1992: March 29-April 4

Why Rebekah’s quitting Summer Bay
After two years playing hapless teenager Sophie in Home And Away, Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) has decided to leave the series.  The 18-year-old will tape her final scenes for the show in September and hopes that life after Home And Away will be a little less frantic.  “There is definitely life after Home And Away,” she told TV Week.  “It’s been great and I’ve learned heaps, but the pace is just too much and I need a break.  Come September, I plan to do a lot of travelling overseas and I might even do a pantomime in London.”

John plays by new rules
”People tend to see me as Rafferty and nothing else,” actor John Wood tells TV Week.  “So I’m pleased that Dearest Enemy is about to be screened – it might break down that feeling a bit.”  The three-time TV Week Logie winner stars in the series alongside Linden Wilkinson, Bruce Spence, Frank Wilson and Vic Hawkins.  “I’ve been lucky in that in the two major series I’ve done, I’ve had wonderful female co-stars – Catherine Wilkin in Rafferty’s Rules, and now Linden.”  But with production of Dearest Enemy completed some time ago – and despite a current stage role in Sydney – Wood can’t get back into television.  “A couple of years ago, I was the most outstanding actor on television.  Now I can’t get a bloody job in television.  It’s amazing,” he laughs.

Richard insures against handbag attacks
As Terry Sullivan in the long-running series The Sullivans, actor Richard Morgan (pictured) became one of Australia’s most recognisable faces – something he hated, and was made more difficult when Terry started beating his wife.  “I copped a few handbags across the face in supermarkets from women who couldn’t tell between fantasy and reality,” he told TV Week.  Now, a decade later, he is content to enjoy his anonymity working in the insurance industry and appearing only in roles that appeal to him, such as the mysterious Michael Tranti in an upcoming episode of Chances.  Tranti is a married businessman who develops an unhealthy infatuation with advertising executive Angela (Patsy Stephen) when he enlists the advertising agency for his company’s new campaign.  Chances is Morgan’s first television appearance in 18 months, his last TV role being on the Seven Network drama series Skirts.

Briefly…
Australian actress Christine Harris (pictured), with television credits including The Young Doctors, Carson’s Law, Prisoner, Neighbours, Chances and ABC mini-series Darlings Of The Gods, is in the running for a major overseas role – the part of Scarlett O’Hara in the sequel to the cinema classic Gone With The Wind.

Former Neighbours star Andrew Williams is soon to begin a 13-week guest stint in Ten’s other prime time drama, E Street. He will make his on screen debut in June.

Meanwhile, the producers of E Street are now developing a drama-sitcom project featuring pop group The Teen Queens. The video clip of the group’s debut single, Be My Baby, appeared on E Street recently. The pilot for the new series, to be set in Bondi Beach, is to be filmed soon.

There is speculation that the Nine Network may give the flick to Clive Robertson and The World Tonight to make way for a new show to be hosted by Richard Wilkins.

Former Chances star Cathy Godbold, whose role as leukaemia victim Meg Bowman in Home And Away comes to a tragic end on screen this week, has appeared in a pilot episode of a proposed new sitcom, Newlyweds.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here:

’The Minister for Information and Immigration… has been the target for strong press criticism in this immigration venture’ .  With thousands of higher-living nationals awaiting entrance – English, Nordic types and Americans – who can offer this country ideas and culture, it is little wonder that this project has been the centre of bitter controversy.  Let us hope that immigration of the future will be planned deliberately and intelligently and offer more opportunities to the people of our own stock.’ 

“Those quotes (above) are not from a speech by someone from the extreme right of South African politics.  They are taken from a Cinesound Review newsreel, made right here in Australia.  The government minister to whom the voice-over referred was the late Arthur Calwell, who held the Information and Immigration portfolios in the Chifley Government between 1945 and 1949.  The newsreel footage is part of Alec Morgan’s film Admission Impossible: The Story Behind The White Australia Policy.  A Film Australia production, it screens on ABC this week.  The film, narrated by former Four Corners reporter Paul Barry, is a combination of archival film and interviews with immigration officials.  It paints successive Australian governments as underhanded and racist.  Admission Impossible forcefully supports Alec Morgan’s contention that Australia as an egalitarian nation embracing multiculturalism was – and is – a myth.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 29-April 4):
Sunday:  With cricket season now over, Nine’s weekly sports magazine programs Wide World Of Sports: Sunday Edition and Sports Sunday return.  During the afternoon, Nine crosses to Suzuka, Japan, for live coverage of the Japanese 500cc Grand Prix.  Sunday night movies are Black Rain (Seven), Flatliners (Nine) and Revenge (Ten) – while ABC screens the Film Australia documentary Admission Impossible, focusing on the behind-the-scenes political forces and propaganda campaigns that attempted to populate Australia with pure white migrants. 

Monday:  In the series return of Dearest Enemy (ABC), Alex (Linden Wilkinson, pictured) gets a crash course in political wheeling and dealing.  In A Country Practice (Seven), Frank Gilroy (Brian Wenzel) gives up plans for retirement when Constable Tom Newman (Jon Concannon) decides to quit.

Tuesday:  Nine presents delayed coverage of the presentation of the 64th annual Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal at the Los Angeles Music Centre.  Nominations for Best Picture are Bugsy, Beauty And The Beast, JFK, Prince Of Tides and Silence Of The Lambs.

Wednesday:  In Home And Away (Seven), Meg (Cathy Godbold) needs all her energy to live her final days to the full. 

Thursday:  In ABC crime drama Phoenix, Lochie (Andy Anderson), frustrated by his desk jockey status, finally has the chance to lead a raid but it goes embarrassingly wrong.

Friday:  Documentary series A Big Country (ABC) looks at Tim Kelly, former champion rodeo rider – with the hard-drinking and hard-living life-style that came with it – whose life has changed since gospel preachers called him to God.  Now, Kelly is a sincere and gentle man whose wife, a former barmaid and bikie, has also converted to the Christian faith.

Saturday:  Afternoon sport includes netball (ABC), highlights of the Australian Swimming Olympic trials (Seven), Hong Kong 7’s Rugby Union (Ten) and five hours of Wide World Of Sports (Nine).  Evening sport includes live coverage of the Mitsubishi NBL Challenge from the National Tennis Centre (Ten), highlights of the day’s AFL matches (Seven) and a late-night delayed telecast of Winfield Cup Rugby League (Nine).  This week’s episode of the SBS documentary series Through Australian Eyes looks at the lives of three Australian-born Jewish sisters and their children.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  28 March 1992.  Southdown Press.

Geoffrey Rush – our Australian of the Year

Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush (pictured) was last night announced as our Australian of the Year in recognition of his contribution to the arts.

The 60-year-old, who this year celebrates 40 years in the industry, gained international fame in 1996 for his portrayal of pianist David Helfgott in the movie Shine which led to him winning the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Despite much of Rush’s acting work being in the theatre and on film, the Queensland-born actor has also worked in television.  He made his TV acting debut in the ABC mini-series Menotti in 1981.

He later appeared in Twisted Tales and played the lead role of newspaper editor Bill Wyatt in the 1996 series Mercury.

Rush also made a guest appearance in Kath And Kim in 2004.

Also on this Australia Day, a number of television identities were among the hundreds recognised in this year’s Australia Day honours list:

Maggie Beer – “For service to the tourism and hospitality industries as a cook, restaurateur and author, and to the promotion of Australian produce and cuisine.”  Beer was a co-presenter on the popular ABC series The Cook And The Chef for five years and has also been a regular guest on MasterChef Australia.

Jamie Durie – “For service to the community as an ambassador and supporter of a range of charitable and environmental organisations, and as a landscape designer.”  Durie came to national fame as the presenter of Backyard Blitz and The Block.  He has more recently appeared on the Seven Network’s The Outdoor Room and gained international fame when he caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey.

Gus Mercurio (posthumously) – “For service to boxing as an administrator and sports commentator, as a film, television and stage actor, and to the community.”  Mercurio appeared in numerous television series over his career, including period dramas Cash And Company, The Sullivans, Power Without Glory, Tandarra, Five Mile Creek and All The Rivers Run, and was a boxing commentator for 12 years.

Oscar Whitbread – “For service to the Australian film and television industry.”  Whitbread has been a television producer since the 1960s, working on ABC dramas including Bellbird, Marion, And The Big Men Fly, Power Without Glory, Rush, Catspaw, The Truckies, Outbreak Of Love and I Can Jump Puddles.  He later worked on The Flying Doctors, Ratbag Hero, Cluedo and Acropolis Now.

Source: ABC, Governor-General of Australia, IMDB, IMDB.

The Playlist revisits the Arcade

Soap opera historian and TV commentator Andrew Mercado recently paid tribute to Australia’s most famous soapie flop, Arcade, on his Showcase program The Playlist. 

Featured in the program last week was Arcade cast member, TV Week Gold Logie winner Lorrae Desmond and one of the show’s creators, David Sale, to discuss with Mercado just what went wrong with the show that was hoped to be the ratings hit of the 1980s.

Sale was the creator and writer for the successful drama Number 96 (1972-77) and in 1979 was hired along with Number 96’s former executive producer Bill Harmon and story editor Johnny Whyte to turn the then 0-10 Network’s concept of a shopping centre-themed drama into a prime-time series that could take on ratings heavyweights like Willesee At Seven and The Sullivans.  The team came up with a quirky mix of characters that would run the stores that made up the fictional shopping centre in a series that would feature a broad mix of comedy and drama.

Arcade was rushed into production late in 1979 and debuted across the newly-relaunched Ten Network in a movie-length episode on Sunday night, 20 January 1980, before settling into a regular half-hour timeslot each weeknight with the hope that it would gain a following before the ratings season was due to kick off in February.

Despite Ten spending a fortune on constructing a mock shopping centre in its main Sydney studio, and hiring a cast featuring veteran performers such as Desmond (pictured, as newsagent proprietor Molly Sparks), Peggy Toppano, Mike Dorsey, Syd Heylen and Aileen Britton, the end result left viewers and critics dumbfounded by some fairly rudimentary storytelling and some stilted performances, including one infamous scene where a young actress is shown to be virtually reading straight from the script.

After copping much criticism and dismal ratings the series, originally heralded by Ten as being “a breath of fresh air”, ended up being removed from the schedule after six weeks – a duration that in today’s terms seems like a lifetime considering its shaky start.

The upside from the experience is that two of the show’s stars, Desmond and Heylen, went from Arcade to long-running roles in the popular series A Country Practice, while some of the show’s younger cast members, such as Jeremy Kewley, Tracy Mann and Christine Harris, went on to have their own career success. 

With only around 30 episodes aired before Ten pulled the plug (and hopefully they’re all still in the archive) and given its legacy of being such a monumental flop, Arcade seems a prime candidate for getting a DVD release so that it can be re-lived in all its bargain basement glory.

The Playlist is an entertaining panel discussion of all things related to television – although at five minutes per episode it is far too brief – and appears every Monday and Friday evening on pay-TV channel Showcase and is repeated the following day.  It can also be viewed online at http://www.theplaylist.com.au.

Source: The Playlist – Arcade of broken dreams

Crawfords classics on DVD

Over the last few years a selection of classic Crawford Productions series – including Homicide, Division 4, Matlock Police, Skyways, Carson’s Law and Holiday Island – have been screened in late-night timeslots on regional network WIN, which has owned the Crawfords business since the late 1980s.

Recently, Crawfords Australia (as it is now) have started to release episodes of other series on DVD.

The Flying Doctors, based on a fictional adaptation of the real-life Royal Flying Doctor Service, began as a mini-series on the Nine Network in 1985 – with a cast led by Andrew McFarlane (The Sullivans) and US actress Lorna Patterson – and its popularity led to production of an ongoing weekly series from 1986 with a mix of cast members from the original mini-series and the addition of new characters to sustain an ongoing production.  (Among those joining McFarlane in the ongoing series were Liz Burch and Rebecca Gibney, pictured above)

The series gave the Nine Network one of its few drama successes in the '80s, among a string of failures such as Starting Out, Taurus Rising, Waterloo Station, Possession, Prime Time, All The Way and Kings. 

The Flying Doctors was a success in Australia and overseas and ran until 1992.  The series was relaunched as RFDS in 1993.  RFDS, which featured few of the Flying Doctors cast and shifted the focus of the show from the fictional town of Coopers Crossing to the real-life town of Broken Hill, failed to catch on with viewers and was not extended beyond its first series.

Crawfords Australia have recently released a DVD box set featuring 234 episodes of the series.  The Crawfords website does not mention if this also includes the initial 1985 mini-series and/or the RFDS spin-off.

The 48-disc box set is certainly one of the largest DVD releases in Australia but is still a far cry from the long-running Australian series Prisoner which has just had all 692 episodes re-released in a 174-disc set – believed to be the largest DVD release in the world.

And another Crawfords series is also getting a new life on DVD.  The Sullivans was the highly-acclaimed series depicting the life of a Melbourne family during the time of World War II.  The series debuted on the Nine Network in November 1976 and was an immediate success.  The Sullivan family was led by Dave (Paul Cronin, formerly from previous Crawford dramas Matlock Police and Solo One) and Grace (Lorraine Bayly) with daughter Kitty (Susan Hannaford) and sons John (Andrew McFarlane), Terry (Richard Morgan) and Tom (Steven Tandy).  The Sullivans was a hit in Australia, winning a swag of awards, and sold to 20 countries.  Even though World War II ended in the series in 1981 the show continued to depict life in post-War Melbourne. 

Bayly had left the series in 1979 but production of The Sullivans wound up after Cronin decided to leave in 1982.  After 1114 episodes The Sullivans came to an emotional end on screen in early 1983.

To coincide with the 35th anniversary of the show’s debut Crawfords Australia released the first 50 episodes of The Sullivans on DVD before Christmas and are planning to release the next 50 episodes this year.

Both The Flying Doctors and The Sullivans DVDs are available via the Crawfords Australia website.

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: June 15-21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACA casts an eye over Big Brother

Nine’s A Current Affair continues to tap the well of classic TV shows for a bit of nostalgia.  While TV shows featured to date have mostly been from the last century – including Young Talent Time, The Sullivans, A Country Practice and Prisoner – the show’s latest TV feature is from a much more recent period.

Big Brother was the brain-child of Dutch TV producers in the late 1990s and had already been franchised through Europe and the United Kingdom before Network Ten had adopted the format for Australia – and ten years ago this month the first Australian Big Brother housemates were locked away in the high-tech compound located in the Dreamworld amusement park, removed from all outside influences and placed under the constant monitoring of dozens of cameras around the clock… and viewers couldn’t get enough of it.  The show was a nightly hit for Ten and the weekly eviction shows rated particularly well.

Over 100 housemates passed through the various Big Brother houses over eight seasons, but A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack gathered together a group of thirteen former housemates – Pete Timbs, Sara-Marie Fedele, Jemma Gawned, Peter Corbett, Jessica Hardy, Tim Brunero, David Graham, Trevor Butler, Bree Amer, Camilla Severi, Aleisha Cowcher, Reggie Bird and one of the ‘Logan’ twins – and narrator and part-time presenter Mike Goldman to talk about the show, the impact it had on their lives and some of the controversies that the show created, including the silent protest by evicted housemate Merlin Luck (pictured).

Missing from the segment was host Gretel Killeen, who fronted seven of the show’s eight seasons, and network rivalry may have prevented former housemates Blair McDonough (runner-up from series one who went on to star in Neighbours and is currently appearing in Seven’s Winners And Losers), Chrissie Swan (runner-up from series three who is now appearing in Ten’s The Circle and this week was announced as a Gold Logie nominee) and Ryan ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald (now featuring on Ten’s Before The Game) from receiving an invitation to appear.

Source/Video: A Current Affair

1991: February 16-22

Private property!
Home And Away star Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) is determined to keep her professional and personal lives separate.  Unlike many fellow soap stars, Elmaloglou has refused to talk publicly about her boyfriend of twelve months and the pair have never been photographed together.  “It’s just one of those things I don’t find important to talk about,” the 17-year-old told TV Week.  “My private life is the same as any other girl of my age.  I’ve got my schoolfriends, I’ve got my family, I’ve got my boyfriend.” 

It was 20 years ago today…
Hey Hey It’s Saturday returns to air this week, starting its 20th year.  “The official celebration is in October (the show debuted on 9 October 1971), but we’re out to make this the best year ever of Hey Hey so we’re starting the celebrations early,” host Daryl Somers told TV Week.  This year the show is taking on some changes as Somers and colleague Ernie Carroll take over producing the show after last year’s split from producer Gavan Disney.  “Ernie and I are happier, and I know a lot of the people around us are feeling happier, too,” Somers said.  “I think it’s going to be a very harmonious situation for all concerned this year.”  The year ahead could also see Hey Hey head to London and even Hollywood for some special shows.  Somers is also excited to have new executive producer Jim McKay on board for the show.  McKay was the program manager at GTV9 who originally named the program back in 1971 and hired the 19-year-old Somers for the job of host.  “He came up with the name and paid me $75 a week, that was it!  It’s taken me 20 years to get him back – that’s what he’s on now,” Somers laughed.

‘If it was me, I wouldn’t do it’
Andre Eikmeier (pictured), the 18-year-old who is probably best known to viewers as the pizza delivery boy in Kylie Minogue’s Coca-Cola commercial, has been acting for ten years but is taking on the change from child actor to young adult with a controversial role in ABC’s medical drama GP.  In an episode to air this week, Eikmeier plays the role of student Tony Wood who is suffering from stomach ulcers and the pressure of exams and finds himself under attack from his father who discovers that he has been having a relationship with a man ten years older.  For Eikmeier it was a challenging role to take on.  “It was very hard, because I’d never had any contact with gay people.  I guess I’d been sheltered from it, so I didn’t really know how to approach it.  I gave the part a lot of consideration, and my dad said, ‘Well, it’s up to you – but if it was me, I wouldn’t do it’,” he told TV Week.

Briefly…
Jeff Phillips (pictured), host of Network Ten’s new talent quest series Star Search, says he knows that shows like this can give a young star their big break.  “I was a product of this type of show,” he told TV Week.  “I drove from Perth to Melbourne in my Volkswagen to go on New Faces.  I went on the show on Sunday night, won it, and was immediately invited by Graham Kennedy to be on In Melbourne Tonight and got sudden recognition.  I was only 19 at the time.”

The Flying Doctors star Brett Climo makes his dramatic exit from the series this week as his character, Dr David Ratcliffe, attempts a rescue on a cliff face and finds himself hanging upside down from a safety rope before falling to a ledge below.  “This episode is definitely among the best moments of my career,” Climo told TV Week.

Actress Kaarin Fairfax, best known to viewers as Dolour in The Harp In The South and Poor Man’s Orange, is joining Network Ten comedy Col’n Carpenter as the show’s new female lead following the departure of Vikki Blanche.  The series will also be seen in a new timeslot – Sunday nights at 8.00pm, after The Simpsons – when it returns to screens next month.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”On went the VCR for a first look at Chances (featuring Natalie McCurry, pictured), the new Nine Network series so heavily publicised, yet so closely guarded at the same time.  All the pre-publicity had promised adults only fare and, while this was hardly a return to the full frontal days of Number 96 or The Box, it did make it seem worthwhile checking that the little ones were, indeed, just like everyone in the show – in bed.”

Program Highlights (February 16-22):
Saturday:  Daryl Somers and Ossie Ostrich head Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s return for 1991, up against the debut of Ten’s new talent quest series Star Search, hosted by Jeff Phillips.  Seven crosses to AFL Park, Mount Waverley, for the Fosters Cup: St Kilda versus West Coast Eagles.

Sunday:  SBS begins a national screening of the twelve-part documentary series My Place, My Land, My People – a production of Queensland-based regional broadcaster QTV and a winner at the 1990 TV Week Logie Awards for most outstanding achievement by a regional television station – followed by the series return of SBS viewers’ feedback program Hotline.  Sunday night movies are Beverly Hills Cop II (Seven) and Working Girl (Ten).

Monday:  SBS debuts a new weekly music series, MC Tee Vee, and later in the evening Pria Viswalingam hosts the series return of nightly current affairs program Dateline.  Ten presents the movie-length debut of popular US series Twin Peaks.  After the late edition of Ten Eyewitness News, Ten presents US talk show Donahue, with each night’s episode repeated the following afternoon.  Ten’s overnight coverage of the Gulf war continues via CNN.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Bob Hatfield (Gordon Piper) becomes a vegetarian after he is asked to kill six sheep.  Aussie actress Penny Downie (The Box, Prisoner, The Sullivans) stars in the new six-part British series Campaign which debuts on ABC.

Wednesday:  ABC presents 90-minute documentary One Australia?, a study on racism and multiculturalism in Australia and asking whether cohesion in our society can be achieved while maintaining diversity.

Thursday:  Veteran actor George Mallaby (pictured) guest stars in Nine’s drama Chances.  SBS current affairs program Face The Press and sports magazine The Sports Machine return for 1991.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.   16 February 1991. Southdown Press.

Kerry Armstrong on Talking Heads

Coming up next month in ABC’s weekly interview series Talking Heads, host Peter Thompson talks to one of Australia’s most well known actresses, Kerry Armstrong.

Armstrong was still a schoolgirl when she got her first break in TV in an ABC series, Marion, in 1974, followed by a stint as a weather presenter for GTV9, Melbourne.  Her acting career then took off in 1979 with the key role of wrongfully-jailed inmate Lynn Warner (pictured) in the popular series Prisoner.

Her early acting career also included roles in The Sullivans and Skyways followed by another stint as a TV presenter, co-hosting a magazine program, Together Tonight, with Greg Evans for Melbourne’s ATV10 in 1981.  Armstrong then went to the US, where she made a guest appearance in Murder She Wrote and landed a role in the mega-soap Dynasty.

Returning to Australia in the late 1980s after the death of her grandmother, Armstrong featured in the telemovie A Long Way From Home and ABC dramas Police Rescue and Come In Spinner, and joined the cast of comedy series All Together Now.

For three years she played the role of Heather Jelly in ABC’s top-rating Seachange and is currently working on a third series of Bed Of Roses.

After thirty years in a career that has also included movie roles and winning AFI and TV Week Logie awards, Armstrong concedes that she is re-thinking her future as an actor.  “It feels like I’m almost all done,” she says.

Talking Heads with guest Kerry Armstrong.  Monday 15 November, 6.30pm. ABC1

Source: IMDB, Wikipedia

Kylie jokes about Neighbours return

Could Ramsay Street’s most famous daughter be talking of a return to the neighbourhood?

Kylie Minogue, who turns 42 next week, has joked to UK newspaper The Sun about reprising her 1980s Neighbours character, tomboyish Charlene Robinson:

"The other day I thought how much fun it would be to do it after years of saying never.  I've decided how it would work.  Charlene would screech up the drive in her souped-up Mini which she's been working on all the time.  I don't watch the show any more, but it could be fun to do that. It could be hilarious.''

Minogue joined Neighbours as a 17-year-old in April 1986.  Her prior TV appearances had included guest roles in series including The Sullivans and Skyways and more prominent roles in children’s shows Fame And Misfortune and The Henderson Kids.  The pairing of Minogue’s character with Jason Donovan’s Scott Robinson gave the Ten Network soap its biggest drawcard, creating the show’s first ‘super couple’ and earned massive ratings when the two characters tied the knot in July 1987.

Minogue left the series in 1988, after winning a TV Week Gold Logie, to pursue her then fledgling recording career, with Charlene last seen driving out of Ramsay Street to head off to a new life in Brisbane. 

Of course, the pop princess is known to have returned to her Aussie acting roots before – in 2004 she appeared in Kath And Kim as a grown-up Epponee-Rae Craig, an appearance that was seen as a light-hearted throwback to her former Neighbours character.  After the Kath And Kim appearance (pictured) she was also reported to have expressed disappointment that she was not offered an opportunity to appear in Neighbours for its 20th anniversary in 2005, but producers claimed that any efforts to approach her management about setting up a cameo appearance fell on deaf ears.

Perhaps, with the show hitting 25 years this year, it could be an opportune time to make amends?

Source: Herald Sun, Perfect Blend

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.

Neighbours: 25 today!

When Daphne Lawrence (Elaine Smith, pictured) was doing her striptease at the buck’s night for Des Clarke (Paul Keane) on the eve of his marriage to Lorraine Kingham (Antionette Byron) on the premiere episode of Neighbours, nobody’s wildest predictions would have foreseen that the show would survive to see its 25th anniversary.

Even the most optimistic predictions would have only permitted Neighbours to have a lifespan of a few years. At the time of the show’s debut – 18 March 1985 in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (Brisbane followed with a 90-minute launch a week later) – apart from ABC’s Bellbird (1967-1977) the longest running Australian soaps had been Number 96, The Sullivans, The Young Doctors, Cop Shop (all around six years each) and Prisoner (which had entered its seventh year in 1985).

As well as TV newcomers like Smith and Keane, Neighbours’ founding cast included a few familiar faces – Anne Haddy (Play School, Prisoner, Sons And Daughters), Alan Dale (The Young Doctors), Peter O’Brien (Starting Out), Darius Perkins (All The Rivers Run and the telemovie Matthew And Son), Stefan Dennis (Prisoner) and David Clencie (The Sullivans, Starting Out).

But after only a few months on air, Neighbours was headed for TV landfill when the Seven Network pulled the plug after a lack of support from ATN7, Sydney, and despite strong-ish ratings elsewhere. But the show’s producers, the Grundy Organisation, felt there was still life in the concept – after all, the UK’s neighbourhood drama, Coronation Street, was into its third decade by that stage – so the show was successfully offered to Network Ten, creating Australian TV history as the first drama series to swap networks.

The re-launch on Ten, on 20 January 1986, gave the show a fresher, younger emphasis with a bunch of young newcomers enlisted to the cast – Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce, Annie Jones, Geoff Paine, Charlene Fenn and, a few months later, Kylie Minogue (then a 17-year-old known from The Henderson Kids and for being the older sister of Young Talent Time cast member Danielle Minogue) Also added to the line-up were Anne Charleston (fresh from a former Grundy’s drama, Possession), Ally Fowler (Sons And Daughters) and Vivean Gray (The Sullivans).

Then the show was given an international audience with its debut on BBC1 in a daytime timeslot in 1986, but it was a shift to the 5.30pm timeslot in 1988 that saw Neighbours catapulted to ratings domination, even bumping stalwart Coronation Street and relative newcomer EastEnders from the top of the ratings.

The show went on to win a swag of TV Week Logie awards, including Gold Logies for Kylie Minogue (1988) and Craig McLachlan (1990) and the show being inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame to coincide with its 20th anniversary in 2005.

With success in the United Kingdom and even further abroad (though the Americans never took to it), Neighbours’ longevity was all but certainly confirmed – as without such widespread international support and income, Neighbours could well have had a similar lifespan to its predecessors.

As well as its 25th anniversary, which will be officially celebrated over the coming weeks, Neighbours is also approaching its 6000th episode, scheduled to air in Australia sometime around August.

TelevisionAU: Neighbours (written for its 20th anniversary in 2005)
Suddenly… it’s 20 years
Neighbours star quit fame for family
Jim Robinson ‘spotted’ in Channel 4 promo

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