Magazine covers from Christmases past

Television.AU wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas and takes a trip down memory lane to some of the TV magazine covers that have marked this very special day…

George Mallaby and Rowena Wallace (Cop Shop), pictured with Mallaby’s son Guy and co-star Greg Ross’ son, Simon.  TV Week, 1978

Humphrey B. Bear (Here’s Humphrey).  TV Times, 1978.

(Clockwise from bottom left) Marcia Hines (Marcia’s Music), Mike Walsh (The Mike Walsh Show), Susan Hannaford (The Sullivans), John Orcsik (Cop Shop), June Salter (The Restless Years), Peter Lochran (The Young Doctors).  TV Times, 1979

Tony Barber and Alyce Platt (Sale Of The Century).  TV Week, 1986.

Kylie Minogue (Neighbours).  TV Week, 1987.

Kerrie Friend and Cameron Daddo (Perfect Match). 
Scene On TV (The Sunday Mail, Brisbane), 1987.

(Clockwise from top left) Graeme Goodings, Jane Doyle, Max Stevens and Anne Wills (Seven Nightly News, Adelaide).
Sunday Mail TV Plus (Adelaide), 1993.

None Hazlehurst and John Jarratt (Better Homes And Gardens) with Bree Desborough, Kristy Wright and Lynne McGranger (Home And Away). 
TV Week, 1998.

Carla Bonner, Madeleine West, Kym Valentine (Neighbours). 
TV Week, 2000.

Kate Ritchie (Home And Away).  TV Week, 2006.

Some other TV memories of Christmases past as presented on this blog:

Merry Christmas, ‘76 style
Merry Christmas from QTQ9 (1967)
TV Week’s Strictly Christmas (1992)
Christmas cheer from SBS (1983)
’Twas the night before Christmas…

1991: December 7-13

Set to scorch!
E Street stars Kate Raison and Marcus Graham (both pictured, far right) were due to leave the series with this week’s series final – but a “scorchingly romantic” storyline devised for their characters was enough to convince both actors to re-sign.  “The storyline is so fantastic I couldn’t refuse it,” Graham told TV Week.  “The difference between E Street and other Australian serials is that it takes risks.  It is imaginative.  There is no other show doing it.  If Forrest (Redlich, the show’s producer) wasn’t doing it, nobody would be.  Even the network doesn’t want him to do it.”  The storyline, which will see both actors stay with the show for another six months, comes as E Street’s crazed serial killer Steven Richardson (Vince Martin) sets Sheridan Sturgess (Raison) in his sights and Wheels (Graham) comes to her rescue.

‘It’s all over’
It appears that Nine’s The Flying Doctors is about to fly off into the TV sunset.  The official line from the network is that the show is going into an extended break until the end of 1992 and that producers Crawfords are putting the shows sets into storage.  “As far as the cast and crew are concerned, it’s all over… and we have to let people know about it,” cast member David Reyne told TV Week.  Reyne says he was contemplating leaving the show, anyway, and is keen to develop some new projects for television.  “I think television is in the doldrums and the networks have to employ new blood,” he said.  “If you look at Nine, nearly everyone on after 6pm has been around for years… where’s the new blood?”  And not restricting himself to drama, Reyne says he could see himself hosting an information program or even a music show.  “I’d love to grab music television and give it a good shake,” he said.

New laughs from an old team
Lex Marinos and Max Gillies (both pictured) are set to team up for a new ABC comedy series, with Gillies as the star and Marinos the co-director.  The planned half-hour episodes will introduce Gillies fans to a new range of characters and will feature some of Australia’s top comedic talent in short plays scripted by leading writers.  The pair are not unfamiliar colleagues – they worked together in the Seventies as Chico and Groucho Marx at Melbourne’s Pram Factory.  “It’s nice to get back together after 17 years of meeting in foyers,” Marinos told TV Week. 

Briefly…
The biography of underworld figure Mark “Chopper” Read has claimed that in the late ‘70s he was asked by a notorious robber – now deceased – to take part in a plan to “kidnap” actress Lynda Stoner (pictured), then starring in drama series Cop Shop.  “He had photos taken of her and even knew where she did her shopping; he really was quite nutty over her,” according to Read.  “(He) was always falling in love with TV stars and making outrageous fairytale plans to kidnap them.”  But even Read, with his past criminal background, knocked back the elaborate scheme, instead insisting “we’ll all get 100 years’ jail for this!  Send the bloody woman some flowers instead!”. 

ABC’s yet-to-be-screened police drama Phoenix has already been given the green light for a second series.  Production is due to begin in June and expected to go to air in 1993.  The show’s first series of thirteen episodes, starring Paul Sonkkila, Sean Scully, Simon Westaway, Andy Anderson and Nell Feeney, is expected to go to air early in 1992.

This week’s Christmas episode of Col’n Carpenter (Ten) departs from the usual traditional sitcom formula to acknowledge that for some people it can be a sad time.  In the episode, Col’n (Kim Gyngell) faces the prospect of being alone at Christmas.  In a dream sequence, he clings to the hope his family (featuring Dale Stevens, Monica Maughan and Ray Baldwin, pictured) will arrive – but this appears unlikely.  “This is a very emotional issue,” Gyngell told TV Week.  “Obviously, Col’n’s big wish is to have his family around him for the occasion.”

John Laws says…
”When you present a current affairs program three nights a week for most of the year, relying mostly on satellite interviews on one selected issue each night, you have to be good to survive.  Kerry O’Brien’s Lateline carries a format like this – a simple, direct way of dealing with pertinent issues for sure, but still a TV mixture that in the wrong hands could prove a disaster.  O’Brien, though, is a seasoned political hand and a fine interviewer with a relaxed TV presence and there’s never really been any doubt that he was going to make this program work – and work well.  So, can a program like Lateline go to a fourth night of the week and maintain the quality?  I see no reason why not.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, December 7-13):
Saturday:  Nine presents the year’s final Saturday edition of Wide World Of Sports.  ABC presents the grand final of That’s Dancin’, and Seven’s World Around Us presents a Malcolm Douglas special, Return To The Top, featuring his return to central Arnhem Land 17 years after his first visit.

Sunday:  SBS debuts a new ten-part series, Our Stories, from the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association.  Sunday night movies are Casanova (Seven), Weekend War (Nine) and classic James Bond with You Only Live Twice (Ten).  ABC’s Sunday Stereo Special screens the Australian Ballet’s production of Romeo And Juliet. 

Monday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Glen (Richard Huggett, pictured) makes a sudden marriage proposal to Gaby (Rachel Blakely).  Seven Nightly News launches a late-night edition as a summer replacement for Tonight Live With Steve Vizard.

Tuesday:  Nine crosses to Hobart for the Benson And Hedges World Series Cricket match between Australia and India.  During lunch, Nine switches to ten-pin bowling with the Goldpin Coca-Cola Classic.

Wednesday:  SBS debuts a three-part documentary series, Nostalgia, with each episode focusing on a prominent Australian and their country of origin.  In E Street (Ten), Mary (Joan Sydney) makes a decision that will affect the rest of her life.

Thursday:  In the series final of E Street (Ten), Wheels (Marcus Graham) and Sheridan (Kate Raison) contemplate the next step in their relationship, while Alice’s (Marianne Howard) labour isn’t what she expected.

Friday:  Good Morning Australia (Ten), Neighbours (Ten) and The World Tonight With Clive Robertson (Nine) present their final editions for 1991.  Nine Network daytime show What’s Cooking (featuring Gabriel Gate and Colette Mann, pictured) moves into prime-time for the summer season.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  7 December 1991.  Southdown Press.

TV’s golden girls signing off

It was a morning of farewells as two of TV’s golden girls signed off from their respective shows today.

Over at Ten’s The Circle, Denise Drysdale (pictured) announced her retirement – marking the end of a showbusiness career that has spanned more than fifty years.

Starting as a performer in early children’s shows including The Happy Show and The Tarax Show, Drysdale worked her way up to pop music shows such as Uptight, Kommotion and Dig We Must.

Then in the 1970s she became Ernie Sigley’s ‘barrel girl’ on The Ernie Sigley Show, forming an enduring partnership that saw both of them win Gold Logies in 1975, with Drysdale winning a second Gold in 1976.

One of TV’s more versatile performers, she has appeared in dramas such as Division 4, Homicide and Cop Shop, comedies like The Bluestone Boys and The Norman Gunston Show and countless music and variety shows including Countdown, The Penthouse Club, The Daryl Somers Show, The Mike Walsh Show right through to Spicks And Specks. 

Living on a farm in Gippsland, in the 1980s she hosted a morning show for local channel GLV8, and later took over from Jacki MacDonald on Nine’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday before being re-united with Sigley to host morning shows In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today (both shows later merged into Ernie And Denise).

In the ‘90s, Drysdale teamed up with Frankie J. Holden on the revived In Melbourne Tonight before moving to the Seven Network to host her own daytime show, Denise.

Early last year Network Ten announced that Drysdale was joining the presenting team on its new morning show The Circle.  Later in the year she was again re-united with Sigley in a segment on the show.

Although the show faces tough competition, particularly from The Morning Show on Seven, The Circle this year won a Logie for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program.

Drysdale now looks forward to taking a well-earned break and spending time with her new grandson.

Meanwhile, over at the Nine Network, there was a farewell for Kerri-Anne Kennerley whose morning show comes to an end after nine years on air. 

Kennerley was a teenager when she appeared on children’s programs on Queensland television in the 1960s and 1970s.  After working overseas for several years she returned to Australia, appearing on the soapie The Restless Years before taking over as co-host on Network Ten’s Good Morning Australia in 1981.  It was a role that she made her own for 11 years, outlasting a number of her male on-air colleagues.  She later hosted an afternoon show, Monday To Friday, and worked in Sydney radio.

In the mid-1990s, Kennerley took over as host of Nine’s Midday – giving the show a new lease on life after some years of instability.  The show wound up in 1998 and after a stint back at the Ten Network on ill-fated shows like Moment Of Truth and Greed she returned to Nine in 2002 to host Mornings With Kerri-Anne, later re-named Kerri-Anne.

The show achieved global fame in 2007 when an interview with a “jet-lagged” John Stamos went viral.

The demise of Kerri-Anne comes after recent speculation about the show’s future, sparked by Kennerley taking leave from the program and with the show featuring a number of guest hosts. 

Although the Kerri-Anne program has ended – the ‘summer series’ of best-of segments starts on Monday – Kennerley remains with the Nine Network for future projects.

Nine will replace Kerri-Anne next year with a new show to be hosted by Sonia Kruger, who is coming across after more than a decade with the Seven Network and is best known as the co-host for eleven seasons of  Dancing With The Stars.

YouTube: aussiebeachut0, Michael Shephard

1991: September 14-20

The TV wedding you’ll never see!
Don’t let the picture of Penny Cook in a wedding dress deceive you.  Despite the smiles of the happy bride, all is not well in the lead up to the marriage of Beth (Cook) to Dr Steve Harrison (Michael O’Neill) in GP, as she thinks about her faith, commitment to the marriage and Steve’s desire to have a family. 

Natalie’s out!
The producers of Chances have dropped a bombshell on one of its leading stars by not renewing her contract.  Natalie McCurry, the former Miss Australia, is being dumped from the ailing series following her refusal to appear in frontal nude scenes.  She will tape her last scenes with the series in October but will continue to be seen on air until the end of the year.  Meanwhile, producers have also dumped another original cast member, Cathy Godbold, who will also tape her last scenes in October.  Chances, which has struggled in the ratings since its debut earlier this year, is expected to be re-launched with an emphasis on guest stars rather than ongoing characters.

Tracey signs for Beyond 2000
Despite press reports that Tracey Curro (pictured) was set to replace Jennifer Keyte as the newsreader on Seven’s Tonight Live, she has now signed up to join the team of Beyond 2000.  She will be replacing Maxine Gray who has decided to leave the program to spend more time with her family.  Curro’s move to Beyond 2000 follows an unsettled period where she was dropped from reading the news at Network Ten in Melbourne and the legal action that followed.  But she is excited about her new career move.  “Absolutely.  It’s got to be one of the best jobs in television,” she told TV Week.  “It’ll be hard work with very long hours, but it beats driving through traffic to work every day.”

Briefly…
The writers of Brides Of Christ have now moved onto their next project which begins production this week.  The Leaving Of Liverpool is a mini-series set in England and Australia in the years 1951 to 1953, telling the story of two Liverpudlian children who are torn from family and country and shunted to Australia as part of a child migrant program.  The series will star John Hargreaves, Bill Hunter, Martin Jacobs, Frank Whitten and newcomers Christine Tremarco and Kevin Jones.

Actor Nicholas Eadie (pictured), best known from TV roles in Cop Shop, The Henderson Kids and the mini-series Vietnam, is heading to the US because, at 32, he says he is too old to be an actor here.  “Australian television is going through a Kylie and Jason syndrome,” he said.  “If you’re over 25 in this country, you’re over the hill.”

The return of former Rafferty’s Rules star John Wood to our screens has been delayed due to industrial disputes at the ABC.  Production on the sitcom Dearest Enemy, which features Wood along with Bruce Spence, Linden Wilkinson and Frank Wilson, has stalled leaving all but one episode completed.  With the producers and Wood now with other commitments, completion of the final episode is scheduled for November and the series, which was due to air next month, should now appear in the new year.

John Laws says…
”Since taking over the Midday show, there have been claims that Ray Martin (pictured) has gone a bit soft and, in the process, relinquished the razor-sharp intensity of his news and current affairs days.  Not so!  The “old” Ray Martin is still there, and any doubters should have been watching when he interviewed Prime Minister Bob Hawke following the first Kerin Budget, and in the wake of the NSW gun laws uproar.  In years to come we may well look back on this particular interview as the one that signalled the beginning of the end of the Prime Minister.  Sad to say, it was an interview that cut him apart.  Martin was aggressive without being rude.  He pressed for answers where other interviewers would have shirked the task, and he maintained the pressure as forcefully as he could.  It was the PM who buckled.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, September 14-20):
Saturday:  ABC presents the return of ballroom dancing series That’s Dancin’, hosted by Paul Newman and Maureen Delacy (pictured).  Hey Dad! and Hampton Court star Julie McGregor is among the contestants on this week’s Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune (Seven).  Tim Webster and Jo Pearson host the 1991 Young Achiever Awards (Ten).

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are The Naked Gun (Seven), Harlem Nights (Nine) and Midnight Run (Ten).

Monday:  In Neighbours (Ten), the search for Harold (Ian Smith) continues – and in A Country Practice (Seven), Lucy’s (Georgie Parker) behaviour is affected by IVF treatment.

Tuesday:  One-time Gold Logie winner Hazel Phillips guest stars in GP (ABC).  In Chances (Nine), the father of Charlie’s (Kimberley Davenport) baby is finally revealed, and passion overcomes Alex and Paris (Jeremy Sims and Annie Jones, pictured) when they admit their love for one another.  Beyond 2000 (Seven) reports on a new low-fat chocolate designed to keep you warm.

Wednesday:  In E Street (Ten), Bob (Tony Martin) is excited but apprehensive about Elly’s (Diane Craig) return.

Thursday:  Ten premieres an Australian version of the tabloid US program Hard Copy, hosted by Gordon Elliott with reporters Richard Willis, Iain Gillespie, Jane Hansen and Meni Caroutas.

Friday:  The SBS series Connections presents Victor Chang – King Of Hearts, documenting the life of Dr Victor Chang, heart transplant surgeon who was gunned down in July, and the progress he had made in perfecting the artificial heart.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  14 September 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: July 6-12

Cover: Kevin Costner

‘Butterfly’ takes off again
The Seven Network has announced production for a further sixteen episodes of Butterfly Island.  The series, starring Grigor Taylor and Penne Hackforth-Jones, first appeared on ABC in 1984 with a follow up series produced by Seven in 1986, although the later series did not appear on Seven until last year.  Taylor plays the part of Charlie Wilson, a widower who runs a struggling tourist resort.

Look who’s back in town!
Some former favourites from Nine’s The Flying Doctors have been reunited for a special episode.  Former cast members Andrew McFarlane, Liz Burch, Rebecca Gibney and George Kapiniaris are returning in an upcoming episode.  The town of Coopers Crossing has been hit hard by the recession and to help boosts its spirits hosts a street party, with some of the town’s former residents attending.  The episode went into production this week and will go to air in September.

‘Girls want me for my money!’
At the mere age of eight, Matthew Krok is trying to come to grips with his rise to fame.  Having featured in 16 television commercials since last year, Krok went on to a guest appearance in A Country Practice before taking on the role of Arthur McArthur in Hey Dad! and has just finished his first feature film role in Eight Ball.  But the young star doesn’t quite understand the fuss that tends to surround him.  “I don’t think I’m any different to anyone else,” he told TV Week.  And while his Hey Dad! character is having a crush on Sam (Rachael Beck), the young actor has no romantic aspirations just yet.  “I’m not interested in girls,” he insists.  “They’re interested in me.  A girl at my school wants to marry me because of my money, but I said, ‘No way!’.”

Briefly…
Former The Young Doctors and Cop Shop star Lynda Stoner is returning to television with a guest role in Nine’s Chances, playing the part of nurse Dee Dee Nelson, hired to care for Jack Taylor (Tim Robertson) and help him recover from a stroke, including sex therapy!

Felicity Soper, best known as policewoman Susan Miller in the former Network Ten series Richmond Hill, has scored a role in a new Seven Network mini-series, Good Vibrations.  Also appearing in the series will be Genevieve Picot, Stephen Whittaker, Jeffrey Walker, David Hoflin and former Neighbours star Sasha Close.

Fast Forward star Geoff Brooks says that his character of Bruce Rump isn’t directly based on real-life RSL stalwart Bruce Ruxton, but that they are on the same wavelength.  “At about the same time I said, ‘The Reds aren’t under the bed, they’re in the bed’, Bruce was quoted by a paper saying the same thing,” Brooks told TV Week.  “Rump is actually a composite of a lot of people.  People like Sir Henry Bolte, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Bruce and my dad – people who see things in black and white.”

John Laws says…
”Bangkok Hilton set out to be dramatic, exciting and emotion-packed, and it achieved it all.  Not much subtlety, of course, just straightforward, honest to goodness shock-horror stuff – lots of anguish howls, impassioned pleas from our heroine and lots of nasty bad guys.  Bangkok Hilton, as we know, was a ratings knockout the first time around and, as expected, did very well the second time, too.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, July 6-12):
Saturday: SBS presents a special edition of current affairs program Dateline, where reporter Mike Carey has just returned with a film crew after two weeks in disaster-torn Bangladesh, where more than 150,000 people died in recent cyclones.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Seven), She-Devil (Nine) and My Stepmother Is An Alien (Ten).  Nine then crosses to Wimbledon for live coverage of the Men’s Singles Final.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) helps Steve (Sophie Heathcote) plan for an overseas trip, while a hospital health check reveals one of the nurses proves HIV positive.

Tuesday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Jim (Alan Dale) is afraid that something is still going on between half-siblings Glen (Richard Huggett, pictured) and Lucy (Melissa Bell).  Robert Mammone guest stars in GP’s 100th episode.

Wednesday:  Bruce Spence, Hugo Weaving and American actress Rosanna Arquette star in the Australian-made telemovie Wendy Cracked A Walnut (ABC), telling the story of a housewife who yearns for the romance and passion she finds in pulp novels.

Thursday:  John Polson guest stars in The Flying Doctors (Nine).  In Hampton Court (Seven), an astronomical electricity bill means desperate measures are called for.

Friday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Helen (Anne Haddy) gives Michael (Brian Blain) her answer to his marriage proposal.  In ABC’s documentary series A Big Country, a restaurant owner’s Chinese family in Bendigo recount their experiences in a country town since the war.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  6 July 1991.  Southdown Press

1990: October 6-12

‘It’s like losing part of the family!’
Hey Dad! star Simone Buchanan has confirmed that she has left the long-running comedy series.  “I haven’t re-signed,” she told TV Week.  “We filmed the last episode this week and I still have no idea what they are going to do with (character) Debbie.” For co-star Chris Truswell (pictured, with Buchanan), who plays Nudge in the series, has told TV Week that after six years it is hard to see her go.  “It’s like losing part of the family,” he said.  “I can tell Simone all my problems.  She is my sanity, in a way.  She is so intuitive.”

A couple of high-flyers!
It’s no wonder Steve Vizard’s and Michael Veitch’s Fast Forward flight attendant characters Daryl and Wayne (pictured, below left) are so funny – they started as a joke between the two actors.  “Steve and I used to do poncey voices in the corridors at Seven whenever we bumped into each other,” Veitch tells TV Week.  “Someone said, ‘You sound like two airline stewards’, and we thought it was a good idea for a skit!  They’re like comic book characters because they’re so unreal.  A lot of gay people get offended by them, which I think is fair enough.” Veitch stresses that the characters were never meant to be anti-gay.  “They are dreadful stereotypes,” he says.  “But then, so are a lot of the characters we do.”

‘This means I exist!’
When Fast Forward’s Jane Turner started sending up Alison Drower (pictured, above right), the MTV co-host took it all in her stride – though it presented a shock to her hairdresser.  “My hairdresser was horrified,” Drower told TV Week.  “She was more offended than me.  She said ‘My God, I hope people don’t see your hair like that!’”  But Drower takes the parody as a compliment. “I think it’s very flattering, particularly because it is a continual thing now, rather than just a one-off.  It’s for the show, too, and, hey, this means I exist!” 

Briefly…
On the eve of the debut of mini-series Shadows Of The Heart, star Jason Donovan (pictured, with co-star Sherrie Krenn) says the audience will see a new side to him:  “My role as a singer, and what I’ve done with Neighbours before, has always been fresh and wholesome.  This is certainly not the boy next door!”  Shadows Of The Heart also stars Jerome Ehlers, Josephine Byrnes and Marcus Graham.

James Valentine, host of ABC’s The Afternoon Show, has been given the green light to develop a new weekly “music program for adults.”  ABC currently has two rock music programs on air – Rage and Countdown Revolution – but the new project aims to appeal to the 25 to 40-year-old age group.

A busload of TV personalities took to the NSW Hunter Valley to propose a toast to the success of the upcoming Sprite TV Celebrity Dance Party, to be held later this month.  Among the stars to lunch at the the Victorian-style Kirkton Park guesthouse, near Cessnock, and then attending a wine tasting at the McWilliams Estate were stars Judy Nunn (Home And Away), John Orcsik (formerly of Number 96 and Cop Shop), Paula Duncan (Number 96, Cop Shop, Prisoner, Richmond Hill) and Bunney Brooke (Number 96, E Street).

John Laws says…
”It saddens me to report that the new series Embassy is close to being a second-class dud.  We’ve never been good at portraying our international neighbours on TV, and in Embassy the fictional country where our earnest-faced diplomats seems to be a laughable cross between Indonesia and Sri Lanka, with a trace of Fiji thrown in for good measure.  Unfortunately, it took only two episodes for Embassy to degenerate into the froth and bubble of an upmarket soapie.  What was obviously a bright idea has languished for want of a sharp-edged script and a bigger budget.”

Program Highlights (October 6-12):
Saturday:  HSV7’s day is dominated by football on the day of the AFL Grand Final.  After the overnight Football Marathon, at 8am HSV7 crosses to the traditional North Melbourne Football Club Grand Final Breakfast – followed by the Under 19s Grand Final at 9am and the Reserve Grade Grand Final at 11am.  At 2pm it’s the main event – the AFL Grand Final between Collingwood and Essendon, live from the MCG, to an estimate worldwide audience of over eight million viewers.  Coverage continues until 6pm, with a replay of the game at 9.30pm.

Sunday: Sunday night movies are Sudden Impact (GTV9) and Wall Street (ATV10).  HSV7 presents the first instalment of mini-series Jackaroo, starring Annie Jones and David McCubbin (pictured), and ABC presents Esso Night At The Opera, featuring Les Huguenots, the final performance of Dame Joan Sutherland.

Monday:  The second and final instalment of mini-series Jackaroo (HSV7).

Tuesday:  Brad Robinson presents a one-hour special, Torn Apart (ATV10), looking at the relationship bond between a mother and child and the systems that have been created by bureaucrats, the church, the law and the medical profession that have promoted systems which destroy this relationship – such as adoption, sperm donation, egg donation and surrogacy.  The special is followed by the first of the two-part mini-series Shadows Of The Heart, starring Jason Donovan, Sherrie Krenn, Marcus Graham, Josephine Byrnes, Barry Otto and Robyn Nevin.

Wednesday:  ABC presents the Australian Film Industry’s annual AFI Awards, from the World Congress Centre in Melbourne.  Films nominated in the awards include Blood Oath, The Big Steal, Flirting and Golden Braid.  ATV10 presents the second and final instalment of Shadows Of The Heart.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  6 October 1990.  Southdown Press.

1990: September 15-21

Let’s party!
Next month, stars of past and present TV shows will gather with fans to pay tribute to the industry that has made them household names and will raise money for charity at the same time.  The Sprite-TV Celebrity Dance Party, hosted by Paula Duncan, will aid the Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home for the intellectually handicapped.  Some of the famous faces attending the event include Georgie Parker and Craig McLachlan (pictured) joining cast members from shows including Sons And Daughters, Neighbours, Cop Shop, Home And Away, Prisoner, A Country Practice and The Flying Doctors.  TV Week is also involved in the event and is giving away ten double passes, including airfares and hotel accommodation for interstate winners.

Back to the boards
Lean times in the television industry are seeing many actors and actresses officially out of work.  Actors Equity says that 85 per cent of the 12,000 registered actors and actresses are out of acting work while many performers familiar to TV viewers are now making the move into the theatre – Alex Papps and Roger Oakley (formerly of Home And Away), Anne Phelan (pictured, last seen in Family And Friends), Kim Lewis (The Restless Years, Sons And Daughters) and Joan Sydney (A Country Practice) are just some TV performers who are now taking on theatre roles.  For Lewis, who is co-starring with boyfriend John O’Hare (recently seen in GP) in the Sydney production of Little Malcolm And His Struggle Against The Eunuchs, it is a welcome change from television.  “I was always yearning for theatre work,” she told TV Week.  “It’s a whole other world.  You can’t stop and just go over mistakes.  You’re there.  That’s it.”  For actress Anne Phelan, while she is grateful for her latest role in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s This Old Man Comes Rolling Home, says she is not as excited at the move into the theatre.  “I’m at the stage where I’m thinking I should never have been an actor,” she said.  “I’m feeling insecure because this role is massive and difficult.  If someone offered me six months of TV work I’d say yes.”  Joan Sydney, also starring in the MTC play, told TV Week: “Theatre is where the real acting is, but I enjoyed TV.  I don’t consider it second rate.”

The big match… but this time Dermie’s the loser!
The long-running, unresolved romantic tension between Dr Elly Fielding (Penny Cook) and Reverend Bob Brown (Tony Martin) on Network Ten’s E Street is about to be sealed with a kiss.  The pair are brought closer together after the owner of a local video store, played by AFL footballer Dermot Brereton (pictured, with Penny Cook), falls for Dr Fielding and she enlists the help of the reverend to tell Dermot that he is involved with her instead.  The irony is, of course, that Reverend Bob has always loved Elly, and this incident looks likely to finally bring them together.

Briefly…
Actor Jeremy Kewley, currently featuring in Network Ten’s Candid Camera, says it is surprising just how many people are with people they shouldn’t be when the camera catches them out.  “This happens often in restaurants.  You’d be surprised at the number of diners on dates with people other than their official partners,” he told TV Week.  Although he does point out that anyone they do play a trick on is asked to sign a form agreeing to have the segment shown on TV.

Former Neighbours star Geoff Paine was stunned when he was approached to join the cast of The Comedy Company.  “It had never occurred to me that one day I’d be working with this team. It was quite a surprise to be asked,” he told TV Week.  He is also thrilled at joining the show after Network Ten scrapped a proposed drama series, City Hospital, that was to feature Paine reprising his former Neighbours role of Dr Clive Gibbons.

Former Family And Friends star Gavin Harrison has a new-found confidence as a result of training for an upcoming episode of GP where he will play a boxing hero who has to rely on drugs to keep fighting.  “Working on GP was the best experience of my life,” he told TV Week.  “It was the series I wanted to work on and the character was a real challenge to me.  They wanted an actor who could box and make it look professional, so that was a hurdle I had to get over.”

Hey Hey It’s Saturday cast members John Blackman and Wilbur Wilde have had their breakfast show on Melbourne radio station 3UZ abruptly cancelled after the station decided to adopt a new full-time sports format. 

John Laws says…
”Ten’s decision to screen all-night news and current affairs from the CNN network in America will, no doubt, please those night-owl viewers who want a change from Seven’s rival NBC Today or third-rate movies.  CNN’s Daybreak, now screening on Ten, is a slick, rapid-fire news show, covering anything of world or national interest to Americans.  It was time, of course, for someone to to offer spirited competition to Bryant Gumbel and the NBC Today show.  I understand the program’s ratings have dipped recently in the US, which is not a surprise.  The Today show comes across as a tired, disorganised shadow of what it was a few years ago.”

Program Highlights (September 15-21):
Sunday:  GTV9 crosses to Phillip Island for live coverage of the Australian 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix .  Leading the coverage are Barry Sheene and Darrell Eastlake.  Meanwhile, HSV7 presents a two-hour afternoon special, The Season That Was, presenting highlights of the 1990 AFL season.  ATV10 presents live coverage of the Preliminary Final of the NSW Rugby League.  Sunday night movies are Year Of The Dragon (HSV7), Funny Farm (GTV9) and The Year My Voice Broke (ATV10).

Monday:  Andrew Denton presents a new show, The Money Or The Gun, on ABC – described as a “documentary/chat/comedy show where the real meets the surreal.”

Tuesday:  HSV7 and GTV9 both cross to Tokyo for a 90-minute presentation on the announcement of the host city of the 1996 Olympic Games.  Bruce McAvaney heads HSV7’s telecast, while Brian Naylor, prime minister Bob Hawke and A Current Affair’s Jana Wendt are part of the presenting team on GTV9’s telecast.  ATV10 promises to provide updates on the announcement during its Tuesday night movie, Prizzi’s Honour.  Melbourne is one of the six cities bidding for the Games, up against Athens, Manchester, Toronto, Belgrade and Atlanta.

Thursday:  In Acropolis Now (HSV7), after a disastrous theatre date with Liz (Tracey Callander), Jim (Nick Giannopoulos) decides to stage his own version of Romeo And Juliet.  Although Skirts star Nicholas Bell turns up to “addition” for the part of Romeo, Jim instead takes on the role and asks Effie (Mary Coustas, pictured) to be his Juliet.

Friday:  During the day, HSV7 crosses to White City, Sydney for the semi-final of the Davis Cup – Australia versus Argentina.  That night, HSV7 goes to the Glasshouse for the National Basketball League game between Melbourne Tigers and North Melbourne Giants.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  15 September 1990.  Southdown Press.

1990: August 11-17

I won’t be back!
The producers of Hey Dad! are about to face a crisis with the departure of one the show’s key cast members.  Simone Buchanan, who plays Debbie Kelly in the Seven Network series, is openly telling friends that she is definitely leaving the popular comedy.  However, show producer Gary Reilly has told TV Week that he is confident that she will stay.  “I have all the confidence in the world,” he says.  “We’re still talking, and, to be honest, it’s not time yet for serious negotiations.”

New ‘super-show’ to take on Hey Hey
The Seven Network is set to combine its two most popular game shows into a ‘super-show’ to take on Nine’s top-rating Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  Seven plans to launch celebrity versions of both Family Feud and Wheel Of Fortune and screen them back-to-back up against Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  “It’s a very exciting project, something very different,” Grundy Entertainment’s Paul Waterhouse told TV Week.  “It’s basically the same shows, but with slight changes to the formats to allow for celebrity involvement.  It will be more dramatic and more exciting.”  The decision to go ahead with the celebrity spin-offs came after the recent ratings success of Sale Of The Century’s week-long celebrity challenge.

Fast Forward’s lady of many faces reveals it’s time to… EJECT!
Fast Forward’s Marg Downey has admitted that she is pondering a new challenge after two years with the popular sketch comedy show.  “I think Fast Forward will go on but it needs fresh faces to do it,” she told TV Week.  Downey is hopeful for a drama or perhaps another comedy role.  “Something that was half straight and half comedy would be ideal,” she says.   And despite her well-known celebrity impersonations, including Jana Wendt (pictured) and the unnamed “SBS lady”, have earned plenty of applause, Downey admits that some of her impersonations have not been her best work.  “The Golden Girls is one example.  I felt my voice (as Bea Arthur’s character, Dorothy) was ridiculously low.  And I didn’t think I did Jennifer Keyte very well.”  However, Downey recently took the brave step of introducing herself to the real Jana Wendt.  “At the Logies Jana told me she sits at home with her husband (producer Brendan Ward) to analyse how well I’ve done her,” she says. 

Briefly…
Actress Paula Duncan (pictured, with husband John Orcsik) has been thumbing through the archives of TV Week to piece together a historical portraits of TV soaps and their stars, past and present.  The former Number 96, Cop Shop and Richmond Hill star is organising a TV celebrity dance party to be held at the The Dome in Sydney’s Showgrounds in October.  Some of the stars who are set to appear on the night include Bobby Limb, Lorrae Desmond, Abigail, Bartholomew John, Joanna Lockwood, Maggie Kirkpatrick, Stefan Dennis, Craig McLachlan, Julie McGregor and Wendy Strehlow.

Network Ten is about to launch its new comedy series Let The Blood Run Free, starring Jean Kittson and Peter Rowsthorn (pictured).  The new series, described by Rowsthorn as “a human cartoon”, is set in the fictional St Christopher’s Hospital and also stars Lynda Gibson as Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch.  Let The Blood Run Free is a production of Media Arts, the producers of The Comedy Company, and was originally set to appear on the Nine Network until executives decided the show, featuring plenty of blood and slapstick violence, was too “off the wall” and it consequently got sold to Ten.

Wheel Of Fortune hostess Adriana Xenides has told TV Week that with her upcoming role in Nine’s Golden Fiddles she is determined to prove that she is more than a glamour girl.  “I know it’s very hard for people to think of me as anything other than a TV hostess because I’ve been doing it for so long,” she told TV Week.  “It doesn’t worry me if people think of me as an airhead because I know I’m not.” 

Naomi Watts (pictured), the girl who chose a lamb roast dinner over a date with Tom Cruise in a TV commercial, is joining the cast of Hey Dad! as the girlfriend of Simon Kelly (Chris Mayer).

John Laws says…
”Its critics say a news segment is totally out of place in a show (Tonight Live) which often relies for its laughs on the ridicule of world affairs, political figures and, occasionally, even tragedy.  What saves the segment is Jennifer Keyte’s professional ability to maintain credibility in the face of the evening’s fun and games.  She has, to her credit, never allowed herself to become a “fall guy” – or should it be fall person? – for Steve Vizard’s sarcastic wit.”

Program Highlights (August 11-17):
Saturday:  HSV7 crosses live to Carrara, Brisbane, for the AFL game between Brisbane Bears and Geelong.  Sandy Roberts heads the coverage, joined by Ian Robertson, Don Scott and Bill McDonald.

Sunday:  ATV10’s daytime line-up features regular crosses throughout the day to the station’s annual Deafness Appeal Telethon, hosted by TTFM breakfast presenters Geoff Cox and Gavin Wood (pictured).  The telethon is accepting donations until 11.00pm.  ABC presents national coverage of the Sun-Herald City To Surf run in Sydney.  Sunday night movies are Brothers-In-Law (HSV7), Fever (GTV9) and Sharky’s Machine (ATV10).

Monday:  HSV7’s Monday night movie is the 1986 drama Just Us, starring Kim Gyngell, Gina Riley, Scott Burgess and Catherine McClements, focusing on the unusual love between a newspaper journalist and a hardened criminal in prison.  ATV10 begins a re-run of mini-series Tanamera – Lion Of Singapore, starring Gary Sweet, Anne Louise Lambert, Ed Devereaux and Khym Lam.

Tuesday: In A Country Practice (HSV7), Shirley’s (Lorrae Desmond) concerns about a growth on her face are confirmed and Terence (Shane Porteous) recommends surgery.

Wednesday:  ABC presents a one-hour special, Ten Days Of Glory, documenting the return of 60 World War I veterans and widows to Gallipoli earlier this year to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign.

Thursday:  HSV7’s new police drama Skirts has struggled to find an audience in its Sunday night timeslot so it is now moved to Thursdays, following Fast Forward.

Friday:  HSV7 presents live AFL between Sydney Swans and Brisbane Bears at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

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

Number 96 stars reunited for birthday

The occasion of Johnny Lockwood’s 90th birthday was as good a reason as any to bring together some of his former Number 96 co-stars and to assemble at the real-life apartment building that posed as Australia’s most famous address in the 1970s.

“It’s so special celebrating my birthday in the original Number 96,” he told Woman’s Day. “This is probably the last time we shall ever get together like this. I was orphaned at 11. When we did the show back in the 1970s, these people were so important to me. Like family.”

Lockwood played the character of Hungarian-born delicatessen owner Aldo Godolfus in Number 96, dating back to the show’s beginnings in 1972.  He picked up the role after the show’s producers had spotted him playing the part of a Jewish shopkeeper in an episode of Spyforce.

Starting on Number 96 with a thirteen-week contract, the character lasted for over three years – finally coming to an end in 1975 when Aldo and three other characters were written out of the series as victims of the show’s famous ‘bomb-blast’ episode.

The celebration of Lockwood’s 90th led to a reminisce over the famous neighbourhood and the show’s impact on the viewing public.  “We couldn’t go outside without being mobbed.  Hell, even the hookers went off the streets at 8.30pm so they wouldn’t miss an episode.”

Joining Lockwood (pictured, seated) for his birthday are (from left to right) former colleagues Elisabeth Kirkby (Lucy Sutcliffe), James Elliott (Alf Sutcliffe), Jeff Kevin (Arnold Feather), Phillippa Baker (Roma Godolfus), Frances Hargreaves (Marilyn McDonald), Wendy Blacklock (Edie McDonald) and Mike Dorsey (Reg McDonald).  Lockwood’s daughter Joanna, who also starred in Number 96 as well as appearing in later shows Cop Shop and E Street, was also at the celebration.

Growing up in London, Lockwood’s showbusiness career dates back to 1935 when, at the age of 14, he joined a group called Twelve Dancing Kiddies.  By the late 1940s he was appearing at a Royal Command Performance and came to Australia in 1957 for a ten-week contract to appear in the stage production Tonight At Eight with Bobby Limb.  Australia has been his home ever since.

Various cast members of the groundbreaking series, which ended in 1977, have reunited on numerous occasions over the years – most recently several cast members assembled on the Seven Network’s Where Are They Now? in 2007, while cast members Elisabeth Kirkby and Carol Raye provided audio commentary on the recent DVD release of 32 episodes.

Source: Woman’s Day, TV Times, 17 February 1973 and 8 March 1975.

Lynda Stoner goes undercover for animal rights

In the 1970s and ‘80s, Lynda Stoner was one of TV’s glamour girls.  After being crowned Miss TV Times (pictured) in 1976, she went on to star in popular dramas The Young Doctors, Cop Shop and Prisoner.

But, in a report this weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald, Stoner’s latest ‘role’ is as far removed from the bright lights of showbiz as can be imagined.

A long-time vegan and campaigner for animal rights, Stoner reveals how she and an Animal Liberation colleague recently spent two days ‘undercover’ at a pig dogging workshop.  A black wig, dark-rimmed glasses and a $12 wedding ring from Paddy’s Market saw Lynda Stoner, actor and animal rights activist, transformed into ‘Linda Brown’, pig dogger and game hunting enthusiast:

''The only way to do it is to go in there and try to dissociate, to mentally put yourself in another place and know that you're doing it to try to get this terrible thing stopped.''

Pig dogging is where pigs are pursued and caught by dogs and then killed with knives. It has been legal in declared state forests since March 2006:

''It's such an underground culture. I've spoken to other hunters; they are so disparaging of pig doggers. They are the lowest of the low.”

''If they're proposing this is to reduce the number of feral animals, it's the most disgusting, most barbaric, most brutal thing they could do.''

The information that Stoner and a colleague collected from the workshop will be used for Animal Liberation’s campaign against pig dogging.

The full report is on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

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.