Magazine covers from Christmases past

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

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

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

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

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

Kylie Minogue (Neighbours).  TV Week, 1987.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1991: November 9-15

Great expectations!
Seven Network publicists couldn’t believe their luck when it was discovered that key characters in both Home And Away and A Country Practice will discover they are pregnant in the same week.  In Home And Away, teenager Sophie (Rebekah Elmaloglou) faces the prospect of being a single mum, with the baby’s father David (Guy Pearce) recently killed in a car accident.  The outlook is a bit more optimistic in A Country Practice with Lucy (Georgie Parker) and husband Matt (John Tarrant) overjoyed at the news that they are going to become parents.

New series spin-off for Wheels!
The producers of E Street are developing a spin-off series to star Marcus Graham, who recently reprised his role of Wheels in the Network Ten series.  The new series, described as a police action-drama, is set to star Graham as a streetwise undercover cop.  A pilot for the concept is to be produced after Graham has finished his commitment to E Street at the end of this year.  The Nine Network is said to be interested in the project.

‘Goodbye, boys and girls…’
A Country Practice stalwarts Syd Heylen and Gordon Piper will soon make their final farewells from the long-running series after ten years, and both are at a loss to understand why two of the show’s most popular characters are being written out – although Heylen suspects the show’s new focus towards younger viewers has led to this outcome despite the pair being loved by younger and older viewers alike.  But despite the disappointment of being written out of the series, they say they would not have missed ten years with ACP for anything.  Piper says he is forever grateful to producer James Davern and Lyn Bayonas for offering him the Bob Hatfield role.  “Bob gave me the chance to play so many things – the town boofhead, the scallywag, the grandfather, a community spirit, everything,” he told TV Week.  Heylen fondly remembers the time that “real beer” was put behind the bar on the set.  “Fair dinkum beer,” he recalls. “Before that I had to serve lolly water or juggle beer out of cans – as well as remember my lines.”  The pair will tape their final scenes for A Country Practice in December but will continue to be seen on air until March.

Briefly…
Former Perfect Match hostess Tiffany Lamb has returned from the US after 10 months and has taken on two very different roles.  The first will be as a prostitute in Nine’s adult drama Chances, and the second will be as a schoolteacher, Mrs Fish, in the upcoming children’s production Lift Off.

Showbiz legend Toni Lamond is tackling a new venture – her first novel.  After the success of her emotional and revealing autobiography The First Half, her new project is a fictional tale of life in the showbiz industry.  “It’s racy and risque,” she said.  “I’m surprising myself.  Writing has kept me sane in those out-of-work periods – the bane of an actor’s life.”

Actress Melissa Thomas, who played the studious Brigid in Brides Of Christ, is returning to television again as a student but in a very different role.  In Network Ten’s new comedy Late For School, Thomas will play the role of Lily Price, a student coping with the embarrassment of being in the same class as her mother, played by Sarah Chadwick.  The new series will also star Ross Higgins and Matthew Newton.

Garry Shelley’s Sound Off
”On Tuesday night, the ABC’s first-rate drama series GP signs off for another year but the good news is, it will be back again in February.  However, the bad news is we’ll be losing lovely Judy McIntosh, who for the past 18 months has won a lot of hearts through her role as Dr Nicola Tanner.  I’m sorry she’s leaving, but I understand her replacement, Dr Tessa Korkidas (Marilynne Paspaley), will win us over before we can say myocardial infarction.  GP is good, honest television, extremely well-written with an even blend of the serious and humourous.  It tells us how it really is, and is not afraid to pack a punch.  This is not namby-pamby stuff – it’s explicit, it shocks and it doesn’t snigger behind its hand.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, November 9-15):
Saturday:  Network Ten covers Honda Stakes Day, the last day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, hosted by Tim Webster with racecaller Dan Mielicki.  ABC begins a repeat screening of the 1970s drama series Seven Little Australians, starring Leonard Teale and Elizabeth Alexander.  Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine) presents the first of its two special shows from the Warner Bros studios in Hollywood, with guest appearances by Chevy Chase, Toni Childs and Murphy Brown star Joe Regalbuto.

Sunday:  Nine’s Sunday current affairs program celebrates its tenth anniversary with a special edition.  ABC debuts mini-series The River Kings, a four-part series set in the early 1920s about a boy growing into manhood under difficult circumstances, starring Tamblyn Lord (pictured, near right, with David Bradshaw) and featuring veterans Willie Fennell, Bill Kerr and Edward Hepple.  Sunday night movies are Stella (Seven), Look Who’s Talking (Nine) and Family Business (Ten).

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Shirley (Lorrae Desmond) becomes suspicious when husband Frank (Brian Wenzel) receives a love letter from Italy.  Sale Of The Century (Nine) begins its Champion Of Champions series, featuring former winning contestants.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Simon Reeve visits Japanese electronics giant Matsushita who have devised a system where the customer determines the dimensions and particulars of the bike they want, and Dr John D’Arcy reports on an instant pap smear that could revolutionise cancer detection.  In All Together Now (Nine), Wayne (Bruno Lucia) is on the run from an Italian gangster – the episode guest stars Vince D’Amico.  In Chances (Nine), Alex (Jeremy Sims) meets a nun who may be able to help him piece together his past.

Wednesday:  In E Street (Ten), the neighbourhood comes together for the funeral of a favourite son.

Thursday:  The Flying Doctors (Nine) features guest star Jan Friedl.

Friday:  Celebrity gardener Jim McLelland is the guest on this week’s Burke’s Backyard (Nine).  In Neighbours (Ten), Guy (Andrew Williams) and Brad (Scott Michaelson) have a violent confrontation.  Star Search (Ten) presents its series grand final edition.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  9 November 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: June 8-14

How Jo beat the office blues
Sale Of The Century’s new co-host Jo Bailey (pictured) is collecting a larger pay packet than most 21-year-olds, but the former accountant insists she isn’t in this business for the money and could earn as much in the long term by returning to her accounting-marketing career.  “Getting involved in television has definitely nothing to do with the money,” she told TV Week.  “I know people say this all the time, but job satisfaction is far more important to me.  I just didn’t like working with numbers.  I’ve never stayed at anything I haven’t liked and I don’t believe you should dwell on things.  It was a simple decision.  I wasn’t happy.”

Greg chalks up a score
Blind Date host Greg Evans (pictured) says he’s learnt some valuable lessons in his 20-year showbusiness career.  Evans, who celebrated the 20-year milestone recently, says he’ll never be motivated by money again.  Starting in radio at country station 3CS, Evans went on to become a ratings hit with Melbourne’s 3XY and then a national celebrity as host of Ten’s top-rating Perfect Match. He was wooed across to rival network Nine in a deal that he says was too good to knock back but resulted in a less than fruitful run as host of some fairly ordinary game shows, Say G’Day and Crossfire, before returning to Perfect Match.  “Perhaps I should never have left (Perfect Match),” he told TV Week. “But at the time, it seemed that no one in their right mind would have rejected Nine’s offer.  They were ‘the cheque book days’… but I don’t blame Nine for anything.  You live and learn and I’ll never be motivated by money again.  Luckily, I was saved by (returning to) Perfect Match.”  The show was axed late in 1989 but was reinstated this year as Blind Date.

Craig goes to war
Craig McLachlan (pictured) has talked to TV Week about filming for the upcoming Seven Network mini-series Heroes 2 – The Return.  “It’s been an amazing experience for me,” he said.  “Before we started filming, we all had military training to get used to the conditions.  But no-one was prepared for this!”  For McLachlan, “this” included several days shooting in a rain-sodden, leech-infested forest, being attacked by sandflies and surrounded by fruit bats.  “The locations turned into hellholes for us make-believe soldiers.  The worst part other than the leeches and the rain was the sandflies.”  The $6.5 million production, also starring John Bach, Christopher Morsley, Wayne Kermond, Brendon Lunney, Miranda Otto and Anne Louise Lambert, is expected to be shown in the UK around Christmas and in Australia early in the new year.

Briefly…
Comedienne and Fast Forward star Jane Turner (pictured) says it’s not always funny being a diplomat’s wife… especially when husband John Denton had been posted to the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, three months before the Gulf War.  When the Allied bombing of Baghdad seemed certain, Turner was “worried, but not terrified”.  “I know what a diplomatic life is like,” she told TV Week.  “John loves it – it’s his life.  He was calling and reassuring me everything was all right.  Maybe I had more cause to be worried!”.  Denton was one of the last three Australians to flee the war-torn city.

Former Sale Of The Century co-host Alyce Platt is loving her new role as wildlife ranger Christina Gurney in Seven’s new series Animal Park.  “The biggest thing that sold me on this role is that it is as far away from Alyce Platt on Sale Of The Century as possible.  That was important.  My wardrobe (now) is King Gee shorts, big green shirts, thick socks, big boots and no make-up,” she told TV Week.

After four years away from the series, Tom Oliver is set to return to Neighbours later this year.  It is expected that he will reprise his former character of used-car salesman Lou Carpenter, an old boyfriend of Madge Bishop (Anne Charleston), although this has not yet been confirmed.  His return stint is expected to be for four weeks.

The industry rumour mill is buzzing with speculation over a possible relationship between ABC host Andrew Denton and recently-separated 60 Minutes reporter Jennifer Byrne.     

Actor Peter Kowitz, recently featured in the Nine Network mini-series Ring Of Scorpio, is joining the cast of Chances.  He will play Steven Harland, a government minister who is something of a thorn in the side of his party.

John Laws says…
”The test of any TV current affairs program is how well it can react to major news stories, national or international.  This “big news” scenario confronted the TV networks after the recent assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.  The circumstances of his death – a hideous bomb attack – gave the story a striking impetus.  So who came out on tops in the follow-up coverage?  Jana Wendt’s A Current Affair gave the slaying a brief coverage, but it was really left to SBS’ Dateline and Kerry O’Brien’s Lateline on ABC to probe deeply and convincingly.  I thought SBS came out slightly ahead.  Dateline also had it over Lateline by screening at 8.00pm against Lateline’s 10.30pm.  I’ve said it before in this column that Dateline (and, as it was, Tonight) is a significant force in TV current affairs viewing.  I doubt it has a spectacular following but it certainly deserves a wider audience.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, June 8-14):
Saturday:  Andrew Daddo (pictured), Daryl Braithwaite, Jesus Jones and Tracie Spencer are among the guests this week on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine).

Sunday:  Seven’s AFL coverage begins with the afternoon match between Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles, live from Carrara, Brisbane – then crossing to Adelaide for live coverage of the early evening match between Adelaide Crows and Fitzroy.  Sunday night movies are Willow (Seven), Funny Farm (Nine) and The Poseidon Adventure (Ten).

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) is confronted with tragedy after being slipped an hallucinogenic drug.  In All Together Now (Nine), Wayne (Bruno Lucia) sells the rights to Bobby’s (Jon English) memoirs and persuades him to write an autobiography.

Wednesday:  Nine presents a late-night delayed telecast of the rugby league State Of Origin match between New South Wales and Queensland.  The coverage is hosted by Ken Sutcliffe with commentary by Darrell Eastlake, Peter Sterling and Ray Warren.

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), Harley’s (Malcolm Kennard) drug dependency gets him in hot water.  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), the townsfolk are stunned when Dr Guy Reid’s (David Reyne) fiancee arrives unannounced to take him back to civilisation.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Perth for live coverage of the AFL match between West Coast Eagles and Footscray. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  8 June 1991.  Southdown Press

TV Week Logie Awards: 25 years ago

Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers (pictured) was awarded the Gold Logie for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at the 28th annual TV Week Logie Awards, presented at Sydney’s historic State Theatre on Friday, 18 April 1986.

It was the first time the Awards were held in Sydney since 1981.

Current affairs host Mike Willesee was Master of Ceremonies of the night’s presentation which was broadcast via the Nine Network.  The awards ceremony paid tribute to 30 years of Australian television.

The Gold Logie was Somers’ second, having also won the premier award at the 25th Anniversary TV Week Logie Awards in 1983.  His second Gold Logie followed a year which saw the prime-time Hey Hey It’s Saturday shift to the earlier 6.30pm timeslot, and his hosting of Nine’s afternoon game show Blankety Blanks.  On a personal front, it was also a year he married long-time partner Julie Da Costa.

Somers also collected a second award on the night, for Most Popular Male Personality in Victoria.

In winning the Gold, Somers had beaten fellow nominees Greg Evans (Perfect Match), Ray Martin (Midday With Ray Martin) and Anne Tenney (A Country Practice).  The year had been significant for all three fellow nominees.  As well as hosting Perfect Match, Evans (pictured) had also hosted the previous year’s TV Week Logie Awards and a new talent quest series, Star Search, for Network Ten.  Nine’s Ray Martin had made the risky move from 60 Minutes to host the new Midday program, taking over from the long-running The Mike Walsh Show which had moved into prime-time.  And Tenney had made her farewell from A Country Practice with the emotional departure of character Molly Jones.  She also featured in the ABC mini-series Flight Into Hell, scoring a nomination for Most Popular Actress In A Single Drama Or Mini-Series.

The Nine Network mini-series Anzacs won three Logies, including individual Logies for actor Andrew Clarke and actress Megan Williams.  The ten-hour mini-series was the most ambitious television drama production ever undertaken in Australia, costing more than $8 million and was six years in the making.  The series also featured Paul Hogan in his first dramatic role, and popular young actor Jon Blake.

Seven’s long-running A Country Practice took away four Logies, including Most Popular Drama and Silver Logies for Grant Dodwell and Anne Tenney (pictured).  Tenney also won a Logie for Most Popular Female Personality in New South Wales.

Network Ten series Neighbours, which had only recently made the move from Seven, scored its first ever Logies.  Actor Peter O’Brien was awarded Most Popular New Talent, while Neighbours won the award for Most Popular Program in Victoria. 

Network Ten’s afternoon game show Perfect Match won Most Popular Light Entertainment Program, following a year which saw co-host Debbie Newsome replaced by newcomer Tiffany Lamb. 

The Nine Network won the award for Outstanding Sports Coverage for its coverage of the first Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Adelaide, beamed around the world to an estimated 700 million viewers and which won high praise from the Formula One participating nations.

60 Minutes won the Logie for Most Popular Public Affairs Program and one of its reporters, Ian Leslie (pictured), was awarded Reporter Of The Year.  Nine’s Sunday program won the award for Best Public Affairs Report for Jennifer Byrne’s coverage of the 1985 Tax Summit. 

Brisbane-based TVQ0’s Eyewitness News won Best News Report for its report of the Eagle Farm siege, when a deranged man threatened to fire a shotgun and ignite a tankerload of fuel at Brisbane Airport.

As well as hosting the Logies presentation, Mike Willesee (pictured) also scored an award for Most Popular Documentary Series for his series of specials for the Nine Network.  One of the most talked-about programs from the Willesee series during the year was Tommy Doesn’t Exist Any More, a sympathetic look at the lives of three transsexuals.  Another program, Sink Or Swim, looked at the life of one of Australia’s leading underwater naturalists, Neville Coleman.  And before the age of Big Brother, Willesee presented More Than A Game – a two-hour special which observed the behaviour of 15 people from different walks of life who were taken to a remote rural location where they had to form their own new society.

Teenage actress Nadine Garner from the Network Ten series The Henderson Kids won the Logie for Best Performance by a Juvenile; and long-running children’s program Simon Townsend’s Wonder World was awarded Most Popular Children’s Program.

National broadcaster ABC won two awards.  The comedy series The Gillies Report – featuring Max Gillies in various guises including then prime minister Bob Hawke (pictured) – won Best Light Entertainment Series, and documentary series Sweat Of The Sun, Tears Of The Moon – featuring Jack Pizzey’s travels through South America – was awarded Best Documentary.

Mini-series producers Kennedy-Miller were presented a Logie for Sustained Excellence – having produced landmark series The Dismissal, The Cowra Breakout and Bodyline.

The local newscast, Newshour, from Bendigo channel BCV8 won the Logie for Outstanding Contribution by Regional Television.  One of the news bulletin’s highlights from the year was its coverage of the Murray River tour of HRH Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

News cameraman Neil Davis (pictured) was posthumously inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame.  A war correspondent for over 20 years, Davis had been gunned down in September 1985 while covering a coup attempt in Thailand. 

Among the overseas guest stars at the Logies were Hill Street Blues star Veronica Hamel, actress and comedienne Phyllis Diller and singer John Denver.

Public-voted Categories:
Gold Logie: Daryl Somers (Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Blankety Blanks)

Silver Logie – Most Popular Actor: Grant Dodwell (A Country Practice)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actress:  Anne Tenney (A Country Practice)

Most Popular Drama Series:  A Country Practice (Seven)
Most Popular Single Drama or Mini-Series:  Anzacs (Nine Network)
Most Popular Actor In A Single Drama Or Mini-Series: Andrew Clarke (Anzacs)
Most Popular Actress In A Single Drama Or Mini-Series: Megan Williams (Anzacs)
Most Popular Light Entertainment Program: Perfect Match (Network Ten)
Most Popular Public Affairs Program: 60 Minutes (Nine Network)
Most Popular Documentary Series:  Willesee Documentaries (Nine Network)
Most Popular Music Video:  What You Need (INXS)
Most Popular Children’s Program: Simon Townsend’s Wonder World (Network Ten)
Most Popular New Talent:  Peter O’Brien (Neighbours)

Industry-voted Categories:
Best News Report:  Eagle Farm Siege, Eyewitness News (TVQ0, Brisbane)
Best Public Affairs Report: Tax Summit (Jennifer Byrne, Sunday, Nine Network)
Reporter Of The Year: Ian Leslie (60 Minutes)
Best Performance By A Juvenile: Nadine Garner (The Henderson Kids)
Outstanding Sports Coverage: Australian Grand Prix (Nine Network)
Best Documentary: Sweat Of The Sun, Tears Of The Moon (ABC)
Best Light Entertainment Special: Cliff Richard – The Rock Connection (Nine Network)
Best Light Entertainment Series: The Gillies Report (ABC)
Special Award For Sustained Excellence:  The Kennedy-Miller Organisation
Outstanding Contribution By Regional Television:  Newshour (BCV8, Bendigo)
TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame: Neil Davis (journalist) – awarded posthumously.

State-based Categories (Most Popular Male Personality, Most Popular Female Personality, Most Popular Program):

NSW: Ray Martin, Anne Tenney, A Country Practice
VIC: Daryl Somers, Delvene Delaney, Neighbours
QLD: Glenn Taylor, Jacki MacDonald, State Affair
SA: Keith Conlon, Anne Wills, State Affair
WA: Rick Ardon, Susannah Carr, State Affair
TAS: Tom Payne, Jenny Roberts, Midweek

Source: TV Week, 19 April 1986.  TV Week, 26 April 1986

1991: February 2-8

Welcome to my nightmare!
A Country Practice marks its 800th episode with a horrifying leap into the future.  In the episodes to screen next week, Lucy Tyler (Georgie Parker, pictured) experiences a nightmare triggered by the arrival of a film crew in Wandin Valley for production of a post-holocaust movie.  In the dream, Wandin Valley has suffered a nuclear attack and Lucy finds the town and surrounds have been destroyed and her fellow Wandin Valley residents all haggard and suffering radioactive illness.  “It’s quite a philosophical episode, in that we had to try and not get too idealistic about the environment issues,” Parker told TV Week.  “We had to make it digestible, and I think that we managed to do that.”

Tammy’s in love… and nervous!
”My first scene is sex.  I’ve never done anything like that before… I was petrified,” says Tammy MacIntosh (pictured), formerly of The Flying Doctors, describing her arrival into Nine’s adults-only drama Chances.  MacIntosh plays Mandy Foster, assistant and lover of advertising executive Alex Taylor (Jeremy Sims).  “I tell you it feels strange when you have your own love life and you’re there kissing someone else,” she says.  MacIntosh was offered a two-year contract for Chances, to play another role, but was reluctant to commit to another long-running series and opted for the short-term role of Mandy Foster instead.  “I’ve learnt I get all tied up when I do a long series. I get bored, then I go a bit mad,” she says.

Greg’s new date is not just a pretty face!
Meet Greg Evans’ new perfect match, Nicky Buckley (pictured).  The 25-year-old Melbourne model beat 140 other hopefuls to be the hostess of Blind Date, the revival of the show previously known as Perfect Match.  Buckley has worked in the UK and the United States and last year was a model on Sale Of The Century.  But she is more than just a pretty face.  She has studied economics and accounting at university, speaks French, is learning to play the piano and is keen to take up Italian and Italian history this year.  “She is a delightful girl, so amiable and friendly,” Evans told TV Week.  “I think we’re going to get along famously.”  Blind Date begins this week on Network Ten.

Briefly…
Bert Newton (pictured) is set to re-enter Melbourne’s radio market with plans to “lease” ailing radio station 3AK from the station’s owner Peter Corso.  Newton, entering the new venture with business partner Tony Aloi, is set to present the morning shift on the station but has yet to announce who will occupy the other slots in the new-look station, which is currently broadcasting in Italian to few listeners.  It is Newton’s second chance at building a radio station, having previously been in charge of former station 3DB.

Former Young Talent Time and Neighbours cast member Mark Stevens takes on a new image in a guest role as a heavy-metal rocker in Nine’s new comedy series All Together Now.    “My character is a real punk with shoulder-length hair and a studded leather jacket,” he told TV Week. 

Despite studying classical ballet for sixteen years, Sonia Todd is out to prove that she is as good as the boys in the upcoming action series Police Rescue for ABC.  “All the writers and 10 of the directors for the series are men,” Todd (pictured, with co-star Gary Sweet) told TV Week.  “It was a constant battle to let them know I was capable of the action work.”

 

John Laws says…
”SBS television programmers must know something the rest of us don’t.  They must have top-secret information that scattered around Australia are tens of thousands of Russians or Russian-speaking people, all desperately anxious to catch up on the news each day from the dear old motherland.  Why else would our independent broadcaster spend money and time on screening the Russian news program Vremya each weekday at 2.00pm?  This cold whiff of brain-deadening television screens in Russian (without subtitles!) for some 40 minutes and you don’t have to speak the Moscow lingo to quickly realise that it’s little more than tedious communist propaganda.  So what’s the reasoning behind it?  If SBS was showing the nightly news program from Greece or Italy I could understand it.  But Russia!?  There is a further silly side to the whole fiasco.  SBS goes to air with Vremya at 2.00pm – then closes down again when the program finishes!  It returns to begin the “real” programs an hour and 20 minutes later.”

Program Highlights (February 2-8):
Saturday:  Tony Johnston and newcomer Nerida Leishman (pictured) host the return of Nine’s early morning Cartoon Company.  Afternoon sport includes the Davis Cup tennis from Perth on Seven and the Fifth Test cricket from Perth on Nine.

Sunday:  The AFL pre-season Foster’s Cup kicks off with Fitzroy versus Carlton, live on Seven.  Nine has Day Three of the Fifth Test from Perth and Ten crosses to Queensland for the Ironman Super Series.  Sunday night movies are Infidelity (Seven), Shakedown On The Sunset Strip (Nine) and The Chocolate War (Ten).

Monday:  Network Ten’s Good Morning Australia launches a revamped look, with Kerri-Anne Kennerley joined by new co-host Tim Webster.  Also joining the show this year are newsreader Anne Fulwood, weather presenter Shannon Dolan and science whiz Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.  The morning show now has a lighter, brighter format with more emphasis on entertainment, consumer affairs, recreation, health and sport.  Later in the day Ten launches its new 5.30pm game show, Let’s Make A Deal with Vince Sorrenti, followed by Ten Eyewitness News and then the debut of Blind Date, with Greg Evans and Nicky Buckley.  Late night programs Tonight Live With Steve Vizard (Seven) and Robbo’s World Tonight (Nine) return for another year.

Tuesday:  Seven’s popular science and technology show Beyond 2000 begins another year.  In Nine’s new drama series Chances, Connie’s (Deborah Kennedy) long-lost husband re-appears on the scene – is he after a reconciliation or a slice of the family’s recent lottery win?

Wednesday:  Seven presents live coverage of the Foster’s Cup match between Footscray and Hawthorn, from VFL Park in Melbourne. 

Thursday:  In E Street, Reverend Bob (Tony Martin, pictured with Penny Cook) shocks everyone with the announcement that he is leaving Westside as his blossoming relationship with Dr Elly Fielding (Cook) appears to have stalled as she looks set to have patched things up with her estranged husband David (Noel Hodda).  ABC presents the final edition of Aboriginal affairs program Blackout. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 2 February 1991. Southdown Press.

1991: January 12-18

Will love smile on Alyssa-Jane?
1991 could be a big year for E Street’s Alyssa-Jane Cook (pictured), both on and off screen.  Her character Lisa Bennett is enjoying a romance with Michael Sturgess (played by Graham Harvey) after a certain run of tragedy – she had been raped by her stepfather, saw her mother jailed, and broke her engagement to her childhood sweetheart, who was later murdered by her delinquent brother, who finally committed suicide.  She had been dumped by boyfriend “Wheels” (Marcus Graham), and E Street ended last year with her and Michael lost at sea, presumably drowned.  Off camera, Cook’s relationship with Gary Davis continues but there is no talk of marriage.  “I don’t think I’m old enough.  I think you have to be more responsible than I am right now,” she told TV Week.  Meanwhile, E Street goes into 1991 with a much leaner cast than last year, having farewelled cast members including Chris Orchard, Virginia Hey, Paul Kelman, Lisbeth Kennelly, Chelsea Brown, Rebecca Saunders and Richard Huggett, with three more (Penny Cook, Warren Jones and Vic Rooney) soon to go.

Greg calls for a rematch!
TV matchmaker Greg Evans is set to return to the Ten Network as it relaunches its axed game show Perfect Match as part of a programming revival after a disastrous 1990. This time around the show will be called Blind Date and will feature Evans with a female co-host yet to be appointed.  Perfect Match was a stand-out hit for Ten in the mid-1980s, turning Melbourne radio announcer Evans into a national celebrity. Cameron Daddo hosted the show for two years after Evans was poached by the Nine Network, with Evans returning to host the show before it was axed in a bout of cost-cutting in 1989.  “It hadn’t flagged in the ratings,” Evans told TV Week.  “It went because of the money involved.  The show was let down by Ten.”

Rosemary’s baby…
Sixteen years ago, Nine Network personality Rosemary Margan was showing off newborn daughter Cathy Godbold to the TV Week cameras.  Now, Godbold (pictured, with Margan) is set to appear on the same network that made her mother a household name with a role in the upcoming Nine Network drama series Chances.  She will be playing the role of Nicki Taylor, a character who “loves boys and parties and she’s very tough – a bit of a tomboy.”

Briefly…
Grundy Productions has announced that their ABC drama series Embassy has been sold for an undisclosed sum to Canada, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Greece.  The sale helps ensure a second series of Embassy which is due to go into production next month.

NIDA graduate Richard Huggett, formerly of E Street and about to make his debut in Neighbours, says that he never wanted to be a soap star.  “I’m often asked if I feel I’ve ‘sold out’ by doing shows such as E Street and Neighbours and my reply is simple: ‘I’m working’.”

Hey Hey It’s Saturday voice-over man John Blackman (pictured) is set for his own national program later this year.  Blackman is about to tape a pilot for a daily 30-minute lifestyle program.  “As soon as you say lifestyle, people think of Jo Pearson’s Body And Soul, but it’s nothing like that,” Blackman told TV Week.  “I’m thrilled about it because I don’t get many opportunities to get out from the booth and be in front of the cameras.”

ABC is planning to launch a new music video program to lead in to the popular Rage on Saturday nights.  The new show, to be known as Racket, aims to address the often-neglected musical interests of the 25-39 age group.  The show will have a team of presenters led by James Valentine.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”Bobby Rivers is about as thick as the air used to get during events such as the Sunbury Pop Festivals of the early Seventies.  Bobby, a washed up Seventies rock star, is one of the central characters in the Nine Network’s new sitcom All Together Now.  It is due to make its debut next week and the opening episode – written by Phillip Dalkin and winningly sub-titled Daddy Cool – has much promise.  Like anything else, All Together Now (formerly known as Rhythm And Blues) will be a matter of wait and see, but at the outset it does seem to have a lot going for it.”

Program Highlights (January 12-18):
(Note: Not listed in TV Week, but with tensions rising in the Persian Gulf between Iraq and the US-led coalition, networks this week ramp up their news coverage efforts – some of which overrides some of its pre-planned schedule.  In particular, Nine’s late-night Nightline is expanded to a one-hour format and Network Ten launches a temporary 7am news bulletin as its usual morning program Good Morning Australia is still on holidays)

Saturday:  Tennis on Seven with the NSW Open live from Sydney in the afternoon and the Rio International Challenge, live from Adelaide, in the evening.  Ten crosses to Queensland for golf with the Daikyo Palm Meadows Cup during the afternoon and ABC presents live coverage of the World Swimming Championships from Perth.

Sunday:  The final day’s play of the NSW Open on Seven.  More swimming from Perth on ABC and golf from Queensland on Ten.  Nine crosses to the Sydney Cricket Ground for the first final of the Benson And Hedges World Series Cricket.  Sunday night movies are Supergirl (Seven) and A Handful Of Dust (Ten).

Monday:  Seven’s two-week coverage of the Ford Australian Open tennis begins.  Ten’s 6pm news bulletin is re-named Ten Eyewitness News to coincide with the launch of the network’s new logo – the new-look network entering a new era as it recovers from the financial dramas of 1990 and begins its focus on a younger audience.

Wednesday:  Nine presents a one-hour World Vision special, Reach Out For The Children, hosted by Rebecca Gibney and Brett Climo.

Thursday:  (Much of the day’s pre-planned schedule is abandoned with the outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf and networks switch to continuous news coverage – in particular the Ten Network makes much of its connection to US network CNN, relaying the news channel through most of the day and continuing its regular overnight broadcast)

Source: TV Week (Victoria country edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 12 January 1991. Southdown Press.

ACA interviews Reg Grundy

It is not often that this site actively promotes A Current Affair but will make an exception for this coming Monday’s edition as host Tracy Grimshaw interviews legendary television producer Reg Grundy (pictured) and wife, actress and author Joy Chambers at their home in Bermuda.

Grundy first appeared on TV in 1959 as the host and producer of an afternoon game show, Wheel Of Fortune, which had made the move from radio to Sydney’s TCN9.  He then went on to produce more game shows during the 1960s before branching out into TV dramas and movies in the 1970s.  The list of Grundy productions read like a timeline in the history of Australian television, including Ampol Stamp Quiz, I’ve Got A Secret (where he met his future wife), Temptation, Moneymakers, Class Of ‘74, Pot Of Gold, Family Feud, Blankety Blanks, The Celebrity Game, The Young Doctors, Chopper Squad, The Restless Years, Sale Of The Century, Prisoner, Sons And Daughters, Perfect Match, It’s A Knockout, Neighbours, Secret Valley, Wheel Of Fortune, Australia’s Most Wanted, Richmond Hill, Embassy and The Price Is Right. 

Wife Chambers, a winner of two TV Week Logie awards for most popular female personality in Queensland in the late 1960s before becoming Mrs Grundy, went on to appear in a number of Grundy productions including The Restless Years, The Celebrity Game and Neighbours (most recently appearing in the lead-up to the show’s celebrated 6000th episode).  She is also an accomplished author in her own right.

As well as many Grundy dramas selling internationally – most notably Prisoner (pictured), The Young Doctors, Neighbours and Sons And Daughters – he also successfully franchised various game show and drama formats overseas, producing international versions of Sale Of The Century, Prisoner and The Restless Years.  He also produced a game show, Scrabble, for US network NBC.

He sold Grundy Television Productions to UK-based Pearson International in the mid-1990s – it has since been incorporated into the global Fremantle Media group.

Grundy was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame in 1993 and received Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2008. 

Despite his many years in television, Grundy has remained a very private figure and has very rarely allowed to be interviewed and the appearance on A Current Affair came as the expense of Sunday Night and 60 Minutes which had both also tried to secure an interview.

The interview is said to coincide with the release of his autobiography.

A Current Affair.  Monday 20 September, 6.30pm.  Nine*

Source: The Daily Telegraph (via The Spy Report), Sydney Morning Herald.

 

* Melbourne.  Other areas, check local guides.

1990: April 7-13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark Holden on Talking Heads

Mark Holden bailed out of his university studies in the 1970s to become a pop star and soapie star – collecting three TV Week Logie awards on the way, including Best New Talent in 1977.  Then he was a 1980s songwriter and record producer – with a brief TV hosting gig on the ill-fated The Love Game (an attempt to rip-off the success of Perfect Match) – before being reinvented as a judge on Network Ten’s Australian Idol and The X Factor and occasional radio presenter.

Since being told his services were no longer required on Australian Idol, Mark Holden has reinvented himself again – this time as a barrister 38 years after starting his law degree – and is an upcoming guest on ABC’s weekly interview program, Talking Heads with Peter Thompson.

Talking Heads with guest Mark Holden.  Monday 3 May, 6.30pm.  ABC1 (and later available on ABC iView)

1990: February 17-23

Cover: Johnny Depp, Dannii Minogue

Fast lane to death
After 20 years in the industry, journalist John Budd recalls the last 18 months have been a nightmare.  “When the industry collapsed it left a lot of people without jobs,” he says.  Facing unemployment following the axing of Network Ten’s Public Eye current affairs program, Budd landed a job at ABC’s Four Corners – and after three months’ gruelling research, his first report, Amphetamines: The Quiet Achiever Of The Drug Trade, is ready to go to air this week.  Dubbed the “fast-lane drug of the Eighties”, amphetamines are set to become the big issue of the Nineties, he told TV Week.  “They’re very much a yuppie drug, socially acceptable and mix nicely with alcohol to create a euphoric state of confidence, well-being and hyped-up vigilance.”  Budd interviewed 30 reformed drug users and dealers and also worked with Victoria Police “who are alarmed at the rapid pace of this quiet achiever of the drug trade.”

Keyte’s flying high
”It all happened fairly quickly,” is how HSV7 newsreader Jennifer Keyte (pictured) describes her rise to national stardom as the news presenter on Steve Vizard’s new national variety show, Tonight Live.  “I had seen Steve around the station last year and we used to have make-up room chats.  He made me laugh so much.  The make-up girls hated him because they couldn’t get my lips done.  I guess we established a rapport then.”  As well as her booming TV profile, Keyte also has other matters to attend to – a mid-year wedding to Melbourne nightclub owner Brett Kochner.

“I had to beat the animal that controlled me…”
Actor Tony Bonner, best known from TV series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo, Cop Shop and Skyways, is looking relaxed and healthier than ever.  Currently in Los Angeles following good reviews for his work in the Tom Selleck movie Quigley Down Under, Bonner recalls the day only three months ago when he walked into a Melbourne clinic for help in overcoming alcohol problems.  “I came to a proverbial crossroad in life and there were three options – the first was to become a down-and-out lost soul; the second was to be committed to an insane asylum; and the third was to die.  So the option to take was simply to beat the animal that controlled me – alcohol.”  Bonner feels his career is now on a new direction and, since the Quigley movie, is meeting heads of drama at two US networks keen to cast him in telemovies and is also discussing offers with Disney studio Hollywood Pictures.

Briefly… 
Former Perfect Match host Cameron Daddo (pictured) has just finished a long run in the stage production Big River but already has two other projects in planning – one is to join veteran Leo McKern to play the legendary roles of Dad and Dave in the $6.3 million feature film On Our Selection, and the other is a potential lead role in the Grundy Television production of Bony, based on the 1972 series of the same name.

Singer Kate Ceberano, having just completed a cameo role in the film Till There Was You, is now in negotiation for a guest appearance in the new Nine Network series Family And Friends.

Home And Away star Dannii Minogue admits to being nervous over public reaction to her new single, Love And Kisses, and the $50,000 video to promote it – but is determined to silence critics that she is cashing in on the success of her older sister Kylie.   “A lot of people thought I’d copy Kylie and have a sound exactly like hers.  But that’s just not the sort of stuff I do.  This is more my style – but yes, it’s good to be different.” 

John Laws says…
”By any standards, Steve Vizard’s opening show was a crushing disappointment.  The second night was not much better.  The third showed a slender improvement.  Much has been expected of Vizard because of his fine work with Fast Forward.  If anyone could hold a Tonight show together it should be him.  Yet on debut night Vizard was flailing around like a beached whale within seconds of the studio audience’s contrived hysteria being stilled.  Vizard, I’m sure, does have the talent to put on a better show.  It’ll take time to get it right.  I hope Seven has the cash and the patience.” 

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”Steve Vizard has established Tonight Live as an energetic, cheeky show which goes just far enough – but not too far – to sit nicely in its adults-only timeslot.  Many of the lines have induced a good laugh, some of the music has been top class and somehow – just somehow – a touch of serious news has been shoved in without upsetting the applecart.  But what’s most infectious from where I sit is that the host himself appears to be enjoying it all enormously.  And when he’s having a good time, so am I.”

Program Highlights (February 17-23):
Saturday:  Hey Hey It’s Saturday returns for a new year with Daryl Somers, Denise Drysdale, Ossie Ostrich, John Blackman, Red Symons and Wilbur Wilde.  ABC presents the ABC Sports Award Of The Year, live from the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra.
Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Someone To Watch Over Me (GTV9) and The Man From Snowy River II (ATV10).  HSV7 presents the first instalment of mini-series Small Sacrifices.
Tuesday:  GTV9 crosses to the SCG for the Benson and Hedges World Series: Australia versus Pakistan.  Coverage starts at 2.20pm and, after breaking for National Nine News, A Current Affair and Sale Of The Century, continues through to 10.30pm.
Wednesday:  David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz return for a new series of The Movie Show on SBS. 
Thursday:  SBS launches a new series, Viva World Cup, hosted by Les Murray and Andy Paschalidis in the lead-up to the 1990 World Cup, including reports on the venues, personalities and the final 24 teams.

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