1991: May 25-31

‘I’m not pregnant!’
Home And Away star Nicolle Dickson has responded to reports by the British tabloids that she is pregnant.  “Top Aussie star Nicolle Dickson has some happy news – she’s pregnant,” one British newspaper recently reported.  The report continued: “But Nicolle, who plays Bobby Simpson in Home And Away, has been keeping mum about the happy event because she is terrified she could lose her job.”  The young star has hit out at the reports.  “I’m not pregnant.  I’ve been thinking about it, but how could they write that I am?  How could they write this stuff and not talk to me?” she told TV Week.  The British reports have had wider implications as Dickson (pictured, above right, with young co-star Ryan Clark) is booked to appear in a Christmas pantomime and the ‘news’ of her pregnancy had led to some frantic calls between the producers of the pantomime and her agent in Australia.  “I assured them I wasn’t pregnant but they didn’t believe me! They rang my agent to double check,” Dickson said.

Penny’s heart stolen in bank robbery!
For the first time in a decade, actress Penny Cook is about to take on a role that doesn’t involve her tending to the sick or feeble.  After playing the roles of vet Vicki Bowen in A Country Practice and Dr Elly Fielding in E Street, Cook is soon to appear in ABC’s GP as the love interest of Dr Steve Harrison (Michael O’Neill, pictured above left with Cook).  Her character, Beth Paige, works at a bank where Dr Harrison is a customer.  A robbery at the bank ends up bringing them together.  So does this mean that Elly Fielding has gone from E Street for good?  “Well, she’s gone for good at the moment,” Cook tells TV Week.  “But that’s open as well.”

Alyce’s dramatic new role
Alyce Platt (pictured), recently departed from Sale Of The Century, has landed a major role in a new drama series.  Animal Park, a 16-part series being produced by Sunshine Films for the Seven Network, is set in north Queensland and tells the story of a widowed mother of three who inherits a run-down property of holiday cabins and a small animal park.  Platt plays the role of Christina Gurney, a wildlife ranger who befriends the family.  It is not Platt’s first dramatic role – she appeared in Sons And Daughters for two years and also filmed a guest role in Family And Friends.  The Seven Network has yet to announce a screening date for Animal Park.

‘I’m too fat for Oz TV’
Australia’s Jonathan Coleman, now hosting chat show Swing Shift on British network BSkyB, says he would fail to break into Australian TV these days if he was just starting out.  “People like me wouldn’t stand a chance of getting into TV now – we’re too fat,” he told TV Week.  “You’ve got to have the right figure, the right hair… you’ve got to be a soap bimbo.”

Briefly…
Former A Country Practice star Joan Sydney, who played Matron Sloan for seven years in the rural-based series, has now joined the cast of E Street.  She will play Mary Patchett (pictured, with co-star Adrian Lee), the British cousin of Aunty Vi (Bunney Brooke).

The producers and actors from ABC’s Embassy are hoping that tensions between Malaysia and Australia sparked by an episode of the series will soon die down and be forgotten.  “To have another country say we are belittling them is very disappointing,” producer Ian Bradley told TV Week.  “The push of the show is that Australians must live by different laws and customs when they are abroad.”  The drama series is set in the fictional country of Ragaan but an episode caused upset to the Malaysian government when they interpreted similarities between events in the fictional country and statements made by their own prime minister.

Alison Brahe (pictured with fiancee Cameron Daddo at the TV Week Logie Awards) has completed a pilot for a children’s show to be produced at the Nine Network studios in Adelaide.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”Congratulations to Crawfords Australia on the about-to-be-announced $5 million purchase and redevelopment of what eventually will be a four-studio complex covering about 3.25 ha of Box Hill, in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.  About two-thirds of the facilities will be leased to other producers, with Crawfords using the rest for its continuing drama series The Flying Doctors, the expensive new children’s series Half Way Across The Galaxy And Turn Left and a third series, still to be announced.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, May 25-31):
Saturday:  Singer Debbie Byrne is a guest performer on this week’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine).  Phil Scott, Colleen Hewett and Rod Marsh are this week’s celebrity contestants on Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune (Seven), while Agro, Ann-Maree Biggar, Sofie Formica and Fat Cat take on the body builders in Celebrity Family Feud (Seven).

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Turner And Hooch (Seven), Frantic (Nine) and The Gods Must Be Crazy II (Ten).

Tuesday:  At midday, Seven crosses to Hobart for live coverage of the AFL State Of Origin clash between Tasmania and Victoria.  Seven then goes back to Hobart in the evening for the follow up game between South Australia and Victoria.  In GP (ABC), the doctors rally to protect an Iraqi refugee family from racial harassment from members of the community.

Wednesday:  In E Street (Ten), Alice (Marianne Howard) has fallen for the much-older Adam (Mark Owen-Taylor) – but will he tell her that he is married?  In Hey Dad! (Seven), a mysterious neighbour nominates Martin (Robert Hughes) as Father of the Year.

Thursday: Hampton Court, the spin-off series from Hey Dad!, debuts on Seven, starring Julie McGregor (pictured) as wacky secretary Betty Wilson from Walgett.  ABC launches the second series of Embassy, the series focusing on the Australian Embassy staff in the fictional country of Ragaan.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  25 May 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: May 4-10

It all started with Love Letters
Love has blossomed between two of television’s most popular stars.  Julian McMahon, formerly of Home And Away, and A Country Practice’s Georgie Parker have been inseparable since they performed together in the theatre production of Love Letters.  Although the pair (pictured) have said little about their relationship, their affection for each other was obvious at the recent TV Week Logie Awards and they are often seen out together around Sydney.  “We are not prepared to make any comment at this stage,” Parker tells TV Week.  “We are just good friends,” said McMahon.

‘It’s time to move on…’
Neighbours is about to lose one of its most popular characters as Mark Little, who plays Joe Mangel, has decided not to renew his contract.  A Network Ten spokesperson told TV Week: “Mark has been with the show since June 1988 and I think he feels it’s time to move on.  As with any ongoing drama, it’s the nature of the production that cast members have to leave.  Inevitably they are replaced by new actors who are hopefully just as talented.”  Little, who also formerly starred in The Flying Doctors and co-hosted ABC’s Countdown Revolution, is set to perform a season of stand-up comedy in Sydney and is also promoting the movie Nirvana Street Murder, in which he stars with Ben Mendelsohn.

Carmel’s ‘horror movie’
Beyond 2000 reporter Carmel Travers has returned from India, Turkey, the United Kingdom and South America, where she found the body-parts trade is big business.  “India is basically the organ bank for the rest of the world,” she told TV Week.  “It’s so easy to acquire an organ there.”  Travers’ story, to appear soon on Beyond 2000, says the lure of cash is leading to young men to sell their organs.  “Every young man has sold a kidney or intends to do so,” she said.  “The promise of 20,000 rupees (around $A2000) for a kidney is too alluring.  Eyes are worth 80,000 rupees.  But it is not just a kidney and eye trade we are talking about – it is a trade in skin, bones and ligaments.  Poverty and ignorance can drive people to do the most amazing things.”  Travers found that it wasn’t just India where body-part trading is rife, with certain operations to remove body parts for trade also taking place in the United Kingdom. 

Briefly…
ABC will this week air the Film Australia telemovie Act Of Necessity, a moving story of a mother’s search to prove her dying daughter’s leukaemia and the spraying of insecticides are connected.  The telemovie is not scripted – the actors’ dialogue was improvised, the result of two weeks of workshopping the characters and researching by spending time with the real people of the communities.  The telemovie stars Angie Milliken, Mark Owen-Taylor, Wendy Strehlow, Scott McGregor, Paul Sonkilla, Lauren Hewett and Steven Grives.

E Street star Penny Cook (pictured), who recently left the series for an extended break, has just signed up for a ten-week guest role in ABC’s GP.  The guest appearance has slimmed any chance that Cook will return to E Street this year, meaning that the pending nuptials between Dr Elly Fielding and Reverend Bob Brown (Tony Martin) are likely to be left waiting even longer.

The Nine Network’s Chances this week sees character Eddie Reynolds (Dennis Miller) brutally murdered, leaving a trail of deceit, blackmail and fraud.  With seven key character suspected of the murder, viewers and even the show’s cast and crew have been left guessing who did it.  Six different storyline endings have been filmed, and even the actors don’t know yet which one will be played out.  The answer will be revealed on the series this week.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off:
”Film Australia has developed a rather expert knack of taking a social issue, wrapping it in a telemovie format, then simply spreading it out in front of us, no frills.  Previous efforts on thorny subjects such as custody of children, racial prejudice and the battle to keep a family’s head above the mortgage waterline all have been applauded and awarded.  The latest, a telemovie called Act Of Necessity (featuring Angie Milliken and Lauren Hewett, pictured), deserves the same.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, May 4-10):
Saturday:  Seven Network sports commentators Bruce McAvaney, Sandy Roberts, Kim Sporton and Jack Newton battle it out against comedians Elliot Goblet, Austen Tayshus, Mitchell Faircloth and Steve Haddan in Celebrity Family Feud (Seven).

Sunday:  Seven crosses to the SCG for live coverage of AFL, Sydney Swans versus Geelong, with commentators Drew Morphett, Ian Robertson, Don Scott and Cameron Williams.  SBS presents a delayed telecast of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, this time coming from Rome, featuring performances representing twenty-two countries.  Sunday night movies are Three Fugitives (Seven), She’s Having A Baby (Nine) and Great Balls Of Fire (Ten).

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Cookie (Syd Heylen) becomes ill when he hears the taxman is visiting the district.  Farmer Dave Watson (Don Reid) offers his property to recreational shooters, despite warnings from his son and ranger Trevor Jackson (Michael Watson).

Tuesday:  Singer Tina Arena (pictured, with Jon English) guest stars in Nine’s sitcom All Together Now, playing the part of a stripper - ‘Vanessa the Undresser’ – hired for a bucks’ night.  In Chances (Nine), Eddie’s (Dennis Miller) blackmail over Connie (Deborah Kennedy), Barbara (Brenda Addie) and Jack (Tim Robertson) reaches crisis point.

Wednesday:  ABC screens telemovie Act Of Necessity.  In Hey Dad! (Seven), Nudge (Christopher Truswell) falls in love, while the rest of the household learn to live with a new burglar alarm.  Nine presents a late-night delayed telecast of the Sydney Rugby League State Of Origin game between New South Wales and Queensland.

Thursday:  The murder of Eddie Reynolds (pictured) in Chances (Nine) leads to the family being questioned by police.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  4 May 1991.  Southdown Press

1990: December 29-January 4

Summer Bay was never like this!
Home And Away’s Mat Stevenson and Emily Symons, who play lovebirds Adam and Marilyn in the series, had a few days at Great Keppel Island during a production break for the Seven Network series.  Stevenson is now holidaying in America while Symons is doing a pantomime in the UK before production for Home And Away resumes in the new year.

Hey Hey it’s Daryl!
TV Week announces that Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s Daryl Somers will host the 33rd annual TV Week Logie Awards to be held in March and televised on the Nine Network.  The awards presentation will also be held at a new venue – the World Congress Centre in Melbourne.  It will be Somers’ second hosting of the Awards, having hosted the night once before in 1988.  “I enjoyed the hell out of it,” Somers told TV Week.  “It proved to be a really rewarding experience from an adrenalin point of view.  The whole team was very innovative and I like going out on a limb, so I’m looking forward to doing it again.  The industry might be down at the moment, but hopefully the Logies will be the usual night of fun.”

Have a soapie new year!
There will be plenty of dramas, romance, new arrivals and shock departures as Australia’s popular soaps enter a new year: 

• A Country Practice celebrates its 800th episode in February and the series will soon welcome a new matron to replace departing matron Ann Brennan (Mary Regan) – while Luke Ross (Matt Day) faces a new life in the city as an apprentice with Qantas, but what will happen with his potential relationship with Steve Brennan (Sophie Heathcote, pictured)?
• Neighbours’ lovebirds Matt (Ashley Paske) and Gemma (Beth Buchanan) have moved in together, much to the frustration of Madge (Anne Charleston) and Harold (Ian Smith).  Joe Mangel (Mark Little) faces the possibility of losing his daughter Sky (Miranda Fryer) as her natural father Eric (John Ley) is desperate to win a custody battle and take her to New Zealand following the death of her mother Kerry (Linda Hartley).  And Jim Robinson (Alan Dale) faces a dilemma when a man claiming to be his illegitimate son arrives in Ramsay Street.
• Former E Street star Paul Kelman (pictured) makes a guest appearance in ABC’s GP before starting an extended role in Nine’s The Flying Doctors.  Also joining the Nine Network series will be David Reyne, Nikki Coghill and Sophie Lee.
• E Street enters its third season with the departure of cast members Penny Cook, Vic Rooney and Warren Jones – but joining the series will be former A Country Practice star Kate Raison and former Family And Friends star Adrian Lee.  Meanwhile, the relationship between Harley (Malcolm Kennard) and Toni (Toni Pearen) faces challenges as Harley is hired as a ‘personal assistant’ to newspaper editor Sheridan Sturgess (Raison) and Toni takes a sudden interest in feminism with the encouragement of free-minded Alice (Marianne Howard).
• Home And Away will start 1991 with Bobby (Nicolle Dickson) lying in hospital waiting to find out the fate of her unborn child.  A new policeman, Constable Nick Parish (Bruce Roberts) moves into Summer Bay – as the relationship between Pippa (Debra Lawrence) and Michael (Dennis Coard) is challenged with the arrival of Michael’s wife Cynthia (former The Box and Sons And Daughters star Belinda Giblin).  Sophie (Rebekah Elmaloglou) becomes embroiled in a love triangle with Blake (Les Hill) and new arrival Hayden (Andrew Hill).

Briefly…
Aussie-based actress Imogen Annesley, currently starring in the UK soap Families, had looked forward to a rest in Sydney while the soap was on a break.  Instead, she has been in Melbourne as the last-minute replacement for Tammy MacIntosh in the comedy film Garbo.  MacIntosh had to withdraw from the movie after suffering a broken collarbone.

E Street producers have now had second thoughts about not renewing the contract of Bunney Brooke (pictured), who plays Aunty Vi in the series.  They had originally planned to have Aunty Vi exit the series to coincide with the departure of Ernie Patchett (Vic Rooney) but her popularity in the show appears to have saved her character from the axe.

Several Nine Network personalities were on hand at Sydney’s Hard Rock Cafe to assist with its hosting of a Christmas dinner for 100 needy people from the Sydney City Mission.  A Current Affair host Jana Wendt was in charge of serving the greens, Today’s Steve Liebmann and Elizabeth Hayes were in charge of turkey and mash and MTV’s Richard Wilkins was driving the gravy train.

John Laws says…
”Why on earth does Nine make such little use of its stump cam gimmick?  When it was first introduced we were told how revolutionary it was, and how nothing like it had been done before and how it would change the way we viewed cricket on TV.  Which was all absolutely correct.  But what does Nine achieve with stump cam?  Very little, it seems to me.”

Program Highlights (December 29-January 4):
Saturday:  More tennis (Hopman Cup from Perth) on HSV7 and cricket (second test from the MCG) on GTV9.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are The River Rat (HSV7) and Wills And Burke (ATV10), while ABC presents the Vienna New Year Concert, featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Monday (New Year’s Eve):  HSV7’s summer of tennis continues with the Australian Women’s Hardcourt Championships, live from Brisbane.  ATV10’s Neighbours makes an early return for the 1991 season.  The new year is heralded by MTV Party Zone on GTV9, a repeat of The Wall – Berlin Concert on ATV10 and all-night Rage on ABC.

Tuesday:  GTV9 crosses to Sydney for the Benson And Hedges World Series cricket, Australia versus England.

Friday:  GTV9’s cricket coverage continues with Day One of the Third Test, Australia versus England, live from Sydney.  Virginia Hey, Ernie Dingo, Nick Tate and Trey Ames star in GTV9’s family drama series Dolphin Cove, a US production set in Queensland. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria country edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 29 December 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: November 3-9

The year of living famously!
Former The Flying Doctors star Rebecca Gibney (pictured) reflects on a hectic year since leaving the popular Nine Network drama.  She starred earlier this year in the ABC mini-series Come In Spinner – a role which won her an AFI award recently – and has recently appeared in Nine’s mini-series Ring Of Scorpio.  Gibney has also completed a special for World Vision and is starring opposite Jon English in an upcoming series, with the working title Rhythm And Blues, which is set to debut in the new year.  “I have to keep reminding myself how fortunate I am,” Gibney tells TV Week.  “Some people tend to get caught up in the hype of the business and think they’re indispensible, but they’re not, nobody is.  I’ve been very lucky.”

Julie spins into new sitcom!
The Seven Network and Gary Reilly Productions are trying to keep it under wraps, but Hey Dad! actress Julie McGregor is set to star in a spin-off to the popular sitcom.  A pilot for a new sitcom, Hampton House, was taped at Seven’s Sydney studios recently.  The new series is set around a group of young people who have left home to move into a share house.  Former Home And Away star Adam Willits is believed to also be a contender for a role in the series should it get the green light.

E Street goes for the matron
Former A Country Practice star Joan Sydney (pictured), who recently declined an offer to return to the popular series, is believed to be joining the cast of E Street.  The popular actress is set to play the role of Mary Patchett, a British cousin of Aunty Vi (Bunney Brooke).  But producer Forrest Redlich, a former producer for A Country Practice, is stopping short of confirming Sydney for the role.  “I have enormous respect for Joan,” he told TV Week.  “If she appeared in this new role it would be for quite a long run.”  Sydney joining the show would also reunite her with former A Country Practice cast members Penny Cook and Kate Raison.

Briefly…
Network Ten racecaller Dan Mielicki, 21, is set to call this year’s Melbourne Cup for the network after making history last year as the youngest to have ever called the famous race.

Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes and former Family And Friends star Ross Newton are guest stars in this week’s episode of GP.  Hughes, currently on a four-month break from Hey Dad!, plays the husband of a woman stricken by multiple sclerosis (MS).  The episode is scheduled to coincide with national MS week.

Some of the great names in showbusiness – including Mike Walsh, Gwen Plumb, John Ewart, Ron Shand, Jeanne Little, Nancye Hayes and Elaine Lee – gathered in Sydney recently for the launch of showbiz veteran Toni Lamond’s autobiography, First Half.  Lamond (pictured, with former TV Week Gold Logie winner Hazel Phillips), a veteran of early variety shows including In Melbourne Tonight, is currently starring in the Sydney production of 42nd Street and recently starred in the ABC telemovie How Wonderful.

Seven Network host Derryn Hinch has predicted his exit from radio station 3AW.  The station’s former top-rating morning presenter currently presents a daily ten-minute commentary piece as well as a weekly interview program, Hinch The Other Side.  But Hinch says that the station is headed for a cost-cutting purge and that his $100,000 a year price tag (plus $25,000 for a landline to his home) will be too much for the station to afford.  “I’d like to be here,” he told station presenter Neil Mitchell.  “But I betcha I won’t be.  They can’t afford me.”

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”I remember vividly the first time I met the man who now has the toughest and most unenviable job in Australian television – chief executive of Network Ten.  It was, ahem, years ago and I was working for a once great Melbourne newspaper and Gary Rice was manager of BTV6 in Ballarat.  I was dispatched to Ballarat to compile a story on a locally-produced tonight show, which had been running for yonks.  Rice turned out to be not only a most obliging station manager, but was also the saxophonist in the tonight show’s resident band.  Between numbers he would down his sax, leap out of the band set and operate a boom mike!  Versatile and not afraid of hard work… he’s going to need an abundance of those qualities and more now as he wrestles with a network which doesn’t just have mind-boggling debts.  Ten also has a huge problem with public image, or lack of it.  Ten’s comedies are struggling and its old faithfuls – notably Neighbours – are showing signs of wear and tear.  Ten does have rights to some new product which has been successful in the US – such as Twin Peaks and The Simpsons – but experience with shows such as Roseanne and Thirtysomething is proof enough that what Americans love doesn’t necessarily grab Australians.”

Program Highlights (November 3-9):
Saturday:  ATV10’s coverage of the Melbourne Cup Carnival starts with Derby Day with coverage starting at 12pm and continuing through to 5.30pm.  Then the channel’s Saturday night movie is Archer, starring Brett Climo, Robert Coleby and Nicole Kidman, telling the story of the first ever Melbourne Cup winner when the race was first run in 1861.

Sunday:  GTV9 crosses to Adelaide for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, starting at 11am, hosted by Ken Sutcliffe with commentators Alan Jones, Jackie Stewart, Murray Walker, James Hunt, Darrell Eastlake and Barry Sheene.  ABC’s Sunday Afternoon features a guest appearance by Helen Wellings.  Sunday night movies are Jekyll And Hyde (HSV7), Beetlejuice (GTV9) and Dominick And Eugene (ATV10).

Tuesday:  ATV10 crosses to Flemington for ‘the race that stops a nation’ – the Melbourne Cup.  The telecast, hosted by Tim Webster with racecaller Dan Mielicki, starts at 9.30am and continues through to 5.30pm.  Also featuring on Ten’s coverage are John Letts, Graeme Kelly, Peter Donegan, Gai Waterhouse and Bob Maumill, and morning ‘Til Ten host Joan McInnes presenting the fashion interviews.

Wednesday:  Former E Street star Marcus Graham is guest star in GTV9’s The Flying Doctors.

Thursday:  Another day of horse racing from Flemington with ATV10’s coverage of Oaks Day, starting at 12pm and continuing through to 5.30pm.

Friday:  The three commercial channels – HSV7, GTV9 and ATV10 – all participate in a simultaneous broadcast, Cartoon Allstars To The Rescue, which helps young children understand the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.  The half-hour special, which attracted more than 33 million viewers when it aired in the US, features cartoon characters from rival companies.  The Australian screening of the program will be introduced by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 3 November 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: October 13-19

Cover: Nicolle Dickson (Home And Away)

Reyne forecast for Coopers Crossing
Actor David Reyne is to join the cast of Nine’s The Flying Doctors.  The 31-year-old star of series including Sweet And Sour, Possession, Flair, Bony and Golden Fiddles joins The Flying Doctors in the role of Dr Guy Reid, a brilliant young man from a wealthy family.  Dr Reid’s arrival into Coopers Crossing has the locals questioning his motives – why would an independently-wealthy man choose to live in a small town, particularly when he makes no secret of the fact that life in a small town is not for him.  Reyne has started work on the series this month and will be seen on-air from early next year.

Comedy of errors!
The Comedy Company’s return after a six-month break was a mistake, according to one of the show’s original stars, Glenn Robbins.  Robbins, now working on the Seven Network’s Tonight Live With Steve Vizard, told TV Week that he feels the show, which has struggled up against 60 Minutes in the ratings since its return, would have been better to come back as something entirely new instead of keeping the old name.  “When you come back with a show such as The Comedy Company, there’s a preconceived image of what it’s all about.  They created a pretty tough job for themselves.  Maybe it might have been better to call it something else,” he says.

A decade of bringing he world back home
To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Australia’s multicultural network SBS is planning to screen a raft of special programming as well as revisiting some of the significant programs that have aired over its first decade.  As well as new documentaries Kids First, with George Negus and Peter Ustinov, and Boy Soldiers, SBS will be screening a special featuring ‘60s tribute group The Fabulous Singlettes  and the adults-only dance spectacular Dreams Of Monochrome Men, featuring DV8.  SBS will also repeat its early 1980s mini-series Women Of The Sun, a production that won a United Nations Peace Prize in 1982, starring Justine Saunders. 

When James became Jane…
Peter Whitford has played many characters over the years – but his latest role has been the most challenging.  The actor is playing the part of a transsexual, James Kennedy, in an upcoming episode of GP.  For many years, James has been harbouring the secret of wanting to be a woman and has been secretly wearing women’s clothes.  When his secret is discovered, he decides to come out of the closet and, as Jane (pictured), decides to have a sex-change operation.  “Margaret Kelly’s script was so well-written, I was completely intrigued,” Whitford told TV Week.  “For the role of James/Jane I spoke with many transsexuals – not to be confused with transvestites, who get their kicks out of cross-dressing.  Transsexuals feel they should have been born the opposite sex.  It has nothing to do with homosexuality either.”

Briefly…
TV producer and former Number 96 star Harry Michaels is working on a drama series which he hopes to sell to a commercial network.  The proposed 13-part series is set in a real estate agency and follows the professional and personal lives of the girls who work there.  “It’s part comedy and part drama and will be a mixture of Nine To Five and Number 96,” Michaels told TV Week.  “I’m making it with my own money and assistance from the Hoyts company.”  Michaels is already an established producer, with his Aerobics Oz Style series now showing nationally on the Ten Network and regional stations.

Former Family And Friends actor Adrian Lee (pictured) and former A Country Practice star Kate Raison have joined the cast of E Street, just as the series is about to farewell five cast members – Paul Kelman, Lisbeth Kennelly, Chelsea Brown, Richard Huggett, Rebecca Saunders and Madison Doyle.

Actress Janet Andrewartha, currently appearing in ABC’s Embassy, reluctantly admits to being a singer earlier in her adult life.  “I don’t usually admit to this – but I was a folk singer,” she told TV Week.  “You know, guitar on your back, and doing the rounds.  I sang traditional and contemporary folk music.  There were so many venues in those days, you could actually make a decent living from it.” 

ABC’s Backchat host Tim Bowden’s two-month visit to Antarctica forms the basis for his six-part radio documentary series, Australians In Antarctica, currently airing on ABC Radio National.

John Laws says…
”Andrea Stretton (The Book Show), incidentally, must be one of TV’s unsung personalities.  She has a lovely, sunny smile, projects a warm personality and asks intelligent questions.  SBS should make much more use of her and once the commercial channels get some money in the piggy banks it wouldn’t surprise if they started to take a long look at her, too.”

Program Highlights (October 13-19):
Saturday:  Aussie Rules football goes international with the Fosters International Cup, featuring West Coast Eagles versus Melbourne, live from Portland, Oregon, on HSV7 this afternoon.  SBS covers cycling with the Commonwealth Bank Classic, a 1000km event from the Gold Coast to Wollongong.  The event will be broadcast on SBS for an hour each afternoon for the duration.

Sunday:  With the football now over, it’s cricket’s turn – the FAI Cup begins on GTV9 with NSW versus Queensland, live from Brisbane, followed by Western Australia versus Victoria, live from Perth.  Actor Max Gillies is the special guest on ABC’s arts program, Sunday Afternoon With Peter Ross.  Sunday night movies are Perry Mason: The Case Of The Lethal Lesson (HSV7), Empire Of The Sun (GTV9) and Predator (ATV10).  After the movie, HSV7 crosses to the US for Collingwood versus Essendon in the Fosters International Cup.

Monday: Comedy series Let The Blood Run Free celebrates the wedding of Dr Ray Good (Brian Nankervis) and Nurse Pam Sandwich (Jean Kittson, pictured) – with the reception being held in… the hospital reception.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), reporter Amanda Keller looks at alternative herbal medicines used by the Mapuche Indians of southern Chile for centuries, and Bryan Smith visits a major city that is sinking 80cm a year because of poor water management.

Thursday:  HSV7 presents a repeat screening of the D-Generation comedy special, The D-Generation Goes Commercial.

Friday: As part of its celebration of ten years of broadcasting, SBS presents the first episode of mini-series Women Of The Sun, which first appeared on the network in 1982.  The series traces the impact European settlement has had on Aboriginal people, and their struggle to retain their individuality.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  13 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: May 19-25

‘We’re not joined at the hip’
Neighbours twin co-stars Gayle and Gillian Blakeney (pictured) might look alike and share many similar interests but still stress that they are very different.  “We’re not joined at the hip.  We’re individuals,” Gayle told TV Week.  “People think that because we look alike we’re alike in everything we do and say.”  But they do concede to have had a number of uncanny experiences – sometimes one will start a sentence and the other will finish it off.  “We can pre-empt what the other is thinking and our moods follow suit.” 

‘I’d be fibbing if I said I didn’t miss it’
Former Coast To Coast presenter John Mangos has told TV Week about his disappointment about Graham Kennedy’s decision not to continue with the show after the end of 1989:  “I idolised Graham.  He was my boyhood hero and that’s why i left the States.  There were very few job positions I would have left that job for, and one of them was the chance to work with my hero.  It took the first few months for us to find each other and after we did, we had a good thing going.  I’d be fibbing if I said I didn’t miss it.”  Since the end of Coast To Coast, co-host Terry Willesee has now moved across to the Ten Network to present Good Morning Australia with Kerri-Anne Kennerley, and Mangos has stayed at Nine to present its Sunday night documentaries with the opportunity to make his own for the network.

Oh, what a lovely war!
The Nine Network mini-series The Private War Of Lucinda Smith is not your usual wartime drama.  The two-part series, starring Nigel Havers, Linda Cropper, Andrew Clarke and Vincent Ball, is an unashamed bawdy romp about a romantic love triangle in the South Pacific in 1914-15 when the outbreak of war turns friendly rivals for Lucinda’s affections into friendly enemies.  “It’s a good old Boys’ Own adventure story with plenty of romance, comedy and sex and practically no violence – perfect, really,” according to Havers (pictured, with Cropper).  “We enjoyed ourselves immensely making it, and I think Ray Alchin (the director) has a lot to answer for.  He never took anything seriously.”

Briefly…
Former The Flying Doctors star Peter O’Brien has scored the lead role in an upcoming American adventure film, The Diamond Triad.  O’Brien was offered the role after producers saw him in the London stage production of Butterflies Are Free.

Annie Jones has just returned from the US where she appeared on a cable TV channel to promote her Oz Beauty Video, a guide to successful grooming.  Now, the former Neighbours star is preparing for her next role in an SBS series about the lives of Australian immigrants.  Jones, who used to be Annika Jasko, is the only Australian-born child of Hungarian parents who settled here in the 1950s.  She is also fluent in Hungarian and will speak the language in the new role.

Nine Network series Family And Friends is about to turn back the years as some of its characters are taken back to the Seventies as the theme for a school social.  The social is also the scene for Renato’s (Gavin Harrison) seduction of Cheryl (Justine Clarke, pictured with Harrison) in an attempt to get her away from Marco (Adrian Lee).

John Laws says…
”British TV viewers are “soaps” – and mainly Australian ones – more than ever before, according to the latest statistics.  Of 30,000 viewers polled recently, more than 65 per cent chose either Neighbours, Home And Away or Prisoner (Cell Block H) as their favourite viewing.  And in England they are saying that the recent $20 million deal for hundreds of Home And Away episodes to be screened in Britain over the next few years actually saved the Oz soap from getting the chop.  At a time when the film industry in Australia is languishing, it’s at least reassuring to know that one section of our TV industry is creating new markets and turning a profit.  Let’s hope it stays like that.”

Program Highlights (May 19-25):
Sunday:  HSV7 crosses to Subiaco Oval in Perth for the AFL clash between West Coast Eagles and Brisbane Bears, followed by highlights of the game between Footscray and Essendon.  ATV10 presents Rugby League with the State Bank Big Game, direct from Sydney.  Sunday night movies are Young Guns (HSV7) and Red Heat (ATV10), while GTV9 presents the first instalment of mini-series The Private War Of Lucinda Smith.
Monday:  ABC screens the final in the Wendy Harmer series, In Harmer’s Way.
Tuesday:  Veteran actress Queenie Ashton (pictured) is a guest star in this week’s episode of GP (ABC).  HSV7 crosses live to the Sydney Cricket Ground for the AFL State Of Origin match between NSW and Victoria, presented by Bruce McAvaney.
Thursday:  Annie Jones guest stars in The Flying Doctors (GTV9).

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

1990: April 21-27

Tragedy shatters Summer Bay
Which original cast member of Home And Away has quit the series and is to written out for good?  That is the question facing fans of the popular Seven Network series as a car accident in Summer Bay tragically kills one of the characters – but with four characters in the car, who will die?

Alyce rides into romance
Sale Of The Century co-host Alyce Platt has started a six-week stint in the Nine Network’s soap Family And Friends.  “It feels very different being back in a drama.  It’s like I’ve picked up where Sons And Daughters left off, although this is a different character,” she told TV Week.  She plays the character of Stephanie Collins, a social worker with a deep secret who takes off to the country to deal with her mystery.  It is there that she meets Damien Chandler (Simon Westaway) and tries to turn around his aggressive manner, leading to romance.

Away with the Pixies… again!
The Seven Network this week launches a new series of sketch comedy show Fast Forward, and Magda Szubanski will be on board to reprise her trademark characters Pixie-Anne Wheatley (pictured) and beautician Chenille.  “I enjoy doing Pixie.  It puts me in a good mood,” Szubanski told TV Week.  “You set up the smile and, before you know it, you’re in a good mood.  In some ways, I think Chenille may have a slightly longer life.  Because Pixie is such a big character, she could really start to … you after a while!”

Six exit in series shake-up
Despite falling ratings, the Nine Network is sticking with Family And Friends.  The network is planning a major revamp for the series, with six characters to be written out and negotiations under way to sign up some high-profile names.  Planned to be leaving the show are Renato Bartolomei, Robert Forza, Anna-Maria Monticelli, Sean Myers, Simon Westaway and Justine Clarke.  Clarke was only ever intended to have a brief stint in the series, but the departure of the others will essentially end the ongoing Rossi/Chandler feud storyline. 

Briefly…
Former The Factory co-host Andrew Daddo may have been overlooked for a presenting role on Countdown Revolution, but is now set to host a new documentary series for ABC, Made By Design.

A former Australian model, Tayler Kane (pictured), has won a role in the new UK soap opera Families.  The new $6 million series, to be produced by Grenada Television, will be filmed on location in both the UK and Australia.  Kane will play the role of Andrew Stephens, the eldest son of Diane Stephens (Briony Behets).  Families is to debut on UK network ITV later this month.  The series has yet to be sold to an Australian network.

Commonwealth Games double gold medallist Jane Fleming hasn’t given up on her sporting career but has begun to make her mark into the media – as a reporter for the Nine Network’s Wide World Of Sports and co-host of the breakfast show on Canberra radio station FM104.7. 

John Laws says…
”I’m delighted that Daryl Somers (pictured, as illustrated by Robert Fidgeon) and New Faces are back on Nine.  There was a lot of talk late last year that the show was headed for chopping block.  If that had happened, it would have been a crying shame.  I very much like the program and everything that it stands for.  It is a genuine search for fresh Australian entertainment and it’s one of the very few areas of television where talented unknowns can have a crack at shooting for the big break in their careers.”

Program Highlights (April 21-27):
Sunday:  HSV7’s Sunday afternoon AFL covers Sydney Swans versus St Kilda and a highlights package of North Melbourne versus Geelong.  The only Sunday night movie this week is Big Business (HSV7), while GTV9 presents the premiere of two-part mini-series The Great Escape II: The Untold Story and ATV10 debuts mini-series Heart Of The High Country.  In the lead-up to ANZAC Day, ABC presents a one-hour special, The Boys Who Came Home, featuring recollections from Gallipoli veterans.
Tuesday:  In GP (ABC), Dr Cathy Mitchell (Sarah Chadwick) looks after a young paraplegic with serious doubts about his sex life.
Wednesday – ANZAC Day:  ABC is the only network to provide coverage of ANZAC Day proceedings, including 75th Anniversary ANZAC Day March through the streets of Melbourne and a live telecast of the Dawn Service from Gallopoli.  In the afternoon, HSV7 presents a two-hour special, For Valor, and ATV10 repeats a three-hour special, Australians At War 1914-1918, narrated by Tim Elliot.  At 4.45pm, ABC crosses back to Gallipoli for The International Service and the forum discussion on Couchman, at 10.15pm, focuses on the many young Australians making the pilgrimage to the shores of Gallipoli to pay homage to the men who died there 75 years earlier.
Thursday:  Comedy series Fast Forward returns for a second season, including cast members Steve Vizard (pictured), Michael Veitch, Margaret Downey, Magda Szubanski, Ernie Dingo, Jane Turner and Peter Moon.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.     
21 April 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: March 31-April 6

Tammy’s springing into movies!
Tammy McIntosh’s career is set to leap even further than she had imagined.  The former Perth girl (pictured, with Andrew McFarlane) went from children’s program C’mon Kids to prime-time drama as nurse Annie Rogers in The Flying Doctors – and has drawn praise from Nine drama chief Alan Bateman:  “I really think this is the best Flying Doctors series ever and I’m particularly excited about Tammy.  She brings a real sparkle and energy to the show.”  Now it seems there could be a future for the 19-year-old on the big screen, with plans to head to Sydney to discuss a film role before returning to Melbourne for production of the next series of The Flying Doctors. 

Will Carol come back?
The Seven Network is in negotiation with Carol Willesee, estranged wife of current affairs identity Mike Willesee, over reinstating her for the leading role of Pippa Fletcher in Home And Away.  Willesee was originally appointed for the role when the pilot was being produced in 1987 but quit the show after two days’ filming.  Willesee cited the long hours and disruption to her family commitments as reasons for leaving and she parted company with Seven amicably.  Vanessa Downing, who ended up being cast as Pippa, is now set to leave the show when her contract expires later in the year, leading to the negotiations between Seven and Willesee.  But a Seven spokesperson said that “nothing has been resolved.”  Willesee recently completed a guest role in Nine’s Family And Friends (pictured).

Farewell to a golden girl
Pat McDonald, the much-loved actress through her long-serving roles in Number 96 and Sons And Daughters, has died from cancer.  The multi-Logie award winner first became ill only six months ago when she collapsed just minutes before stepping on to the stage for the Sydney production of Alex Buzo’s play, Shellcove Road.  Ten days before her death in hospital, McDonald asked that she be carried to her resting place in a pink hearse.  Close friend Stuart Wagstaff, speaking at McDonald’s farewell at St Stephen’s church in Sydney, conceded “we could not find one – it seems there is not much call for a pink hearse in Sydney – so we had to settle for white.”  The funeral was attended by many of her former Number 96 and Sons And Daughters colleagues – including Ron Shand, Johnny Lockwood, Elisabeth Kirkby, Jeff Kevin, Thelma Scott, James Elliott, Joanna Lockwood, Leila Hayes, Brian Blain, Tom Richards and Danny Roberts.  A one-time TV Week Gold Logie winner (in 1974), one of McDonald’s last TV appearances was in the opening number of the 1989 TV Week Logie Awards, appearing alongside other female Gold Logie winners Lorrae Desmond, Hazel Phillips, Rowena Wallace and Denise Drysdale.

Briefly…
Former Sons And Daughters star Brian Blain is on the comeback trail after a horrific motorcycle accident which nearly killed him.  Suffering five broken ribs and a broken collarbone, Blain says that if it wasn’t for his crash helmet he would have broken his neck too.  The 53-year-old actor is making a return to television in a guest role on A Country Practice, working alongside old friend Shane Porteous with who he started his acting career with in Brisbane.

Showbiz couple John Orcsik and Paula Duncan moved to Sydney two years ago to avoid work-related separations – but now the pair each find themselves in demand in separate cities.  Orcsik (pictured) has been performing in Melbourne in David Williamson’s play Siren, and is set to follow the show on a national tour, while Duncan has been appearing in Sydney-based soap Home And Away, with producers pushing for a long-term commitment.

Neighbours producers have decided to write out the popular character of Sharon Davies, played by 19-year-old Jessica Muschamp who says the decision may have been a “blessing in disguise.”  Muschamp told TV Week, “As good as it had been, they probably felt that Sharon didn’t have as much of a family base as some of the other characters.”  She will finish with Neighbours in five weeks and is already committed to English pantomime performances over Christmas and is considering mini-series and theatre roles in Australia.

John Laws says…
”Why did Nine’s Family And Friends (pictured) struggle so desperately in the ratings in prime time?  It’s something of a mystery, because the show is no worse than any other of the other top-rating soaps screening at the moment.  Yet viewers rejected it and Nine has banished it to 5.30pm.  Why should this be?”

Program Highlights (March 31-April 6):
Saturday:  HSV7 crosses to Carrara, Brisbane, for Saturday night AFL – Brisbane Bears versus Richmond – with commentators Sandy Roberts, Peter McKenna, Don Scott and boundary reports from Bill McDonald.
Sunday:  The afternoon is dominated by sport – NBL (HSV7), AFL (HSV7), Figure Skating (GTV9), Davis Cup Tennis (on SBS, taking the Seven Network coverage due to that network’s AFL commitments) and Rugby League (ATV10).  Sunday night movies are Firewalker (HSV7), The Razor’s Edge (GTV9) and Off Limits (ATV10).
Tuesday:  In ABC’s drama GP, Steve (Michael O’Neill) is devastated when he discovers that a close friend has AIDS.  He has to reconcile himself to his friend’s homosexuality and help him to cope with the trauma.
Wednesday:  ATV10 presents a re-run of mini-series My Brother Tom, starring Gordon Jackson, Keith Michell, Christopher Cummins and Tom Jennings.
Thursday:  In Home And Away (HSV7), how much longer can Sophie (Rebekah Elmaloglou) put off revealing her lack of literacy skills? 
Friday:  HSV7 presents Friday night AFL coverage of Richmond versus North Melbourne from the MCG.

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