1991: June 15-21

‘I’m still a country bumpkin’
As the saying goes, you can take new Hey Dad! star Rachael Beck (pictured) out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of Rachael Beck.  The 19-year-old actress, who started her career in the musical Cats at 16, says that despite the bright lights of showbusiness she is still a country girl.  “I am still a country bumpkin at heart,” she told TV Week.  “My parents are back in the country now and it’s wonderful to go and home and visit them and a lot of my friends who are still living there.”  Beck has also chosen to debut her new one-woman show, based on the early career of Judy Garland, on the NSW north coast.

Designing woman!
During the 1970s and early ‘80s, Susan Hannaford (pictured) was better known to viewers as Kitty Sullivan, the youngest member of The Sullivans.  After the show ended, Hannaford moved into the fashion industry and set up a thriving career in design while maintaining ties to acting.  When she was approached to design clothes for the US soap The Bold And The Beautiful she ended up appearing on the show, as herself, for around 18 months.  She is currently back in Australia for a guest appearance, again as herself, in the Nine Network series Chances.  “Chances was a fun little script and I had great fun doing it.  It really felt comfortable,” she told TV Week.  “It’s fun coming back to the Nine studios and seeing people I had worked with on The Sullivans.”  One of those people was former The Sullivans co-star Michael Caton, who plays Bill Anderson in Chances.

A bid to aid the world’s starving
The stars of Australian showbusiness will be doing their bit to help raise funds for the World Vision 40-hour famine to be held this week.  Stars including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Craig McLachlan, Paul Hogan, Rebecca Gibney, Marina Prior, Steve Vizard, Jana Wendt, John Farnham and cast members of Neighbours, The Flying Doctors and Fast Forward will be contributing items of personal memorabilia to be auctioned off over the weekend.  The auctions will be broadcast through the entire weekend on radio stations TTFM in Melbourne and 2UW in Sydney.  Craig McLachlan has donated his first guitar to the auction, while Marina Prior has donated the ballet slippers she wore on the opening night of Phantom Of The Opera in Melbourne.  Steve Vizard and Ray Martin (pictured, with Midday reporter Rachel Friend) have donated merchandise from their respective shows.  Glenn Robbins has donated clothes worn by his one-time alter-ego Uncle Arthur. 

Briefly…
Newsreader Jo Pearson is back at Network Ten, reading Melbourne’s Ten Eyewitness News again with David Johnston, and has spoken to TV Week about the three years she spent at Nine, which included hosting short-lived programs Live At Five and Body And Soul.  “In hindsight you could say it was a mistake for me to go, but at the time I went with promise and expectation of a new career,” she said.  “I think I had a lot of bad luck.  There were political and geographical differences that made it extremely difficult for me and the shows.”

Victor and Sveta (Peter Moon and Jane Turner), those groovy hosts of Fast Forward’s “Good Morning Moscow” are about to hit the charts with a double A-side release featuring Tutti Frutti (I Want A Rutti) and the Soviet rap, The Soviet Bloc.  Proceeds from the sale of the record will aid children of the Chernobyl disaster. 

Tessa Humphries, daughter of comedian Barry Humphries, is returning home to Australia after several years in the UK.  Having starred in London’s West End and in the UK soap Families, Humphries is back home for a guest role in GP… and is keen to stay in Australia if there is the opportunity for more work.  “It is very important for me to work in Australia,” she told TV Week.  “After all, it is my home.”

John Laws says…
”Often it’s the really off-beat, and sometimes silliest, ideas that translate into the best TV programs, be they drama or light entertainment.  Soccer star Craig Johnston’s The Main Event (hosted by Larry Emdur, pictured) is an example.  It’s a pretty wacky format – celebrities playing a quiz game on behalf of various families out there in suburbia – but the ratings have been promising, which is further proof of the theory that in a recession the viewing public demands “fun” entertainment on a grand scale."

Program Highlights (Melbourne, June 15-21):
Saturday:  SBS crosses live to Portugal for the match between Australia and Trinidad and Tobago in the FIFA World Youth Cup.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Police Academy IV: City Under Siege (Nine) and Manhunter (Ten).  Seven debuts mini-series Love Lies And Murder, which concludes Monday night.  Later, Nine crosses live to Madrid for the 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix.

Monday:  In Neighbours (Ten), the future of Paul (Stefan Dennis) and Christina’s (Gillian Blakeney) unborn baby is under serious threat after Christina collapses while out shopping.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Amanda Keller reports on a breakthrough diagnosis for one of Asia’s most crippling diseases, while Dr John D’Arcy introduces a device capable of projecting three-dimensional objects on to a wall.  In Chances (Nine), Alex (Jeremy Sims) is shocked when he learns the true identity of his father and aims to punish the entire family.

Wednesday:  SBS makes an early-morning cross to Portugal for Australia versus USSR in the FIFA World Youth Cup.  Ten begins a re-run of the two-part 1989 mini-series Bangkok Hilton, starring Nicole Kidman, Denholm Elliott, Judy Morris, Hugo Weaving and Joy Smithers.

Thursday:  Judy Banks guest stars in The Flying Doctors (Nine).  Nine presents the heavily-censored ‘modified TV version’ network premiere of 1972 movie Deliverance.  SBS presents live coverage of Australia versus Egypt in the FIFA World Youth Cup.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  15 June 1991.  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.