s nothing I ever really thought about before now.  I’m very excited.  I didn’t think I would ever get married.”  The couple met at a party and they announced their engagement at Dickson’s recent 21st birthday celebration.  But despite her profile on Home And Away, which is enjoying success in Australia and the UK, the wedding is planned to be a simple affair. “I didn’t want it to become a circus like some other people’s weddings.  It’s important for us and it’s your private life, so you don’t want it to get out.  But it does, because you’re on TV.” 

Catherine doubles up Down Under
Former Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg (pictured) has begun her second major project in Australia this year.  Having just completed production on the Seven Network telemovie Bony, Oxenberg has had a week at home in the US before returning to Australia to start on a new mini-series, Ring Of Scorpio, for the Nine Network.  The mini-series, also starring Rebecca Gibney, Caroline Goodall, Linda Cropper, Peter Kowitz and American actor Jack Scalia, is being filmed in Sydney, Spain and Morocco as it follows the story of three Australian women on holiday.  Ring Of Scorpio has already been sold to Paramount for international distribution and is expected to screen on Nine by the end of the year.

The fax about Graham!
Having announced that he would not be returning to host Coast To Coast this year, Graham Kennedy (pictured) stunned everyone when he subsequently announced he would be returning to TV to host a new weekly show, Graham Kennedy’s Funniest Home Video Show.  TV Week recently interviewed Kennedy, by fax of course, on his surprise return to TV.  “I stated that I would not return to nightly television in 1990,” he told TV Week.  “I didn’t say that I would not return to weekly television this year… I believe the life of this kind of program is very limited.  Even if it was a ratings success I doubt if it would go into a second series… I haven’t discovered yet the size of the emolument that the network has in mind.  I suppose it will be Terry Willesee’s old salary multiplied by 100, or some token fee like that.”

Clive Robertson courts death, goes to Nine
Former Newsworld presenter Clive Robertson had virtually retired when he left the show last year – but after a cancer scare for himself and two of his friends, he decided that life is too short to fritter away in retirement and has returned to TV in a new late-night show, The World Tonight, which replaces the recently-axed Coast To Coast on Nine. 

Briefly…
Actress Tracy Mann has been reluctant to commit to an ongoing TV series – her last such role was 16 years ago in the soapie The Box – but when she saw the scripts for Seven’s new police drama, Skirts, she changed her mind:  “I’ll do things I think are quality and this is a great role.  I liked the scripts – it ain’t no Cop Shop, that is for sure.”  The new series, set around the welfare-based Community Policing Squad, debuts this week in a two-hour episode on Seven before settling into its regular timeslot of 7.30pm Sundays.

Sale Of The Century hostess Alyce Platt (pictured) is about to return to television drama with a new role in the Nine Network series Family And Friends.  It will be her first dramatic role since leaving Sons And Daughters in 1985, and is hoped to give Family And Friends a much-needed ratings boost.  Her role as social worker Stephanie Collins is not expected to interfere with her weekly taping schedule for Sale Of The Century.

Terry Willesee, co-host of the ill-fated Live At 5 and Eye On Australia, is set to leave the Nine Network to take up a new role as co-host of Network Ten’s Good Morning Australia, alongside Kerri-Anne Kennerley.  Current GMA co-host Mike Gibson is stepping down from the show to concentrate on his Sydney-based current affairs program, Sydney With Mike Gibson.

Jill Ray, former host of children’s program Wombat, and her husband Michael are expecting her first child in late May.  The recent TV Week Logie award winner feels that after ten years in children’s television, she feels adequately prepared for the challenges of parenthood:  “I’m not scared of having a child of my own.  It’s the idea of being responsible for a little person’s future that weighs heavily on me.”

John Laws says…
”You could say a lot of things – glowing and critical – about the ABC’s recent two-part mini-series Come In Spinner.  At the very least you’d have to say it was a brave and mostly successful attempt at producing a quality piece of soap.  If nothing else, it confirmed that Rebecca Gibney (pictured) – when she is afforded the opportunity of a substantial role – is a fine actress.”

Program Highlights (April 14-20):
Saturday:  Actress Rowena Wallace presents a one-hour special, Some Of My Children, telling of her moving experiences in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia and Cambodia.
Sunday:  Easter Sunday night movies are Lawrence Of Arabia (HSV7), The Last Wave (GTV9) and The Ten Commandments (ATV10) – the latter running from 7.30pm until almost midnight.
Monday:  Ray Warren, Stephen Phillips and Rob Gaylard host GTV9’s Wide World Of Sports coverage of the annual Stawell Gift foot race.
Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), Andrew Carroll looks at Europe’s space shuttle escape capsule.  Simon Reeve discovers how a non-steroid muscle-building drug could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of MS.  Maxine Gray visits a musk deer farm to examine the latest efforts to save it from extinction.
Wednesday:  ABC presents Burrows, Ceberano And Morrison Plus Fireworks, a concert recorded on the bank of Adelaide’s Torrens River during the opening weekend of the Adelaide Festival.  HSV7 presents the two-hour series debut of its new police drama, Skirts, starring Tracy Mann (pictured), Nicholas Ball, Mary Coustas and Kate Gillick.
Thursday:  ATV10 screens the one-hour special Phar Lap: The Verdict, presented by Ian Leslie.  The special focuses on the trial, commissioned in late 1989, dealing with the question of who killed champion racehorse Phar Lap.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.    
14 April 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: April 7-13

‘No candlelit dinners, please!’
While Georgie Parker’s character in A Country Practice, Lucy Gardiner, is at crossroads at her relationship with Matt Tyler (John Tarrant) with dreams of romantic dinners and phone calls, the actress has admitted that in real life she couldn’t be more opposite.  “I’m not romantic at all.  I’m not at all.  I am seeing someone at the moment and he would beg to differ, but I’m not romantic,” she told TV Week.  “I’m so practical that I tend to take the romance out of a situation straight away.” 

‘My countrymen would expect me to boycott this film…’
With a showbusiness background including modelling, hosting a children’s program (Off The Dish) and a game show (Perfect Match), Cameron Daddo is no stranger to criticism when he is appointed to dramatic roles.  “People scoffed and said it was crazy that I’d won roles as Huck Finn in Big River and Joe Jones in Heroes.  Now I’m up against again,” Daddo told TV Week, following him being cast as part-Aboriginal detective Bony in a telemovie being produced for the Seven Network.  The telemovie is a modern-day remake of the early-‘70s drama Boney, starring New Zealand actor James Laurenson in the lead role.  But despite criticisms that the role should be filled by an Aborigine, Daddo has found unlikely support from respected Aboriginal actor Burnum Burnum:  “My countrymen would expect me to  boycott this film because of Cameron in the lead role.  But I didn’t remotely consider this boycott because, first, I had nothing to do with the casting and, second, Cameron fits the role admirably.  The character is supposed to only have a small amount of Aboriginal blood.”

Out of Africa!
Globe-trotting Beyond 2000 reporter Amanda Keller (pictured) has been in Africa to report on the plight of elephants being poached for the ivory trade.  In an interview with Dr Richard Leakey, director of wildlife protection in Kenya, he says they are now winning the battle with the poachers.  “He believes we should protect the elephant, but he also says, by doing so, we could create problems of over-population,” Keller told TV Week.  “His solution is birth control, but I don’t know if I’d be game to give an elephant a vasectomy!” 

Briefly…
Neighbours’ twin co-stars Gayle and Gillian Blakeney (pictured) are making plans to produce a documentary on twins.  The pair have visited Melbourne’s Latrobe University, the second largest twin study centre in the world, and had gathered research material and case studies when working on children’s program Wombat.

Now back in Los Angeles after her guest appearance at the TV Week Logie Awards, actress Sigrid Thornton has made a surprising revelation about her desire for future roles.  After starring in period pieces such as The Man From Snowy River, All The Rivers Run and Far Country, Thornton would like her next role to be that of an axe murderer.  “I’m quite serious – an axe murderer sounds great.  I’d like to play an unexpected sort of character, something that is not a traditional heroine.”

Wheel Of Fortune’s long-serving hostess Adriana Xenides (pictured) has unveiled a new look after losing her long blonde tresses.  “I had been thinking for some time about having my hair cut.  My hair just wouldn’t go right for a modelling job I was doing, so I rang up my hairdresser, Robert Briscoe, and said, ‘Right, tomorrow, I want it all cut off.’”  But with Wheel Of Fortune taped so far in advance, viewers will still have to wait another month to see the new-look Xenides on screen.

John Laws says…
”Wendy Harmer (pictured) launched her new show, In Harmer’s Way (ABC), the other week, but it’s a pity the humour didn’t live up to the slickness of the title.  Her first guest was playwright David Williamson.  Nothing very exclusive about that; he’d been on the Steve Vizard show (Tonight Live) a few days earlier.  One fact that did emerge from Harmer’s “interview” with Williamson was that she finds it difficult to conduct a bright, snappy interview.  Only Williamson’s good grace and humour made it the tiniest bit watchable.”

Program Highlights (April 7-13):
Sunday:  Sunday night movies are The Last Tycoon (GTV9) and Educating Rita (ATV10).  HSV7 presents Part One of the re-run of mini-series The Long Hot Summer.  ABC presents The Riddle Of The Dead Sea Scrolls, a documentary on the controversial work of Australian Biblical scholar, Dr Barbara Thiering.
Wednesday:  ABC’s science program, Quantum, returns for a new series, followed by a concert performance from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and James Galway, simulcast with ABCFM.  GTV9 screens an Australian-made film, Mortgage, starring Doris Younane and Brian Vriends, tracing the story of a couple who find themselves in a nightmare of deceit, incompetence and rising interest rates.
Friday:  Good Friday is dominated by the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal on HSV7 – starting at 9.00am and continuing through to midnight, breaking only for news, Home And Away and Hinch.  The telethon includes guest appearances by cast members of Seven Network programs A Country Practice, Home And Away, Hey Dad!, Acropolis Now, Fast Forward and Skirts.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.    
7 April 1990. Southdown Press.