1992: May 24-30

Cover: Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown)

Living in the Seventies
Despite the Seventies being the era of ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’, All Together Now star Jon English confesses that he can look back on that era without too much embarrassment, insisting that he never played up to the image of a high-profile actor-singer during that period.  “I was never into that sex and drugs thing, to tell you the truth,” he told TV Week.  “In the bulk of the Seventies I was appearing in the theatre eight times a week (in Jesus Christ Superstar).  I watched everything in that era from the edge of the stage.”  Meanwhile English’s co-star Rebecca Gibney admits that as a teenager in the that era (“14 trying to be 25”, she said) she was a big fan of the rock performer.  “I wrote to Jon once but he never replied,” she said.  “I loved his music, had his albums and went to his concerts.”  The Nine Network sitcom has adopted a retro theme for this week’s episode as the show’s characters stage a Seventies-style “sit-in” while re-living the Woodstock era.

Long-distance romance?
They might be rivals in children’s television and working in different cities, but Melbourne-based Saturday At Rick’s co-host Lochie Daddo and Brisbane-based Saturday Disney’s Sofie Formica (pictured) are denying reports that they are romantically linked.  “Just good friends,” Daddo told TV Week.  “I ended up doing a pilot for an afternoon show in Brisbane for Ten.  We went out for dinner one night.  It was like a blind date.  The next four or five weeks, for some reason or another, I was up there nearly every weekend for work.  So I saw a lot of Sofie.  We are still very good friends.”  Daddo has recently joined Saturday At Rick’s following his first professional acting role in an episode of All Together Now.  “As a result of All Together Now, I was a guest on Rick’s,” he said.  “Then they said, ‘Do you want to do the show?’.“  Meanwhile, Formica has recently returned from Turkey where she was an Australian delegate at the European Broadcasting Union’s international workshop for children’s television presenters, and has since started a new role as host of Seven’s children’s quiz show Now You See It.

The hair of the wog!
Acropolis Now’s self-styled beauty queen Effie (Mary Coustas, pictured near right) and friend Sophie (Sheryl Munks) have decided that the cafe’s resident career woman Suzanna Martin (Nicki Wendt, far right) is in dire need of assistance.  “Suzanna looks like the ‘before’ lady on the shampoo commercial,” Effie told TV Week.  “She’s got very fine hairs.  I want to give her a good root perm, which will stuff up her hairs for five years.”

Briefly…
Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s Daryl Somers has been busy working on two additional projects.  The first is a series of one-hour specials, The Best (And Worst) Of Red Faces, highlighting some of the acts to have appeared on the mock talent quest segment since it started back in the early 1980s.  “It’s been a huge job for everyone involved, endeavouring to find every segment ever done – the oldest piece dates back to 1982,” he told TV Week.  The second project is a movie to star the team from Hey Hey It’s Saturday, to be filmed in Brisbane and Melbourne.

Late last year, Home And Away star Dee Smart (pictured) described working on the series as being like a prison sentence.  (“It feels like I’ve been there for years,” she said at the time)  Now it seems her desire to be written out of the show will be realised with producer Andrew Howie agreeing to let her go in July.  Her departure could lead to some challenging times for the soap, which recently celebrated 1000 episodes, with co-stars Nicolle Dickson and Bruce Roberts also contemplating leaving.

E Street’s Brooke ‘Mikey’ Anderson has been dumped from the series 10 weeks before her contract was due to expire.  The young star, who had been in the series since it started three years ago, has already starting filming a guest role in rival series A Country Practice.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”It wasn’t until the Seven Network ran Blackadder back-to-back with Fast Forward that the Rowan Atkinson series gained anything more than a cult following in this country.  Unfortunately, the series was long gone before an audience large enough to be commercially viable had starting lamenting it.  The ABC, however, grabbed the rub-off advantage and screened the first series of the more recent Atkinson creation, Mr Bean.  Be warned.  A second Bean series is now set to premiere.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, May 24-30):
Sunday:  Actor, dancer and choreographer Paul Mercurio and colleague Kim Walker are guests on this week’s Sunday Afternoon With Peter Ross (ABC).  Network Ten presents the second series final on New Faces With Bert Newton, while Nine’s Our World documentary series features Adventure Bound with Alby Mangels.  Anne Phelan is a guest star on comedy series Late For School (Ten).  Sunday night movies are Masquerade (Seven), The Freshman (Nine) and Voices Within: The Lives Of Truddi Chase (Ten).  ABC’s late night series Compass features the story of religious academic John Hull, who documented his experiences as his sight gradually deteriorated from the age of 17 to middle-age when he became completely blind.

Monday:  This week’s Six Pack (SBS) feature is Loulla, a story set in the 1950s of the arrival of an unexpectedly glamorous proxy bride from Greece to a rural backwater in Australia, starring Lenita Vangellis.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Amanda Keller tastes the grain that could feed the Third World, while Tracey Curro investigates the treatment that’s forcing cancer to mature.  Seven later presents a delayed telecast of the AFL State Of Origin match between Victoria and Western Australia from the MCG.  In Chances (Nine), Bambi Shute’s (Abigail, pictured) sex show is a hit.  ABC presents the series return of comedy DAAS Kapital, featuring the Doug Anthony All-Stars.

Wednesday:  ABC presents The Comedy Festival Debate: Is Laughter Better Than Sex? – featuring Michael Corton, Brett Jones, Steve Crabb, Jane Clifton, Andrew Denton and H. G. Nelson and chaired by Campbell McComas.  The first of three one-hour specials of The Best (And Worst) Of Red Faces appears on Nine.

Thursday:  In Nine’s new travel series Getaway, Rebecca Harris tours the Blue Mountains on a Harley Davidson, David Reyne goes diving at Dunk Island and guest reporter, former Sale Of The Century hostess Delvene Delaney presents a tour of Byron Bay.

Friday:  John Waters (pictured) hosts ABC’s new ten-part series The Bush’s Australian Sheepdog Challenge.  Late night sport includes delayed coverage of the Winfield Rugby League Cup (Nine) and the NBL Mitsubishi Challenge (Ten).

Saturday:  Nine begins its coverage of the French Open tennis, live from Roland Garros Centre, Paris, with commentators John Newcombe, Tony Trabert and Betsy Nagelson.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  23 May 1992.  Southdown Press.

1992: February 1-7

How to succeed away from Wandin Valley
A Country Practice star Georgie Parker (pictured) is suddenly hot property on the theatre circuit, with two producers vying for her services for upcoming stage productions.  Parker, who is currently taping her final scenes for A Country Practice, has been offered the lead role in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, scheduled to premiere in Sydney in September, and has been called for a second audition for the revival of the classic Gypsy.  Parker has also been offered a role in the Seven Network’s upcoming comedy Newlyweds, but has turned it down citing reluctance to accept another television series role so soon after ACP.

‘We’re great together!’
Garry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell, about to return to screens in a new series of Mother And Son, believe the series could go on indefinitely… or at least as long as writer Geoffrey Atherden writes the scripts.  “Over the years it’s become funnier,” Cracknell told TV Week.  “Good comedy doesn’t go away.”  And the two actors quite happily continue their light-hearted banter even when the cameras stop rolling.  Cracknell confides that McDonald tells all the jokes, but her trademark one-liners on screen are carried over off screen with just as much success.  “We’re great together,” she chuckles.  “It would have been a wonderful marriage!”

‘I was absolutely shaken…’
When A Country Practice star Joyce Jacobs (pictured) heard that her fellow cast-mates Syd Heylen and Gordon Piper were being written out of the series, she thought she would be next.  “I was absolutely shaken!,” she told TV Week.  “It was a great shock and my first thought was, ‘It’s me as well’.  I have been more involved with the doctors in the past year or two and in fewer scenes with Cookie (Heylen) and Bob (Piper).  We’ll miss them.  There was always laughter, although you could thump them sometimes.”  Jacobs is now in her 11th year in A Country Practice as snoopy Esme Watson, but she was not the first choice for the role.  In the series pilot she played an extra, Wilma, who had little dialogue.  It was a character that Jacobs didn’t think would go anywhere, much like the woman she used to play in Number 96.  “I used to go into Mr Godolfus’ shop and buy a quarter of a pound of tea, but they blew them all up didn’t they?,” she said.  But she was later chosen to play Esme Watson in A Country Practice after the actress originally cast for the role had dropped out.  But like any television performer, Jacobs admits nothing is forever.  “I think if and when A Country Practice finishes I’d be glad to do a little cameo role in a film now and then.  It would be nice.  I couldn’t go into another series.  I’m too old… past retirement age, you know.”

Briefly…
All Together Now’s Steven Jacobs (pictured) and former Countdown Revolution co-host Tania Lacey have signed on as presenters of Nine’s new Saturday morning show, Saturday At Rick’s.  The program, to go to air live for two hours each week, is reminiscent of the early days of Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  The new show, to debut later this month, is expected to be produced at Warner Bros Movie World on the Gold Coast.  Two more presenters are also to be signed up.

Network Ten has commissioned a second series of sitcom Bingles before the first series has even gone to air.  The series, set in a panel-beating workshop, stars Shane Bourne, Tammy MacIntosh, Nick Bufalo and Russell Gilbert. 

Acclaimed young actor Russell Crowe (pictured) will be a guest star in the second series of ABC’s Police Rescue.  Crowe, who won an AFI award for his role in Proof, is currently appearing on the big screen in the long-awaited Spotswood.  In Police Rescue he plays Senior Constable Tom Younger, a local football hero and new member of the squad.  Producer John Edwards is excited about Crowe joining the show.  “Russell is a fabulous actor,” he said.  “He’s also a charismatic and exciting personality.”

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”When he took my call, Ian Frykberg was on the Gold Coast in Queensland.  It was windy rather than sunny, but, anyway, he was doing some work preparatory to a 12-metre yacht challenge later this year.  Then he was due to leave for Albertville, France, not just for a dramatic change of climate, but for the 1992 Winter Olympics.  Before the Winter Olympics are over, Frykberg is going to be casting an anxious eye towards places as far flung as Mackay in Queensland, Berri in South Australia and Napier, New Zealand.  They are just some of the venues for the World Cup of cricket.  And before that’s over, there’s the not inconsequential matter of the NSW Rugby League starting its 1992 season on 20 March.  Such is life when you’re director of sport at the Nine Network…”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, February 1-7):
Saturday:  Afternoon sport includes a repeat of last Monday’s NFL Superbowl (ABC) and Fifth Test Cricket, live from Perth, on Nine.

Sunday:  ABC’s rural affairs program Landline returns for another year.  Afternoon sport includes Test Cricket on Nine and the Ironman Super Series on Ten.  At 6.30pm, Ten launches Bert Newton’s New Faces, reviving the title and format that Newton hosted at the Nine Network from 1976 to 1985 in the same timeslot.  Also at 6.30pm is the return of Seven’s The Main Event, hosted by Larry Emdur, followed by US sitcom Full House and debut of new US series Dinosaurs.  The Simpsons returns with new episodes on Ten at 7.30pm, followed by the debut of locally-made sitcom Late For School, starring Frankie J. Holden, Sarah Chadwick and Matthew Newton.  Sunday night movies are Runaway Train (Seven), Gulag (Nine) and Uncle Buck (Ten).

Monday:  Current affairs programs Four Corners and Lateline are back for another year on ABC, while Seven’s late-night variety show Tonight Live With Steve Vizard returns for its third year.  Although it was widely tipped for a Saturday night timeslot, Ten debuts its new lifestyle/magazine show Healthy Wealthy And Wise on Monday, hosted by Jacki MacDonald (pictured) and Ronnie Burns and featuring Iain Hewitson, Ross Greenwood, Jim Brown and Lyn Talbot.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Shirley (Lorrae Desmond) is suspicious of Muldoon’s (Brian Moll) sudden generosity, while Matron Prior (Maureen Edwards) tries to keep Kate (Michelle Pettigrove) away from Harry (Andrew Blackman).  Gordon Bray and Karen Tighe present the 41st annual ABC Sports Awards, from the New Maritime Museum in Sydney.  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Amanda Keller (pictured) examines virtual reality systems where the observer exists in a 3D, computer-generated world.

Wednesday:  In E Street (Ten), Steven (Vince Martin, pictured) makes a bold move, while Alice (Marianne Howard) gets an offer she can’t refuse, and CJ (Adrian Lee) gets advice on wooing the modern woman.

Thursday:  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), Penny (Sophie Lee) turns to Guy (David Reyne) for comfort, little realising the strength of their mutual attraction.  In Home And Away (Seven), Sophie’s (Rebekah Elmaloglou) fears for her baby’s future seem justified.  Seven presents an ‘encore’ screening of US series Dinosaurs from Sunday night.

Friday:  Documentary series A Big Country returns to ABC, this week focusing on the Spencer family who live in the far north of the Cape York Peninsula.  Seven years ago they made the break from society.  Nine crosses to the Sydney Football Stadium for the Seven’s International Rugby League, with commentators Ray Warren and Darrell Eastlake.  Nine’s late-night music show MTV returns for the new year, hosted by Richard Wilkins.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  1 February 1992.  Southdown Press

1991: January 5-11

Baby tragedy for Bobby
When Home And Away finished up at the end of 1990, pregnant Bobby Simpson (Nicolle Dickson, pictured) had collapsed in the diner.  This week, with the series returning for 1991, she is told that she has miscarried at 22 weeks.  “It’s very harrowing,” Dickson tells TV Week.  “Fisher (Norman Coburn) comes in to tell her she’s lost the baby, but she already knows and is trying to keep calm.”  In entering another year with the series, Dickson told TV Week she was unsure about signing up for another year.  “I was a bit nervous about it,” she says.  “But the industry is in such bad shape and it’s so much better than not working.”

Bruce cops it sweet!
Home And Away newcomer Bruce Roberts (pictured) laughs off suggestions he could become television’s next hunk.  As Summer Bay’s new policeman, Nick Parish, Roberts is sure to break hearts on screen and off – but it is a notion the NIDA graduate laughs off.  “I can laugh about it because I know I’m not building my career around that sort of image,” he told TV Week.  Roberts makes his on screen debut in Home And Away in March.

Joyce’s night of anguish
A Country Practice star Joyce Jacobs (pictured) has spoken of the anguish from a recent call at midnight by police to inform her that her husband, Ian, had gone missing earlier that evening while participating in the NSW Gliding Championships.  “I didn’t know what to think,” Jacobs told TV Week.  “Ian could have hit a fence or telegraph wire and flipped over while landing.  I thought ‘maybe he’s had a minor heart attack’.  I was worried sick.”  It turned out that Ian had been forced to make an emergency landing about 25 kilometres from the town of Warren in the late afternoon.  He had sent a radio message to say that he was making an emergency landing, but a second radioed message that he had landed safely had not been received, so race organisers had feared the worst and had begun a search.  Despite being stranded in isolation he eventually found a homestead and managed to make a call to Warren police and was taken to hospital.  A relieved Jacobs is hopeful that her husband might now choose more sedate hobbies.  “He’s 68.  I think he should be getting to the stage where he is just happy to just potter around the house!" she said.

Briefly…
Voting has opened for the 33rd annual TV Week Logie Awards, to take place in March.  Will Home And Away star Craig McLachlan manage to make it two Gold Logies in a row, or could he be upstaged by the man who is credited with giving the Logies their name – Graham Kennedy?  Other possible contenders for TV’s biggest prize could be Steve Vizard, who has had a successful year as host of Tonight Live, or Nine Network stalwarts Jana Wendt, Daryl Somers or Ray Martin.

The popularity of Neighbours and Home And Away in the United Kingdom have seen a swag of stars making the trip to the UK for the Christmas pantomime circuit.  Among those appearing in productions this year include current and former Neighbours stars Anne Charleston, Jessica Muschamp, Kristian Schmid, Rachel Friend, Linda Hartley and Mark Stevens.

Beyond 2000 reporter Carmel Travers has been recently crowned Redhead of the Year.  The globe-trotting reporter has said that it is about time that somebody appreciated her genetic richness.  “My hair was a constant source of embarrassment as a child,” she says.  “I know what it’s like to go out in the sun and hope those freckles join up.  And I certainly know what it’s like to have lily-white boobs and be told to get off the beach!”  Last year’s winner of the title was Hey Dad! star Julie McGregor (pictured, with Travers) and other contenders this year included The Big Gig’s Angela Moore (who plays Shirley Purvis), ABC newsreader Mary Delahunty and Fast Forward’s Pixie-Anne Wheatley (Magda Szubanski).

Gold Coast teenager Nerida Leishman (pictured) has beaten hundreds of young hopefuls to join Tony Johnston as co-host of Nine Network children’s programs Cartoon Company and C Company.  She replaces former co-host Kristine Davis who is going overseas to pursue an acting career.  “I can’t believe this is happening,” the 18-year-old told TV Week.  “Not too many people get the chance to work on national television, especially at my age.”  Leishman is not a complete unknown to television, having appeared on Nine’s New Faces talent quest and performed on the local In Brisbane Today morning show.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”With business in general – and the business of television – in such an uncertain state at the moment, it’s almost comforting to know that there is something constant.  As you’re no doubt aware by now, the TV Week Logie Awards will go ahead in 1991.  This year will be the 33rd time TV Week has presented the annual awards to the television industry, a record of which we can be proud considering the industry itself is a mere youngster at 36.”

Program Highlights (January 5-11):
Saturday:  There’s tennis (Australian Women’s Hardcourt Championships) on Seven and cricket (Third Test: Australia versus England) on Nine.  The evening features highlights of the World Swimming Championships from Perth on ABC and live coverage of the Australian Men’s Hardcourt Championships on Seven.

Sunday:  Ten’s Sunday night movie is KGB: The Secret Of War, while Nine presents the first part of mini-series Traffik and Seven has the evening session of the Australian Men’s Hardcourt Championships.  ABC’s Sunday Stereo Special is Sydney Dance Company In Cafe – a study of Sydney’s cafe society written and choreographed by Paul Mercurio and Kim Walker.

Monday:  Seven’s season of tennis continues with the NSW Open, live from White City, Sydney, continuing all week.  Home And Away returns for its fourth year – Bobby (Nicolle Dickson) comes to terms with her heart-breaking news, while Pippa (Debra Lawrance) comes to terms with her feelings for Michael (Dennis Coard).  ABC presents a repeat of the Hindsight special Power To The People, focusing on the 1970 Vietnam moratorium and the swing of middle Australia against the war.

Tuesday:  ABC begins a re-run of drama series House Rules, starring Jacki Weaver, Gil Tucker and Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell.

Wednesday:  Network Ten’s E Street returns for its third year.

Thursday:  Nine crosses to the MCG for the afternoon session of the Benson And Hedges World Series Cricket, Australian versus England.

Source: TV Week (Victoria country edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 5 January 1991. Southdown Press.

Turning the lights out at Television City

It started life at the turn of the 20th century as a piano factory, and then a soup factory.

Then, in 1956, the building at Bendigo Street, Richmond, became part of the dawn of the new industry of television and went from producing 57 varieties of soup to a variety of a completely different kind.

For over fifty years it has been ‘Hollywood-on-the-Yarra’ as it has produced television programs – variety, drama, comedy, children’s programs, sports, news and current affairs – that are among the most loved and most popular in the country.

It was where the Victorian governor Sir Dallas Brooks (pictured, above) made his grand entrance on GTV9’s opening night – 19 January 1957 – by entering the studio in a chauffeur-driven limousine. The two-hour variety program that followed, featuring names like Bob and Dolly Dyer, Toni Lamond, Frank Sheldon, Ron Blaskett, Terry Dear and Lou Toppano’s orchestra, certainly set the tone that this new channel was going to have a clear focus on light entertainment and variety – and it certainly delivered that in the decades that followed.

A few months after GTV9’s lavish opening night, a shy radio star named Graham Kennedy made his first TV appearance and shortly after made his TV hosting debut on a variety show, In Melbourne Tonight. The show would continue for over a decade and earned Kennedy the nickname of the King of Australian TV. It is a title that nobody has dared to challenge ever since.

In 1959, Kennedy was joined by Bert Newton (pictured, right, with Kennedy in 1964) – a personality from rival channel HSV7 who had resigned from his employer on-camera before making the move to GTV9. For his debut at GTV9 he was placed next to Kennedy to present a commercial during IMT. It was the beginning of a long-running professional partnership and a personal friendship that would last decades.

In 1964, with a new rival TV channel – ATV0 – about to debut, GTV9 expanded its premises to a new state-of-the-art studio, Studio 9. It was a studio built specifically for IMT but would go on to host a list of productions in the years that followed – including New Faces, The Graham Kennedy Show, The Don Lane Show (pictured), The Ernie Sigley Show, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, The Paul Hogan Show, Family Feud, Sale Of The Century, The Daryl Somers Show, Tonight With Bert Newton, Blankety Blanks, All Together Now, The Price Is Right, The Footy Show, Burgo’s Catch Phrase, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, Starstuck, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Temptation, Bert’s Family Feud and Millionaire Hot Seat.

As well as variety and light entertainment shows, 22 Bendigo Street – or ‘Television City’ as it became known – was home to several drama series including Emergency, one of the earliest TV drama series ever made in Australia, Division 4, The Sullivans, Starting Out, The Flying Doctors, All The Way, Chances, Halifax fp and Stingers.

Eric Pearce (pictured) and American Jack Little formed Melbourne’s (if not Australia’s) first newsreading duo, later making way for others including Brian Naylor, who read the news from Bendigo Street for twenty years, Peter Hitchener and Jo Hall. Mike Walsh hosted a 1960s version of Today, and Tanya Halesworth (and later Mickie de Stoop) hosted a daytime current affairs program, No Man’s Land, in the 1970s.

This Saturday night, the Nine Network pays tribute to the stars and the shows that have come from the famous studios as it prepares to move out from the building.

After Daryl Somers and his team sign off from the final episode of Hey Hey It’s Saturday for 2010 from Studio 9, Nine will cross to Bert Newton and Eddie McGuire in Studio 1, back where it all began with Sir Dallas Brookes and the early days of IMT, to present Lights, Camera, Party! – Television City Celebrates.

The two-hour special will feature some of the people, programs and magic moments that have featured from the legendary television studios over the past 53 years. The studio audience for the program will be made up entirely of past and present Nine Network personalities.

The building at 22 Bendigo Street was purchased by Vivas Lend Lease earlier this year with a plan to redevelop the historic site as a residential and retail precinct. The building’s original red brick exterior is heritage protected but the remainder of the site, including extensions such as Studio 9, will be redeveloped and will include some design aspects that will acknowledge the site’s significant heritage.

GTV9 has entered into a long-term agreement with the inner city Docklands Studios for future large scale productions – while other functions of the channel will be relocated to new premises in the Docklands precinct nearby.

Somers, whose TV career began as host of Cartoon Corner and Hey Hey It’s Saturday in the early 1970s, had previously suggested that part of the redevelopment be reserved for a TV museum and he has now been reported to be considering producing a documentary on the history of the famous studios.

Lights, Camera, Party! – Television City Celebrates. Saturday 27 November, 9.40pm. Nine (Melbourne – other areas check local guides)

Source: Herald Sun

1990: July 14-20

‘By the time my son is a teenager I’ll be in a sewing circle’
A Current Affair host Jana Wendt (picture), mother of two-and-a-half-year-old Daniel, says that if he was to get a younger brother or sister then she would reconsider her role on television.  “I think two children is a very large number if you want to keep working,” she told TV Week.  And the ACA host admits it is quite a juggling act as TV’s first lady on camera, while being mum at home.  “I think my son is conducting a campaign to stop me reading newspapers, which could jeopardise my job!  That’s a struggle in the mornings – the struggle against listening to the radio, which you must do, and watching Here’s Humphrey.  Sometimes both happen at the same time, which leads to both of us being confused.  It works itself out.”  And while Daniel things it’s pretty cool recognising his mum on TV now, she is asked will he feel the same when he is a teenager.  “I don’t think that 13 years from now I’ll be in the business.  By the time he’s a teenager I will be in a sewing circle.  Yes, absolutely,” she says. 

Fast lane Jane!
When Jane Turner isn’t raising laughs on Fast Forward, she is juggling two other very different roles.  First, there is looking after her young son, Rupert – and then her other role is as the diplomat’s wife and the various official social engagements that come with that job.  Turner and her husband John Denton met at Melbourne University, courted in Russia, married in Melbourne, had an 18-month “honeymoon” in Canberra and then moved to Bangladesh, where Denton is deputy head of the Australian High Commission in Dacca.  The talented Turner came back to Melbourne to start on Fast Forward, and her husband will be following later in the year.  “He’s always very supportive and encouraging,” she told TV Week.  “We’re both so satisfied with our careers.  You have to take the opportunities when they come and play it by ear.  But it can be a drag.  We miss each other, but it’s always been this way.  One day we’ll compromise.”  When she isn’t working on Fast Forward, Turner joins her husband overseas to mix with the elite on the diplomatic cocktail circuit.  And after creating such Fast Forward characters such as the tongue-in-cheek Inga Harlot (pictured) and Doctor Van Noodle Rooter (“they’re loosely based on Scandinavians I met in Moscow.”), Turner is considering creating a Bangladeshi character.  “Let’s see how they react to that!,” she says.

‘We felt like we were selling out’
Countdown Revolution’s Tania Lacy has spoken out after she and co-host Mark Little were sacked from the show for being anarchic.  It’s a bizarre situation for the pair, considering it was for that particular quality they were hired to do the show in the first place.  Lacy, a familiar face from ABC’s The Factory, said there had been a lot of problems leading up to the taping of the episode where she and Little staged an on-air strike.  “It was a fight for our credibility,” she told TV Week.  “We regard ourselves as credible performers and that is the heart of the issue.  We were originally asked to present a revolutionary, comedic and anarchic pop program.  We really believed in that concept, but suddenly some very ugly factors came into it.  We felt like we were selling out, that we were puppets for the producers and record companies.  Mark and I were not employed to sell records.  We were also told to cool it with the clowning around and they also stopped us from saying what we believed in.  We felt so strongly about it we thought the audience should know how we’re feeling.”  The pair arrived for the Friday night taping carrying some quickly-made placards, reading ‘TV is a lie’ and ‘TV lip service’, which were handed out to audience members.  The pair were later notified of their dismissal by fax.  Actors Equity have taken up the case and Lacy and Little are hopeful they will be able to sit down with ABC management and deal with the issue face to face.  The show’s former producer, Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, says that while he wasn’t involved in the show by this stage, he defended the broadcaster’s actions:  “Any performer knows you don’t air your grievances on camera.  And that no one performer is bigger than the show itself.  Any artist who abuses members of the production team in front of an audience, or tears up their script and refuses point blank to listen to the show’s director, or tries to encourage members of the audience or other performers to interfere with the production of the program – all over matters of either self-indulgence or ego – is definitely asking for trouble.”

Briefly…
The Flying Doctors star Alex Papps is set to kill his boy-next-door image with a role in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of This Old Man Comes Rolling Home.  “It’s a play about a family living in Redfern in the Fifties.  My character is one of the sons of the family who doesn’t work… he’s a real layabout.  He seduces a young English girl, so I get to play ‘Mr Bastard’ this time around.  He’s a lecherous type,” he told TV Week.

As a judge on Nine’s New Faces program, Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum was so impressed with the performance of 17-year-old Queenslander Peter Andre (pictured, centre, with Meldrum and host Daryl Somers) that he immediately signed him up to his record label, Melodian Records.  “Peter impressed us all and he has a unique voice that can be developed,” Meldrum told TV Week.

Darryl Cotton and Marty Monster found themselves unemployed when the Ten Network axed the long-running children’s program The Early Bird Show (which was known as Club 10 at the time of its axing).  But now the pair have a new profile as presenters of a Sunday morning radio show on Melbourne radio station TTFM.  “We’ve picked up the ratings by 200 per cent since we began three months ago.  It’s a radio version of The Early Bird Show and it’s great fun,” Cotton told TV Week.

John Laws says…
”The recent repeat screening of ABC’s Bush Tucker Man series, first shown in 1988, scored excellent ratings.  And no wonder.  It was just as engrossing the second time around as it was the first.  Which leads me to ask why is it taking so long for ABC to bring us a new series of the Bush Tucker Man?”

Program Highlights (July 14-20):
Sunday:  SBS presents a new series of Anne’s International Kitchen, featuring Anne Luciano.  Rowena Wallace (pictured), Richard Moir and Justin Rozniak star in The Big Wish, the third in the More Winners children’s series on ABC.  GTV9 presents the debut of Unknown Australia, the five-part documentary series from Brisbane-based newsreader Dean Felton.  After a six-month hiatus, The Comedy Company returns to ATV10 with a new format and some new faces.  Sunday night movies are Without A Clue (HSV7) and Frantic (GTV9).  ATV10 debuts the two-part mini-series Murderers Among Us – The Simon Wiesenthal Story.   ABC’s Sunday Stereo Special is the Australian Ballet’s production of Spartacus, recorded in Melbourne with the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra conducted by Ormsby Wilkins.

Monday:  Sale Of The Century (GTV9) presents the first in the week-long Celebrity Challenge, commemorating the show’s tenth anniversary.  Taking part in the challenge are high-profile contestants including Bert Newton (pictured), Andrew Gaze, Simon O’Donnell, Peta Toppano, Gough Whitlam, Lisa Curry, Cameron Daddo, George Negus and Jennifer Byrne.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), Iain Finlay reveals a new technique for viewing 3D television without the need for special glasses, while Simon Reeve travels to Gothenburg, Sweden, to report on an electronic newspaper for the blind.  SBS launches a new weekly sports program, The Sports Machine, hosted by Les Murray and a team of reporters looking at the playing fields, dressing rooms and board rooms of sporting clubs around Australia.

Wednesday:  ABC’s Documentary Unit presents a controversial new film, The Devil You Know, examining the popular myth surrounding two drugs – heroin and alcohol.

Thursday:  ABC’s The First Australians series presents a documentary on Arnhem Land rock group Yothu Yindi on their tour of North America with Midnight Oil.

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

1990: May 12-18

What a sweet cop!
Since leaving A Country Practice, Josephine Mitchell has worked in theatre in Perth, holidayed in the UK and formed a production company with fellow actors Sarah Lambert, Wendy Strehlow and Maureen O”Shaughnessy.  Now she is back at the Seven Network – as a policewoman in Home And Away.  Mitchell’s character, Constable Jane Holland, wins the heart of Grant Mitchell (Craig McLachlan).  But when comparing working for TV with working in the theatre, Mitchell says TV is definitely harder.  “I get much more nervous on television than I do on stage,” Mitchell told TV Week.  “You have more rehearsal time with a play, whereas on TV you do it on the spot a lot of the time.  TV’s harder, for sure.” Meanwhile, the new production company is planning to launch its first stage production, Dusa, Stash, Fish And Vi, later this year. 

‘Good ol’ sex… well, it beats violence!’
It is an old saying that sex sells – it worked for Number 96, and now another Network Ten series is following a similar path.  E Street has never been coy about discussing human relationships – a recent episode featured Sonny Bennet (Richard Huggett) in a late-night encounter with a topless waitress.  Now two of the show’s popular characters – Harley (Malcolm Kennard) and Toni (Toni Pearen) are also going to find out there is more to the old birds and bees as they take their relationship to the next level.  “What we are trying to do is make the show as identifiable as possible,” producer Forrest Redlich told TV Week.  “We’ve had no trouble with the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal at all, because what we’ve done is within the context of the story.  I think, seriously, that a bit of good ol’ sex is much more favourable a thing to be putting on screen at 7.30pm rather than violence.”

‘When John walked in I felt sparks!’
When US actress Cybill Shepherd first laid eyes on her new Australian co-star John Waters (pictured) she said sparks flew.  “It made me feel good,” said the 40-year-old former Moonlighting star.  “John has an interesting face and he is very attractive.”  The pair are working together on a new mini-series, Which Way Home, for the Ten Network and the American network TNT.  The $6 million production is being filmed on location in New Zealand, Darwin and Thailand.

Briefly…
Australian performer Kate Ceberano is in Monte Carlo to appear in the World Music Awards.  The event is a charity created by the royal family of Monaco to recognise creative music from around the world.

Nine’s 60 Minutes has assembled a group of nine elite athletes to battle it out in a gruelling 24 hours of physical endurance over eight events.  One of the competitors, Sports Sunday’s Lisa Curry-Kenny, did concede to having a slight disadvantage – she was the only one who was pregnant, though at the time did not know it.  “I was still doing my normal exercise routine and, other than a few ‘off’ weeks, I haven’t even been sick,” she says.

The Nine Network has reunited two former teenage stars as hosts of its Saturday morning children’s show, C Company.  Kristine Davis, 20, has been in television for ten years – starting as a junior reporter for Wombat at the age of 10.  Her colleague Tony Johnston was the host of the former music video program Jukebox, and the pair studied drama together as teenagers and appeared in various amateur theatre and musical productions.

John Laws says…
”Steve Vizard was probably pretty sure he could beat off the challenge of Clive Robertson on Nine, but that may not be the case, in Sydney anyway.  Robbo knocked him off 9 to 8 in a recent ratings period.  This could be ominous, given the enormously high cost of producing the Vizard show (Tonight Live).  Even a slight downward trend in the ratings could see the Seven management’s bean-counters begin to work feverishly.  And, in the end, it will be dollars and cents that decide everything.”

Program Highlights (May 12-18):
Saturday:  ABC crosses live to Wembley Stadium for the FA Cup Final – Manchester United versus Crystal Palace.  The telecast starts at 11.40pm and continues for three hours.
Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Agatha Christie’s The Man In The Brown Suit (GTV9) and Bat 21 (ATV10).  HSV7 presents the first instalment of mini-series Roses Are For The Rich, and ABC’s Sunday Stereo Special features the 1989 Kirov Ballet production of The Sleeping Beauty, performed in Montreal.
Tuesday:  SBS presents a new program, Common Cents, aiming to provide financial advice in lay terms for the average Australian.  This is followed by an Italian short film, Rabbit On The Moon, which focuses on an Italian girl growing up in Australia.
Wednesday:  Jason Gilkison and Molly Meldrum (pictured) are guest judges for the First Series final of New Faces (GTV9), hosted by Daryl Somers.
Friday:  HSV7 crosses to the Sydney Cricket Ground for live AFL – Sydney Swans versus Geelong.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.       
12 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: March 24-30

Kate bows out on a high
A fear of heights and a brewing thunderstorm ensured that Kate Raison’s final scenes in A Country Practice would be her most terrifying.  The wedding between Raison’s character, Cathy Hayden, and new love John Freeman (William McInnes) was filmed on a clifftop with a wild storm headed its way.  Producers almost had to abandon the wedding scenes as the storm hampered progress with filming.  “It certainly wasn’t a glamorous ending for my days on A Country Practice,” Raison (pictured, with co-star Georgie Parker)told TV Week.

Annie’s left holding the baby!
TV Week has a sneak peek at the upcoming Seven Network mini-series Jackaroo, starring former Neighbours star Annie Jones.  Jones plays Clare Mallory, a spoilt, rich, city kid who falls for Jack Simmonds (David McCubbin), the overseer of her family’s property, and the couple have a child.  The romance is a controversial one, as Simmonds’ indigenous heritage puts him at odds with Clare’s conservative parents who are against their daughter having a mixed-race marriage.  Simmonds is thrown off the family property and Clare, with baby in tow, is sent away.  Simmonds then embarks on a dramatic search for his lover and child.  Jackaroo is set to air on the Seven Network later in the year.

It’s a Forties triple treat!
Rebecca Gibney, Kerry Armstrong and Lisa Harrow head the cast of ABC’s new mini-series, Come In Spinner, set in Sydney in 1944 and following the lives and loves of three women who work in a beauty salon.  Also starring in the series are Justine Clarke, Zoe Bertram, Gary Sweet, Rebecca Smart and Bryan Marshall.  In auditioning for the role of Guinea Malone, Gibney (pictured) was so determined to get the part that she borrowed one of Grace Sullivan’s old dresses from the Crawford Productions wardrobe and also enlisted the help of the make-up artist from her former series, The Flying Doctors, to give her a genuine 1940s look.  “I’d have loved to have really lived in that time.  The Forties were my favourite era, and I love the movies from those days.  They had real stars back then,” Gibney told TV Week.

Briefly…
There’s romance on the set of Neighbours with Stefan Dennis said to be an “item” with co-star Gayle Blakeney, who joined the series last year with twin sister Gillian.  The off-screen romance comes as an upcoming storyline in the series will have Paul Robinson (Dennis) moving in to share a house with the twins and the three falling into a complex romantic triangle. 

Pop princess and former Neighbours star Kylie Minogue (pictured) is believed to have bought a million dollar property in a leafy, east Melbourne suburb, sparking off a lot of gossip and speculation by her future real-life neighbours.  Locals have spotted the pop star checking on progress on renovations to the older-style house.  It is not known if Minogue will move into the house with her boyfriend, rock star Michael Hutchence.

Network Ten is funding the development of a new series which it hopes will rival the success of the hit US series The Golden Girls.  The series, based on the stage comedy Lipstick Dreams which has recently played in NSW and Victoria, is set to include Lorraine Bayly (The Sullivans, Carson’s Law) and Felicity Soper (Richmond Hill).  The pilot episode for the series will be filmed in the coming months.

John Laws says…
”Just when Kerry O’Brien’s Lateline program has begun to find its feet comes the news that it has aroused a wave of resentment among some ABC staffers.  At the core of the problem are the allegedly excessive costs of mounting the Lateline program.  The joke around the ABC canteens is that program should be called ‘Wasteline’.  I’m surprised that Lateline, which has a basically simple format, should cost a lot of money.  After all, only one subject is tackled on each program three nights a week, 90 minutes in all, and most of it committed to interviewing one or two people in the studio.  How can this cost a lot of money?”

Program Highlights (March 24-30):
Saturday:  ABC, HSV7 and GTV9 all devote most of Saturday evening to coverage of the Federal Election from the National Tally Room in Canberra.  Andrew Olle heads ABC’s coverage, with Dennis Grant and Derryn Hinch on Seven, and Jim Waley and Ray Martin on Nine.  ATV10’s election coverage is limited to fifteen minutes after Bill Collins’ Golden Years Of Hollywood movie, and SBS presents brief updates in between regular programs throughout the evening.
Sunday:  GTV9’s Sunday current affairs program presents a special post-Election edition.  Sunday night movies are Deadly Pursuit (HSV7), Suspect (GTV9) and Best-Seller (ATV10).  ABC, in a rare move, screens a Sunday night movie, a Swedish-language (with English subtitles) drama, My Life As A Dog.
Monday:  With the Federal Election now over, Andrew Denton presents the final edition of The Party Machine.
Tuesday:  GTV9 presents a delayed telecast of The 62nd Academy Awards.  Nominated for Best Picture are Born On The Fourth Of July, Dead Poet’s Society, Driving Miss Daisy, Field Of Dreams and My Left Foot.
Wednesday:  Daryl Somers hosts the return of talent quest series New Faces on GTV9.  ABC presents the first episode of World War II mini-series Come In Spinner (pictured).
Thursday:  ATV10 presents a one-hour documentary, Teenage Sexuality: The Best Years Of Our Lives, hosted by Brad Robinson.  Teenagers openly discuss their first sexual experiences and attitudes to contraception and promiscuity.

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

GTV9 sells off Hollywood-on-the-Yarra

The address of 22 Bendigo Street, Richmond, has been one of Australian TV’s most famous and iconic addresses. 

The century-old building has for more than 50 years been home to GTV9 – a channel that began test broadcasts, covering the Melbourne Olympic Games, in 1956 before launching proper operation early in 1957.

The building was initially a piano factory when it was built in 1908 and was later converted to a Heinz factory in the 1930s before it became home to one of Melbourne’s first two commercial TV stations.

Governor Sir Dallas Brookes (pictured) was chauffeur-driven into the studios, live-to-air, before officially opening GTV9 on 19 January 1957.  Less than four months later the channel launched its new nightly variety show, In Melbourne Tonight, featuring a young radio announcer, Graham Kennedy.  Two years later Kennedy would be joined by a former HSV7 rival, Bert Newton, and the pair became an unbeatable double act.

With daytime productions, including quiz shows and children’s programs, and IMT’s nightly cavalcade of singers, dancers and performers, the building that was known as Television City became Melbourne’s own “Hollywood on the Yarra”.  In 1964 the channel expanded the premises to include a new state-of-the-art studio, Studio 9, specifically for IMT.  The new studio opened up the possibilities of large-scale variety performances and productions – hopefully to fend off competition from newcomer ATV0 which had launched from modern studios in suburban Nunawading in the same year.

Kennedy resigned from IMT at the end of 1969, but the legacy of IMT saw decades of variety and tonight shows from the same studio – including The Ernie Sigley Show, The Graham Kennedy Show, The Don Lane Show, New Faces, Tonight With Bert Newton, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, The Footy Show and, to bring the list to full circle, a ‘90s revival of In Melbourne Tonight. 

Radio DJ Mike Walsh hosted a 1960s version of the breakfast program, Today, while Eric Pearce read the evening Television City News from GTV9 before handing over to Brian Naylor at the end of 1978, who in turn handed over to Peter Hitchener twenty years later.

Game show Family Feud moved its production from TVW7 Perth to GTV9 in the late-‘70s.  Host Tony Barber then moved on to Sale Of The Century (pictured, with hostess Victoria Nicolls) from the same studios in 1980, continuing for over 20 years and more recently revived as Temptation.  Daryl Somers hosted a revival of Blankety Blanks in 1985, and, a decade later, Tim Ferguson hosted Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush.  Other game shows from the studios included Supermarket Sweep, Crossfire and two versions of The Price Is Right.  Eddie McGuire hosted Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and it’s current spin-off, Hot Seat.  In 2006, twenty years after he was suddenly axed from Nine, Bert Newton was back at Studio 9 hosting a game show, Bert’s Family Feud. 

Also to come out of 22 Bendigo Street were dramas including Emergency (one of the first TV dramas ever made in Melbourne), Hunter, Division 4, The Sullivans, Starting Out, The Flying Doctors, All The Way and Chances.

A young comedian called Rove McManus came to GTV9 to present a late-night comedy show for ten weeks in 1999.  Former D Generation cast member Mick Molloy also had a stab at a weekly show in the same year.  Neither show would see in the new millennium, though McManus took his act across to rival Network Ten.

Not content with just being “Television City”, 22 Bendigo Street was also home to radio station 3AK for nearly 30 years – after GTV9 bought the station in the early ‘60s – with its ‘Good Guys’ and ‘No Wrinklys’ pop music line-ups in the 1960s and the more relaxed ‘Beautiful Music’ in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Two years ago the building was expected to be sold for $10 million but the sale was aborted amidst the global financial crisis.  This week it was announced that the three-hectare site occupied by GTV9 has been bought by developers Lend Lease, with plans to redevelop the site into residential complex expected to be worth $400 million.

GTV9 is expected to move over the next 12 months to smaller, high-tech premises in the inner-city Docklands precinct, mirroring similar moves by rival HSV7, to the Docklands, almost a decade ago, and ATV10, to inner suburban South Yarra in the early ‘90s .  Larger studio productions are expected to be outsourced to the nearby Central City Studios.

Source: SMH, The Age, Lend Lease, City of Yarra, Australian TV Archive