Brian James

Of the names remembered in our last post of 2009 there was one name that has only now come to our attention – actor Brian James, who passed away late last year at the age of 91.

A former schoolteacher, James served in the Navy for six years before making his professional acting debut in the production of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter, at the Princess Theatre, in 1948.  After touring Australia with the production he went to London, studying drama and also appearing at the West End in the naval comedy Seagulls Over Sorrento – a production that he would also appear in on stage upon his return to Australia.

By the late-1950s, James had made the transition to television, with the lead role in the GTV9 series Emergency, followed by HSV7’s live-to-air performance of Seagulls Over Sorrento, reprising his former stage role.

In the early ‘60s, James had scored the lead role of Captain Bligh in the ABC historical series Stormy Petrel, a role which won him a TV Week Logie for best actor in 1961.  He then appeared in the courtroom drama Consider Your Verdict and played the title role in the Seven Network’s Jonah.

On 1 August 1964, he appeared (pictured) in the TV special This Is It!, commemorating the official opening of Melbourne’s third commercial television channel, ATV0, from studios based in the suburb of Nunawading. 

With roles in dozens of stage productions and in TV series including Bellbird, Motel, Solo One and Young Ramsay, James continued to be a familiar name on both stage and television throughout the 1970s, ending the decade as the bumbling airport administration officer George Tippett in the Seven Network’s Skyways – a role that scored him a Penguin Award.

During the ‘80s he reprised the role of George Tippett in Holiday Island, guest starred in Carson’s Law, appeared as prison warden Stan Dobson in Prisoner and swept neighbourhood gossip Nell Mangel (Vivean Gray) off her feet in Neighbours – all productions based in the same Nunawading studios where he appeared on opening night of ATV0 in 1964.

His last credited TV role was in the ABC series Something In The Air.

Brian James is survived by his niece Julie and nephews Phillip, Michael and Brian.  His cousin Gerald Mayhead had written a tribute to Brian James for The Age, including his extensive stage and film career.

Source: The Age, IMDB, Australian Television Information Archive

Ray Barrett

Veteran Australian film and television actor Ray Barrett has died in a Queensland hospital after suffering a brain haemorrhage.  He was 82.

Starting his career in Brisbane radio at 16, Barrett moved to Sydney in his early 20s and then took his career abroad.  A ten-month stint in the early British TV series Emergency Ward 10 led to other roles in series including The Troubleshooters, The Avengers, Doctor Who, Z Cars, The Saint and even as a voice artist on The Thunderbirds and Stingray.

Returning to Australia in the 1970s, Barrett became a familiar face with appearances in films including Don’s Party, The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith, Goodbye Paradise, Hotel Sorrento and the 1995 remake of Dad And Dave: On Our Selection.

Television appearances included Golden Soak, The Timeless Land, Sporting Chance, Five Mile Creek, Waterfront, The Flying Doctors, GP, Medivac, All Saints, White Collar Blue and mini-series After The Deluge.

Barrett also had an ongoing role in the ABC drama series Something In The Air.

His last acting credit was in the film Australia.

Source: The Age, IMDB

Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell

Australia has lost one of the legends of the showbusiness world with the passing of actor Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell at the age of 86 after complications with prostate cancer.

Born in Sydney, Tingwell’s first job was as an announcer at radio station 2CH.  In 1941 he joined the Royal Australian Air Force and served in World War II.  Upon returning to Australia he married girlfriend Audrey Wilson and ventured into an acting career that would continue for the rest of his life – taking in film, radio and stage productions and later television.

After seventeen years working in the United Kingdom – where he starred in many TV and film roles but not least being a voice artist for the ‘Supermarionation’ sci-fi series The Thunderbirds – Tingwell and his family returned to Australia in 1973 when producer Hector Crawford signed him up for a leading role in the long-running series Homicide.

After Homicide, Tingwell stayed with Crawford Productions as a director for other series including The Box, The Sullivans, Cop Shop, Skyways, Holiday Island, Carson’s Law and the mini-series The Flying Doctors.   He featured in just about every other major drama series on Australian TV – Prisoner, Neighbours, Zoo Family, A Country Practice, GP, The Flying Doctors, Bellbird, Blue Heelers, All Saints, Round The Twist, Changi, Something In The Air and The Secret Life Of Us, just to name a few.

Movie roles included Breaker Morant, Puberty Blues, Innocence, The Dish, Evil Angels and Jindabyne.

As well as drama, Tingwell’s career also had a lighter side, appearing as “Gramps” in the “Charlie The Wonderdog” series of comedy sketches for ABC’s The Late Show, as a judge in Mother And Son and as a lawyer in the modern-day suburban classic The Castle.

In 1994, Tingwell was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame and in 1999 received an Order of Australia medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

One of his last TV roles was as British prime minister Winston Churchill in the ABC telemovie Menzies And Churchill At War.

Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell is survived by son Christopher and daughter Virginia.  Wife Audrey passed away in 1996.

Source: IMDB, Herald Sun, Bud’s Blog

TV icons of the Sunshine State

Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper has obtained a secret list of people, places and events nominated by Queensland politicians as icons of the state.

The list is being prepared as part of Queensland's 150th anniversary celebrations.  From the initial list of 700, a bipartisan panel of MPs will attempt to trim the list to 300 which will then be put to a public vote.  The top 150 will be formally acknowledged during the state's Queensland Week celebrations.

Out of the 700 nominated so far, there are a handful that are TV related:

• Actress Babette Stephens, who was also a panelist on Brisbane game shows in the 1960s and also starred in Brisbane's first soap opera drama Until Tomorrow in the 1970s.
• Pop group The Bee Gees, who rose to fame on early variety shows in Brisbane before appearances on national shows such as Bandstand.
• Actor William McInnes, from TV dramas including Seachange, Blue Heelers, Marshall Law, Curtin, East West 101, The Shark Net and comedy series Kath & Kim.
• Wally Lewis, former rugby player and now sports presenter for Nine News in Brisbane.
• Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin.
• Vilma Ward, morals compaigner, media commentator and panelist on daytime TV programs including Bailey And The Birds.
• Mt Coottha's TV transmission towers.

We can't help but wonder that maybe a few famous Queenslanders have been overlooked for recognition: 

Jacki MacDonald comes to mind as a glaring omission.  A winner of a swag of TV Week Logies for most popular personality in Queensland and a TV career that has included all three of Brisbane's local commercial channels as well as a national profile through Hey Hey It's Saturday and later Healthy Wealthy And Wise.

Rowena Wallace, who first rose to national fame in the 1960s drama You Can't See Round Corners, followed by The Rovers, Division 4, Number 96, Cop Shop, Outbreak Of Love, Prisoner and, most famously, as vicious 'Pat the Rat' in Sons And Daughters - a role that won her a TV Week Gold Logie in 1985.

Kerri-Anne Kennerley (pictured), back when she was Kerri-Anne Wright was a child star of Brisbane television in the 1960s and 1970s before featuring in the soap opera The Restless Years and later becoming co-host of Network Ten's Good Morning Australia, where she stayed for over a decade and went on to further success in daytime TV as host of Midday in the late 1990s and Mornings With Kerri-Anne since 2003.

Sigrid Thornton, from early days in Homicide, Father Dear Father and Prisoner, later becoming famous for her roles in historical dramas such as All The Rivers Run, 1915 and Paradise before taking the lead role in ABC's Seachange in the late 1990s.

Reg Grundy (pictured), while not born in Queensland the former radio announcer turned game show host got his big break as a producer of game shows in Brisbane in the 1960s, forming the basis for what became a global empire.

Gerard Kennedy, actor from early crime shows Hunter and Division Four and later in historical dramas Tandarra and Against The Wind.  Most recently seen in the Nine Network series Underbelly.  Winner of two TV Week Gold Logies.

Ray Barrett, accomplished television, stage and film actor with recent roles in Something In The Air and After The Deluge.

Don Seccombe (pictured), long-serving newsreader for QTQ9 and host the game show I've Got A Secret which ran for ten years.

Hugh Cornish, one of Brisbane television's earliest on-air personalities as well as general manager at QTQ9.

Newsreader Brian Cahill who read the news for many years at BTQ7, later at QTQ9 and then TVQ0 before moving into politics.

Then there are current-day local TV identities who have long histories in television.  Names such as Kay McGrath, Bruce Paige, Frank Warrick, Heather Foord and Sharyn Ghidella.

Other well-known TV identities to have hailed from the Sunshine State include (in no particular order):

Brian Blain (The Bluestone Boys, Sons And Daughters)
Delvene Delaney (The Paul Hogan Show, Sale Of The Century)
Jo Pearson (Eyewitness News, Live At Five)
Annette Allison (pictured) (Eyewitness News, Good Morning Melbourne)
Shane Porteous (The Box, A Country Practice)
Judy Morris (Skyways, Dirtwater Dynasty, Mother And Son)
Ian Leslie (60 Minutes)
Michael Caton (The Sullivans, Packed To The Rafters)
Tom Richards (Matlock Police, Sons And Daughters)
Paul Bongiorno (Ten News, Meet The Press)

Who do you think is worthy of a mention on Queensland's top 150 list?

Source: Courier Mail
Many of these names from this list have also been sourced from the book On-Air: 25 Years Of TV In Queensland (Christopher Beck, 1984)

Reg Evans

Actor Reg Evans (right) and his wife Angela are reported to be among the rapidly growing list of fatalities from the bushfires that have destroyed parts of Victoria since the weekend.

The couple were believed to be defending their property in St Andrews, north of Melbourne, from the tragic blaze. 

At the time of writing, the toll from the fires stands at 181 - making it the worst natural disaster ever to hit Australia.

Born in the United Kingdom in 1928, Evans came to Australia in the late-1950s and has featured in a long list of Australian television productions including Consider Your Verdict, Homicide, Division Four, Matlock Police, Number 96, The Sullivans, Prisoner, Skyways, A Country Practice, Women Of The Sun, Seachange, MDA, Something In The Air and most recently Blue Heelers.  He also starred in children's dramas The Rovers and Skippy The Bush Kangaroo and in the Australian adaptation of Are You Being Served?

Movie roles included Mad Max, Stone, Gallipoli, Evil Angels, Heaven Tonight and only recently completed a role with Paul Hogan in Charlie And Boots.

Source: Herald Sun, TV Tonight, IMDB

Help the survivors of Victoria's bushfire disaster, donate to the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal at http://www.redcross.org.au; telephone 1800 811 700, or to the Salvation Army Bushfire Appeal at http://www.salvos.org.au; telephone 13SALVOS (137258)

The Nine Network will present Australia Unites, a two-hour Bushfire Appeal telethon on Thursday 12 February.

'80s soap icon back for another run

Sons And Daughters, the '80s soap opera that made sepia tones fashionable with its signature closing sequence, is coming back for another airing on the Seven Network.

Starting midnight this Wednesday night - or if you like, very early Thursday morning - Seven is trotting out another repeat screening of the long-running saga that originally ran from 1982 to 1988 with a cast including TV Week Gold Logie winner Rowena Wallace, soapie stalwarts including Pat McDonald, Cornelia Frances and Anne Haddy, '60s pop idol Normie Rowe and '70s sex symbol Abigail.

Sons And Daughters created storyline twists usually reserved for melodramatic US fare, including the show's original premise which saw a blooming love affair between John Palmer (Peter Phelps) and Angela Hamilton (Ally Fowler) cut short when it was revealed that they were long-lost brother and sister - quite a bizarre twist if not somewhat disturbing!

A later bizarre twist came when Rowena Wallace decided to leave the series, but instead of killing off her character, Patricia Hamilton-Morrell, the writers instead had the character transformed by plastic surgery while overseas, and would return with a new identity, Alison Carr (Belinda Giblin).  The situation got even more murky when, in the show's dying stages, Wallace then returned to the series, reprising the original Patricia character and set to clash with her apparent alter-ego Alison Carr.  But in true soap opera fashion, another twist revealed that Wallace's character was now Pamela Hudson, the twin sister of Patricia Hamilton.

It is unclear whether Seven is starting the series from episode one, or picking up where the last re-run left off when it ended abruptly over a year ago when it was being shown in a morning timeslot.  Though, given that Sons And Daughters ran for 972 episodes, and Seven appears to be committing only to one episode a week in this re-run, fans can look forward to seeing the series wrap up sometime in the year 2025!

The series joins Seven's other late-night retro re-runs Marshall Law, Young Ramsay and even reality-talent show Popstars - all shown at various times in the wee small hours.

Other Aussie retro re-runs include GP on ABC1, Something In The Air (pictured) in prime-time on ABC2, Water Rats on Nine, and the collection of dramas from Crawford Productions, including Matlock Police, Skyways, Division Four and Carson's Law, being shown on regional WIN Television.

Sons And Daughters, Wednesday night/Thursday morning 12.00am, Seven*

Pictured: Rowena Wallace, Pat McDonald and Kim Lewis
Related links: Aussie Soap Archive

* Melbourne.  Other areas/affiliates check local guides.

Something's in the air, again

The revamp of ABC2, while promising a range of new content, also appears to be bringing one or two titles out of the vaults.

Starting Monday 11 February, ABC2 will be commencing a re-run of the rural soap-drama Something In The Air, which originally ran on ABC between January 2000 and May 2002.

A production of Simpson Le Mesurier, Something In The Air was set in the small rural town of Emu Springs with most of the drama centred around a local radio station 3ES, operating from a disused railway station. Both the rural setting and its timeslot, 6.30pm weeknights as lead-in to the 7.00pm ABC News, inevitably drew comparisons to 'Aunty' ABC's former long-running series Bellbird which ran from 1967 to 1977 in a similar timeslot.

The series featured experienced performers Anne Phelan (Bellbird, Prisoner, Neighbours), Ray Barrett, Kate Fitzpatrick, Frankie J Holden and Roger Oakley (Home And Away), joined by younger cast members including Danielle Carter (Richmond Hill, Neighbours), Ulli Birve, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor and Sullivan Stapleton. Eric Bana, formerly of comedy series Full Frontal and movie Chopper, was part of the original cast but was released from his contract when Hollywood starting calling. Bana's role was taken over by Vince Colosimo.

Despite ABC's best intentions when the series debuted, and modest though promising ratings for the series, things turned sour when new ABC chief Jonathan Shier was appointed, and drama chief Sue Masters, who had commissioned the series, consequently departed. The program was moved from its weeknight timeslot to a one-hour block on Saturday evenings where it never really struck up a rapport with viewers. It was later reinstated to the weeknight timeslot but instead slotted in at 6.00pm putting up against the news services on the Seven and Nine networks.

As a result, Something In The Air quietly wound up in mid-2002.

Something In The Air. Weeknights 7.30pm (from 11 February). ABC2

Picture: TV Week, 15 January 2000
Sources: IMDB, Australian Television Information Archive, Super Aussie Soaps