Obituary: Ian Turpie

Australian showbusiness has lost one of its true veterans with reports that Ian Turpie has died from cancer at the age of 68.

Born in Melbourne in 1943, his career started as a child actor back in the 1950s working in radio and theatre productions.  He later moved to television as a performer on variety shows including Bandstand, Sing Sing Sing (formerly The Johnny O’Keefe Show) and the Melbourne-based daytime show Time For Terry.

In 1964, Turpie became the first “victim” in the iconic television drama series Homicide, playing the role of a university student who was shot dead while staging a mock bank hold-up in the opening scenes of the first episode.

He was later a host of the mid-1960s pop music program Go!!

Working as a variety and club performer during the 1970s Turpie made a television hosting comeback in 1981 on The New Price Is Right (pictured), a reprisal of the game show franchise that had last appeared on Australian TV in the mid-1970s.  The show was a hit for the Seven Network and lasted for around four years.  He was to revisit the format in 1989 when the Ten Network launched The Price Is Right as a Saturday night program.

In the early 1980s he hosted a variety program, Turpie Tonight, for Perth channel TVW7.  The program won a TV Week Logie in 1983 for Most Popular Program in Western Australia.

He also hosted game shows Press Your Luck, The Newlyweds Game and Supermarket Sweep.

Later television appearances included drama series Always Greener and comedies Club Buggery, Pizza, Swift And Shift Couriers and Housos.

He was diagnosed with cancer early last year.

Last May he was inducted into the Mo Awards’ Hall of Fame and there is now an online campaign via Facebook to have Turpie inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.

Ian Turpie is survived by wife Jan, three children and three grandchildren.

Source: Yahoo7, Ian Turpie, IMDB, TV Eye – Classic Australian Television, Daily Telegraph.

Number 96… in their own words

On Tuesday, 13 March at 8.30pm, it will be 40 years exactly since ‘Australian television lost its virginity’ with the premiere of what would become the mother of all soaps – Number 96.  It was a series that was unashamedly ‘adults only’ and would give a never-before-seen glimpse at life in suburban Sydney, based around the tenants within a fictional apartment block.

The 40th anniversary of the series’ debut is being commemorated by another DVD release – this time containing 16 of the show’s early black-and-white episodes (only around 20 black-and-white episodes are still intact in the archive, the remaining 500+ episodes are destroyed or, at best, unaccounted for) plus a sequence of 16 episodes surrounding the show’s infamous bomb-blast cliff-hanger of September 1975.

To coincide with the 40th anniversary and the DVD launch, here’s a look back to August 1974, when Woman’s Day magazine compiled a special 24-page dossier – Number 96 Confidential – on Australia’s most-watched TV drama, with the show’s creator and head writer David Sale and several of the main characters and actors offering their own insight on the lives depicted on the show that changed the course of Australian television drama.

David Sale (pictured) said that despite its reputation Number 96 is not a “sex and sin show”.  “I would describe it as a ‘gurgle giggle’ show, myself,” he told Woman’s Day.  “I think the main reason people watch 96 is its humour.  About 80 per cent of the show is fun.  People want to laugh.”  Sale also wanted to depict a cross-section of the Australian community.  “I had a couple of migrants, the Sutcliffes, and Aldo, who’s a migrant, and his wife.  And I wanted to put in a couple of homosexuals.  But I did want to get away from the concept of homosexuals being all flapping and effeminacy – the homosexuals in 96 are nice people.  They don’t wear eye-shadow, carry handbags, or hang about public toilets.  I do think the characters of Don (Joe Hasham) and Dudley (Chard Hayward) have done more to put homosexuals in some sort of reasonable light than the whole of the Gay Lib movement.”  Sale also highlighted that as well as breaking down cultural barriers, such as racial or sexual, the show also highlighted various social issues to the audience.  “Lucy (Elisabeth Kirkby) had a lump on her breast.  We were pushing the message that women must go to their doctors for yearly cancer checkups.”  In another storyline, a character ended up addicted to LSD.  “I met two men and their wives at a party soon after that, and they said they were fans of Number 96.  It turned out they were Vice Squad detectives and the both said they’d never stop their daughters from watching 96.  One of them said that his daughter learnt a lot about the result of drug-taking and promiscuity – and he’d much rather she learnt that way, second-hand, than she went out and tried it for herself.”   

On to the show’s characters, starting with Pat McDonald talking about her character, Dorrie Evans who is married to husband Herb (Ron Shand) and becomes known for her various malapropisms:  “Herb and Dorrie owned a little house which they sold to the company of high-rise developers, with the proviso of a life tenancy in the block of flats they planned to erect there.  As such Dorrie decided she was a cut above the normal, so she took on the honorary capacity of “conserge”, and as soon as they’d settled in began her “consergical” duties – which is where the peeking through keyholes ideas came from.  Her other great interest is “pornograffy”, as she has become vice-president of the Purity League and feels it necessary to watch the late movies on television and examine newspapers and magazines for any sign of moral decay.  She feels “pornograffy” is everywhere… and asks herself, ‘where will this all end?’.”

Herb Evans:  “Dorrie and I met at a fireworks display at Circular Quay on a New Year’s Eve.  I can’t remember when it was, but we had our Jubilee Wedding in December 1973 …  Our niece Georgina (Susannah Piggott) came to stay with us.  When we heard she was coming we expected a demure little girl and there came this one, all daggy with beads and blue jeans, and a see-through shirt… and another day I was shaving and she came into the bathroom and dropped her dressing gown, and she had nothing on underneath, and she stepped into the shower, cool as you please.  I never knew where to look …  I’m used to Dorrie, but sometimes she makes things a bit hard.  She tries to run everyone’s lives.  Her stock line is “Why wasn’t I told?” and of course most of the time she hears everything anyway, sooner or later.”

Flo Patterson (Bunney Brooke):  “I used to live in a little house on Paradise Street, but it burnt down and all I had in the world was Mr Perky, my budgerigar, and my dressing-gown.  I didn’t have anywhere to go.  Dorrie and I have been friends for years, so she and Herb took me in.  I get a bit lonely sometimes.  But then I think, well, I’ve got two beaut friends and I’ve got Mr Perky… the cat got burnt when the house burnt down.  Dorrie threw the ashes out and she put garlic salt into the urn, hoping I wouldn’t notice, but I did.  She didn’t throw him out on purpose.”

Joe Hasham (on character Don Finlayson):  “He originally came from the country.  He came to the big smoke, and being a rather brilliant scholar, he studied law – and was considered one of the brilliant young lawyers of the time.  The most shattering thing in his life apart from losing his parents (they were killed in a plane crash) was emotionally losing his friend Bruce Taylor (Paul Weingott) who was living with him at 96 and at the same time having a mad affair with Maggie Cameron (Bettina Welch).  That ended in disaster and Bruce left.  Don was very hurt.  He did have problems with his homosexuality before he came to terms with himself, after having many encounters with many ladies.  He’s slept with them, but he’s never made love to them.  He’s not a wanton tart.  He’s a very decent sort of human being.  He’s just like anybody else.  He just happens to be camp.”

Carol Raye (on character Amanda von Pappenburg):  “Amanda is Don’s aunt.  She hadn’t seen Don since he was a young boy.  She’s an Aussie but she left Australia when she was very young, and married three millionaires – all of whom died.  The last one, Max, was titled, so she’s now a Baroness.  She’s a complete extrovert, and completely shockproof.  Nothing shocks her – homosexuality, love affairs, anything.  As with Flo, of whom she is very fond – she has no comprehension of class distinctions.  Then Max’s money comes through and she inherits $20 million.  So she disperses a lot of largesse around Number 96, pays all Don’s debts and flies off to Europe.”

Johnny Lockwood (on Aldo Godolfus):  “Aldo is a Hungarian, who escaped from Hungary in 1956, and has a daughter, Rose (Vivienne Garrett), who is about 19 or 20.  His wife was supposed to have died not long after he got here.  Aldo has worked very hard and has managed to buy the delicatessen which he runs with his daughter.  His ambition in life is to own his own restaurant, and for a long time his main topic of conversation is this dream.”

Philippa Baker (on Roma Godolfus nee Lubinski):  “She was born in Russia and had been going out with Yuri (Lubinski) before the war.  All of her family, and presumably herself, were in a concentration camp.  She managed to escape and in some way Yuri and she found each other again and got married.  Yuri was a qualified architect in Russia, which meant he couldn’t get a job here because his qualifications were not recognised.  So they started a restaurant – a kosher restaurant.  Then Yuri died and Roma decided to sell the restaurant.  So this awfully nice Hungarian Jewish gentleman called Aldo Godolfus came to see Roma because he wanted to buy it.  But he lost his deposit so she sold the restaurant to somebody else (but) they felt immediate rapport.  Roma had been trying to nudge Aldo into proposing, using all the wiles she could think of, and still he said nothing.  So Roma proposed to him.  They had a lovely wedding.  No, they didn’t.  They ran away to Surfers Paradise and nobody knew they got married, so it wasn’t so lovely.”

Arnold Feather (Jeff Kevin): “I studied at night school and worked during the day at Mrs Lubinski’s restaurant, where I met the people from Number 96.  Then I moved in, and lived with the Sutcliffes.  There have been great traumas.  The first was with Georgina Carter, Mrs Evans’ niece.  She was my first romance.  She was a virgin and was quite keen on her virginity being taken.  We kept trying, but we were always being caught.  My next great love affair was with Robyn Ross.  I was desperately in love with her.  I even went so far as to buy her an engagement ring.  But then I was most mortified and shocked and horrified to find out “she” was a drag queen (Carlotta), and I swore off women for some time after that.”

Norma Whittaker (Sheila Kennelly):  “We’d had a bit of strife at Toorak, because (husband) Les had some chook dung delivered to the place and the other people got upset about that.  So we moved to Sydney, to Number 96, and Les gets a job as a wardsman at the hospital and I get a job in the pub near 96.  We found the flat before we got the jobs… we met this rude old sticky-beak Dorrie Evans, puttin’ on airs and graces all the time.  Our Gary’s in the army.  He came to live with us with his wife.  He married this “Eyetalian” girl he met overseas.  She drank coffee for breakfast and kept cooking all this peculiar “Eyetalian” food with that garlic stuff in it… funny ways, the “Eyetalians” have…. Jack Sellars decided to open this wine bar.  Then this bloke came into the hotel and he took a bit of a shine to me.  He was an artist and he liked large ladies.  Said he wanted to paint a picture of me.  So I got all dressed up in me black dress and me pearls and he painted this picture.  We had this big unveiling in the pub – and there I am, large as life – and the ruddy thing’s starkers!  Jack loved that painting and he put it in the wine bar.  I’m working there and there’s this ruddy great nude piccie up there for always!”

Les Whittaker (Gordon McDougall):  “Of course I’ve always been keen on inventions and improving my mind.  I have many butterflies inside my head but they never seem to settle long enough in one place to sip the nectar of success.  Being a hospital wardsman I first thought I would improve the ambulance service in Paddington, so I invented the Whittaker Radio Controlled Ambulance.  I tried to build a ham radio, which Dorrie called my Devon Ham Radio.  Unfortunately the first day she came to the door when we’d moved in, I opened the door and the radio set exploded and blew the two of us across the hall.  I did have one successful invention.  I invented the Whittaker Wine-o-meter.  It worked in the wine bar for ages.  Then I went on an inventors’ program on a local television channel, and a gentleman in Melbourne took up my invention and started to manufacture it.  But unfortunately I didn’t read the small print of the contract and we found out later that he would have to sell two million units before I would make anything out of it.  So if Les Whittaker lives to mid-2048 we might begin to get some royalties!”

Tom Oliver (on Jack Sellars):  “Jack’s an SP bookie when he first comes in.  A very rough diamond, with a heart of gold.  He’d chop off his right arm to help people.  He’s out to improve himself.  He made money on houses, went into property.  He bought Number 96.  He has improved himself, his manner, dress, habits.  He’s very faithful to one woman – while she’s there.  When the chemist’s husband was killed he bought the lease of the chemist shop, and decided to turn it into a wine bar, which he did, and called it Norma’s Bar.  Norma and Les Whittaker manage it for him.”

Elaine Lee (on Vera Collins):  “She’s been a prostitute.  She was raped by her stepfather in South Africa.  She managed to save her money and got herself to Sydney.  She had no job.  I don’t see her as a standing-on-the-street sort of lady.  I think she went out with men, and they probably bought her dinner and paid her rent for a week or so.  She’s not a tart.  I think she fell on hard times and some rich guys paid the rent every so often.  She dabbled in dress designing and was discovered by Maggie Cameron and set up in a shop.  That blew up over a young man who Vera wasn’t interested in but Maggie was.  Vera had married Harry Collins (Norman Yemm), and they’d been divorced.  On two occasions she took him back.  The first time he nearly raped her, and they set up house again, but that broke up.  The second time he was just insanely jealous, and kept imagining she was involved with all sorts of men, so that broke up too.”

Elisabeth Kirkby (on Lucy Sutcliffe):  “Lucy comes from Salford in Lancashire and has been married to Alf since the war, when he was serving in the British Army.  Alf is the classic example of the complaining, whingeing Pom and his whole aim was to get back to England.  Then Lucy became ill.  She knew she had a lump on her breast but she was too scared to see a doctor because she thought she had cancer and she knew that without her salary they would have no breadwinner.  She was terrified because she thought she’d have to undergo a radical mastectomy, she’d be deformed, to a degree, that her husband would think it was horrible…”

James Elliott (on Alf Sutcliffe):  “Basically Alf if a bit of a rough nut – he’s a knockabout sort of character, not very respectful to his superiors, super self-confident with people he knows.  He had a working class background, he came from Salford, near Manchester.  He met and married Lucy during the war.  Alf is very affectionate towards Lucy, and he loves her very much, although his rough-nut mannerisms might indicate to the contrary.  He’s almost very solidly working-class in his contempt for people of a different class.  In fact he’s very class conscious.  He’s a hard worker but he’s not consistent.  Lucy runs a laundrette.  She’s more consistently employed than Alf.  Alf is continually contemptuous of Australia but secretly he probably loves it here.  When he went back to England he found his friends there had grown away from him. and he’d grown away from them, whereas in Australia he’s grown to love and like the people at 96.  He knows inwardly he’d be out of his depth back in England, but he still loves to sling off at Australia, usually in a way that’s not logically balanced… Alf’s arguments aren’t usually balanced.”

Although only some cast members of the time are profiled in the Woman’s Day special – others that appeared at that stage of the series included Chard Hayward, Mike Dorsey, Wendy Blacklock, Frances Hargreaves, Josephine Knur, Pamela Garrick and Bettina Welch – more than one thousand actors and six thousand extras appeared in the series over its six year run of 1218 episodes.

There have also been three earlier DVD releases of Number 96.  In 2006, to coincide with the 50th year of Australian television, the 1973 movie version and the 1976 special They Said It Wouldn’t Last (which commemorated the show’s 1000th episode) were released on DVD.  This was followed in 2008 by the release of 32 episodes surrounding the ongoing mystery of the ‘pantyhose strangler’ (pictured) who claimed the lives of a number of characters – and then in 2010 the subsequent batch of 32 episodes after the identity of the murderer was revealed.

Number 96:  The Beginning And The Bomb is released by Umbrella Entertainment.

Source: Woman’s Day, 12 August 1974. TV Week, 13 August 1977.

1992: March 8-14

What an awesome foursome!
”I can’t believe I’m here,” says A Country Practice star Georgie Parker as she arrives for the TV Week photo shoot.  “I don’t even have my own show!”  TV Week has assembled Parker and her three Gold Logie co-nominees – Ray Martin, Jana Wendt and Steve Vizard – for a special front cover in the lead up to this week’s presentation of the 34th annual TV Week Logie Awards from the Radisson President Hotel, Melbourne.  The awards will be telecast on the Seven Network on Friday, 13 March.

TV Week Logie Awards nominations (Publicly voted categories):
Gold Logie: Ray Martin, Georgie Parker, Steve Vizard, Jana Wendt.  (1991 winner: Steve Vizard, pictured)

Most Popular Actor: Marcus Graham, Shane Porteous, Bruce Samazan, Gary Sweet. (1991 winner: Craig McLachlan)

Most Popular Actress: Rebekah Elmaloglou, Rebecca Gibney, Georgie Parker, Kate Raison. (1991 winner: Georgie Parker)

Most Popular Series: A Country Practice, E Street, Home And Away, The Flying Doctors. (1991 winner: Home And Away)

Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program: All Together Now (pictured), Fast Forward, Hey Dad! (1991 winner: Fast Forward)

Most Popular Public Affairs Program: A Current Affair, Hinch, 60 Minutes. (1991 winner: A Current Affair)

Most Popular Telemovie/Mini-Series: Brides Of Christ, Golden Fiddles, Which Way Home. (1991 winner: Jackaroo)

Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Personality (Male): Jon English, Daryl Somers, Steve Vizard (1991 winner: Steve Vizard)

Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Personality (Female): Rebecca Gibney, Julie McGregor, Magda Szubanski. (1991 winner: Magda Szubanski)

Most Popular Sports Coverage: AFL Grand Final, Cricket, Tennis. (1991 winner: Cricket)

Most Popular Children’s Program: Agro’s Cartoon Connection, Play School, The Bugs Bunny Show (1991 winner: Agro’s Cartoon Connection)

Most Popular Lifestyle/Information Program: Beyond 2000, Burke’s Backyard, What’s Cooking (1991 winner: Burke’s Backyard)

Most Popular New Talent: Matthew Krok (pictured), Jeremy Sims, Melissa Tkautz, Kym Wilson

Other public-voted awards: Most Popular Music Video, Most Popular Actor and Actress in a Telemovie or Mini-Series, Most Popular Program (for each state) and Most Popular Personality (for each state).

TV Week Logie Award categories (Industry voted):
Gold Logie – TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame, Most Outstanding Actor, Most Outstanding Actress, Most Outstanding Telemovie/Mini-Series, Most Outstanding Series, Most Outstanding Achievement in Public Affairs, Most Outstanding Achievement in News, Most Outstanding Single Documentary or Series, Most Outstanding Achievement by Regional Television.

Ramsay Street rush hour
In another attempt to bring the long-running Neighbours back to its former ratings glory, producers are ramping up the show’s storylines as well as writing out four cast members while signing up three new faces.  Lorraine Bayly, Jeremy Angerson, Andrew Williams and Gillian Blakeney are all leaving the show in coming weeks – while Ben Mitchell (pictured) and Felice Arena are joining the series, and former guest star Natalie Imbruglia is returning for an ongoing role.  Producer Don Battye is confident of re-signing Melissa Bell when her contract expires mid-year, despite moves to have her swap over to Ten’s other evening soap, E Street.  Veteran actor Tom Oliver has been re-signed with Neighbours, with plans to romantically match up his character Lou Carpenter to recently-widowed Madge Bishop (Anne Charleston).  Producers are also casting for two teenagers to enter the series as Carpenter’s children.  Another romantic storyline being devised by writers is set to involve Lucy Robinson (Melissa Bell) and Brad Willis (Scott Michaelson). 

Mike cops a new show
Mike Willesee is set to return to prime-time television on a regular basis, following his recent stint as fill-in host on A Current Affair.  The television veteran is about to sign a multi-million dollar with the Nine Network to produce a hard-hitting real-life police action series, described loosely as an Australian version of the American series Cops.  The new show is expected to be hosted by Willesee’s son, Michael Willesee Jnr, who is currently working in Los Angeles for Network Ten’s Hard Copy. 

Paradise is…
… warm tropical nights, a turquoise lagoon and beautiful half-naked girls wandering barefoot on white sands.  This exotic setting, on the island of Rarotonga, is the backdrop for the $2 million mini-series adaptation of Noel Barber’s epic novel The Other Side Of Paradise, being produced in a joint venture between Grundy Television, Central Films (UK) and South Pacific Films (NZ).  The series stars Jason Connery (son of Sean Connery) and newcomer Vivien Tan (pictured) and screens this week on Network Ten.

Briefly…
Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum has scored the only TV interview with Jason Donovan, who made a brief visit home only a few weeks ago.  However, Meldrum’s exclusive interview was made for Nine’s Melbourne Extra program, instead of his regular program, Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  Hey Hey host and producer Daryl Somers is said to have been less than impressed.

The Nine Network has spared no expense in trying to convince TV legend Graham Kennedy (pictured) to host a special to coincide with his upcoming 60th birthday.  Kennedy, last seen on TV on Nine’s recent 35 Years Of Television special, was flown by helicopter from his country property in southern NSW to Nine’s Sydney headquarters for a lavish lunch to celebrate his 58th birthday and Nine presented him with a rare book on horse breeding. 

The Seven Network has given the go-ahead for sitcom Bligh, from the producers of Fast Forward, but have passed on the producers’ other proposal, a comedy series set in a radio station.  Meanwhile, Fast Forward producers Steve Vizard and Andrew Knight are negotiating to stage a live version of Fast Forward, following the success of the stage adaptation of British series ‘Allo ‘Allo.

Hey Hey It’s Saturday duo John Blackman and Wilbur Wilde have been staging their own radio comeback since being dumped by Melbourne station 3UZ.  The pair have been taking their radio act to regional and remote parts of the country as short-term fill-ins on local radio stations.  So far they’ve been heard on local stations in Townsville and Launceston and places in between, and are already booked for future engagements in regional Victoria, NSW and Tasmania in coming months.  Although some of the shows are based at the radio stations’ local studios, most of their radio appearances have been via landline from studios in Melbourne.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”Four of Australian television’s top names, from two networks and two cities… even five years ago, just the thought of trying to get them all to sit still in the one place at the one time would have been enough to make me shudder.  You only have to glance at this week’s cover for further proof – Ray Martin, Georgie Parker, Steve Vizard and Jana Wendt all in one photograph.  Read nothing into the order in which I’ve mentioned them, other than it is alphabetical.  They agreed to get together to promote the biggest night on the television industry’s calendar, the TV Week Logie Awards.  As far as I’m aware, it is the first time such a shoot – the four Gold Logie nominees together – has been set up.  It all happened in the space of an hour (on a Friday afternoon).  It had to.  Ray – not long after finishing another week of Midday for Nine – was committed to go to Canberra to attend a meeting of the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council, of which he is a member.  Georgie was due back on the set of A Country Practice… she was scheduled to shoot her final scenes as one of that series’ all-time favourite characters, Lucy Tyler.  And Jana was required back in the A Current Affair office to prepare to anchor that evening’s show.  Now, of course, the big question is which one of the four will be on the cover of TV Week’s 1992 Logie Awards souvenir issue.  The answer to that is under wraps until about 11.00pm on Friday, 13 March.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 8-14):
Sunday:  Seven presents live coverage of the Moomba Masters water skiing from Melbourne’s Yarra River, while Nine has World Cup cricket from Brisbane, and Ten has the Rugby Union Five Nations from Murrayfield, Scotland.  Sunday night movies are When Harry Met Sally (Seven) and The Dead Pool (Nine) up against the first instalment of two-part mini-series The Other Side Of Paradise (Ten).

Monday:  The 7.00pm battle between Home And Away and Neighbours, started back in January, comes to an end with Neighbours making the sudden move to the 6.30pm timeslot.  The shift sees Ten’s current affairs program Hinch take over at 7.00pm – the timeslot he previously held over at Seven – and US game show Studs move to 6.00pm.  Seven presents a two-hour concert special, Jimmy Barnes – Soul Deep, from the Palais Theatre, Melbourne, and featuring special guests John Farnham, Johnny Diesel and Ross Wilson.  The concert is simulcast with radio station Triple M.  Ten presents the conclusion to The Other Side Of Paradise.

Tuesday:  Former The Sullivans and Return To Eden star Megan Williams guest stars in All Together Now (Nine), playing the part of Julie, a beautiful electrician who captures the heart of Dougie (Garry Who).  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Andrew Carroll reports on the kissing bug – a disease affecting millions of people in Latin America, while Bryan Smith discovers a revolutionary design for artificial hips and Tracey Curro reports from the Tokyo Motor Show.  In Chances (Nine), Alex (Jeremy Sims) is shocked to finally learn the truth about his lost year.

Wednesday:  ABC presents a 90-minute special, La Stupenda, a unique portrayal of Dame Joan Sutherland combining interviews, archival footage and performances.  Dame Joan and her husband Richard Bonynge talk about their life in opera, while close friends and colleagues reminisce about Sutherland’s remarkable career spanning 42 years.

Thursday:  In Acropolis Now (Seven), when Memo (George Kapiniaris) is drafted into the Greek Army, Jim (Nick Giannopoulos) turns the cafe into Camp Acropolis.  ABC presents the final of the four-part documentary series When The War Came To Australia.

Friday:   The Seven Network presents the 34th annual TV Week Logie Awards, live from the Radisson President Hotel, Melbourne.  Special international guests include John Stamos, Dennis Waterman and Diana Ross joining local stars including Steve Vizard, Jana Wendt, Ray Martin, Daryl Somers, Jo Bailey, Mary Coustas, Nicolle Dickson, Nick Giannopoulos, Rebecca Gibney, Elizabeth Hayes, Sophie Lee, Gina Riley, Bruce Samazan, Jennifer Keyte, Magda Szubanski and Kym Wilson.  The night culminates with the announcement of the winner of the TV Week Gold Logie for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television.  The awards presentation is followed by a special post-Logies edition of Tonight Live, hosted by Richard Stubbs.

Saturday:  ABC debuts current affairs program Foreign Correspondent, hosted by George Negus, taking a look at the news behind some of the week’s major world events, including reports from correspondents around the world.  Seven presents live coverage of the AFL Foster’s Cup Grand Final, hosted by Bruce McAvaney, while Ten has delayed coverage of the National Basketball League’s K-Mart Australian Classic.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  7 March 1992.  Southdown Press.

Prisoner re-make to focus on Bea Smith

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Foxtel has signed a deal with FremantleMedia to re-tell the tale of life inside the fictional Wentworth Detention Centre.

The deal, which comes after months of negotiations, is to lead to Wentworth, a modern take on the TV classic Prisoner.  To be produced in Melbourne, the new show’s premise is based around the entrance of inmate Bea Smith to the prison – reprising the character originally played by Val Lehman (pictured) – and her rise to the position of ‘top dog’.

Lehman won three TV Week Logies for her performance as murderer Smith, a role she portrayed for around 400 episodes.

Foxtel’s modern-day take on the prison theme comes after Network Ten’s plan to revisit the genre in the 1990s fell through, as did a similar proposal announced in 2010. 

The original Prisoner, developed by Reg Watson, was produced by Grundy Television (a predecessor to FremantleMedia Australia) for Ten between 1979 and 1986.  More than 25 years after its demise the show continues to maintain a loyal fan base both in Australia and overseas.

All 692 episodes have been re-released as a 174-disc DVD box set, and although the series hasn’t been broadcast on Australian free-to-air television since the mid 1990s it continues to be shown each weeknight on pay TV channel 111 Hits.

Prisoner’s original cast also included Sheila Florance, Colette Mann, Elspeth Ballantyne, Patsy King, Peta Toppano, Kerry Armstrong, Fiona Spence, Carol Burns, Don Barker, Barry Quin, Amanda Muggleton and Mary Ward. 

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

1992: March 1-7

State of shock!
Unlike most young Australian actors, E Street star Bruce Samazan (pictured) is in no hurry to work in the US – in fact he has no plans to ever visit there again.  Making his first trip to the US, staying with friends in Texas during a production break for E Street, Samazan cut short his two-week visit and made a dash back to Sydney, admitting that the place “freaked” him out.  “There’s gang warfare over there that I can’t grab a hold of… it’s chaotic,” he told TV Week.  “It’s totally unnatural for an Australian to go over there and adjust to the fact that if you wear the wrong coloured baseball cap or T-shirt, you might be shot at.”  On one occasion he went to put on a Los Angeles Raiders cap but was advised by his local friend, “Bruce I wouldn’t wear that.  You could get yourself into trouble – you might get shot at”.  Then, two days later, a local newspaper carried the headline ‘Two Youths Shot Dead Outside Nightclub’… for wearing LA Raiders outfits.  “That was pretty scary stuff,” Samazan said.

It’s goodbye to the Valley!
A Country Practice viewers will soon bid farewell to three of the show’s most popular characters.  Gordon Piper (who plays Bob Hatfield), Syd Heylen (Cookie) and Matt Day (Luke) will be making their final appearances on screen in the coming weeks.  For Day, leaving the series has come at the right time.  “The character is now rounded off and I feel he has gone as far as he can for me,” he told TV Week.  “Theatre is the next avenue I wish to explore.  I want to steer clear of TV for a while.”  Showbiz veteran Heylen leaves the show with happy memories.  “I’ve made a lot of good friends,” he said.  “The series kept me before a broad audience, which you don’t get to cover doing live work.  It has been a happy period.”  And although Piper is adamant that he won’t be returning to A Country Practice, he and Heylen (both pictured) will be making a guest appearance in two episodes later in the year in a storyline which sees Cookie return to hospital. 

New doctors set for take-off
The Nine Network drama The Flying Doctors is set for a major revamp as production starts soon on its tenth series.  In a major shake-up for the series, the series will now be based in Broken Hill (the real-life base of the Royal Flying Doctor Service) rather than the fictional Coopers Crossing, and the only familiar cast members making the move to the new location will be husband-and-wife team Maurie Fields and Val Jellay (pictured) and Sophie Lee.  And joining the new-look series will be Simone Buchanan (Hey Dad!), Peter Phelps (who has just returned from the US where he featured in Baywatch), Steve Jacobs (Rose Against The Odds) and Lydia Miller.  The new-look series is scheduled to debut on Nine around mid-year.

Briefly…
Neighbours’ Blakeney twins, Gayle and Gillian, are about to ‘split up’.  Gillian, who plays Caroline Alessi, will be taping her final scenes in the Network Ten series this week.  “While I love the character and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself on the show, I feel it is time to move on as an actor,” she told TV Week.  Meanwhile, Gayle is contracted to the show until July and will then assess her options before making any decision about her future.  But while the pair will no longer be working together on Neighbours, they will be working together again in London next month as they record their next single which is due for release in Australia later this year. 

Sydney’s Botanic Gardens, with views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, is the location for the latest TV soapie wedding – but it is unlikely to ever appear on Australian screens.  The British TV series Families, which stars Briony Behets (the British-born actress best known for her roles in Aussie dramas Number 96 and The Box), is filmed between Manchester and Sydney… but so far the series is yet to be sold to an Australian network.  The series’ wedding is between Behets’ character Diana Stephens and cafe owner Anton Vaughn (Rhett Walton).

The patchy relationship between the local producers of the Network Ten tabloid current affairs show Hard Copy and Paramount, who own the US-based format, continues.  But executive producer Peter Sutton isn’t concerned as he said there are plenty of other sources for content if the plug is pulled on being able to grab stories from the US version, but concedes that the show may have to change its name – with Fast Copy or Australia’s Hard Copy cited as possibilities.

Actress Melissa Bell (pictured) is currently caught in a battle between Network Ten’s two soapies.  Melbourne-based Neighbours’ producers are keen to renew Bell’s contract when it expires mid-year, but Bell wants to move back to Sydney-based E Street where she once had a brief role – due in part to her current off-screen interstate relationship with the son of E Street producer Forrest Redlich.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”Fat Cat has been banished from our screens in one of the most profound decisions made in the history of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal.  The tubby tom’s character was deemed “still not clearly defined” and his show was accused of having “still generally poor” direction.  It took 15 years for someone to reach this momentous decision, years in which the lives of whole generations of Australian children must have been corrupted irreparably.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 1-7):
Sunday:  Nine crosses to Brisbane for the Benson And Hedges World Cup match between Australia and India.  Seven has motor racing with coverage of the Nascar/Auscar Nationals from Calder Park, Melbourne.  Meanwhile, ABC’s Sunday Afternoon With Peter Ross is back with a collection of arts-themed programming and interviews.  Sunday night movies are Shirley Valentine (Nine), Die Hard 2: Die Harder (Ten) and the Japanese comedy Tampopo (SBS), up against Seven’s debut of mini-series Prime Suspect.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) and Darcy (Kym Wilson) meet Douglas ‘Simmo’ Simmonds (Richard Moir), a crippled Vietnam pilot who revives Luke’s dreams of flying.  In Neighbours (Ten), an accident puts Helen’s (Anne Haddy) life at risk – while in Mother And Son (ABC), Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) remembers a clock that her late husband Leo gave her on their 25th wedding anniversary as she takes one from the house across the street.

Tuesday:  In GP (ABC), Robert (John McTernan) is acting strangely and decides to be a medico on an Antarctic expedition – until he reveals he has a tragic illness.  Beyond 2000 (Seven) reports on mankind’s most ambitious project yet – human habitation on Mars, while reporter Tracey Curro test drives the world’s first car in a suitcase.

Wednesday:  ABC presents a one-hour special, Cop It Sweet, taking a look at Sydney’s inner-city Redfern Police Station, in an area with a history of clashes between police and Aborigines, making it one of the most controversial police districts in the country.  Nine crosses to the Sydney Cricket Ground for day-night coverage of the Benson And Hedges World Cup match between India and Pakistan.

Thursday:  More World Cup cricket from Sydney on Nine, this time the match between Australia and England.  In Acropolis Now (Seven), Effie (Mary Coustas) arranges a party for Sophie’s (Sheryl Munks) 21st birthday at Vibrations Disco. 

Friday:  Seven presents live coverage of the semi-final of the AFL Foster’s Cup, with commentators Bruce McAvaney, Peter McKenna, Don Scott, Gerard Healy and Bernie Quinlan.  The ARIA Awards (Nine) are telecast for the first time, live from Melbourne’s World Congress Centre, and hosted by Richard Wilkins and Julian Lennon, with appearances by John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, Jenny Morris, Noiseworks, Diesel, Wendy Matthews, Margaret Urlich, Rockmelons, Sophie Lee, Craig McLachlan, Dannii Minogue and international artists Diana Ross, Rod Stewart and Harry Connick Jnr. 

Saturday:  The Seven Network presents an all-day telethon to raise financial support for the Australian team to compete at the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.  The Olympathon starts at 7.00am, including special editions of Saturday Disney and Video Smash Hits, followed by live crosses around Australia for interviews with some of Australia’s Olympic hopefuls.  The evening telecast includes a night of entertainment featuring the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Phantom Of The Opera stars Marina Prior and Rob Guest (both pictured with Seven’s Bruce McAvaney), Julie Anthony, Grace Knight, Craig McLachlan, Vanetta Fields, Judith Durham, Simon Gallaher, Don Burrows and Peter Cupples.  The telethon concludes at midnight.  Nine presents all-day coverage of the Benson And Hedges World Cup cricket from Adelaide. 

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  29 February 1992.  Southdown Press

Breakfast battle takes on an early start

The Ten Network’s new Breakfast show debuts today (Thursday) following news last night of the resignation of Kevin Rudd from the position of Foreign Minister.

The new program was originally scheduled to launch on Monday.

Breakfast co-host Paul Henry (pictured, second from left) confirmed the sudden programming change on Ten’s The Project last night:

“This is a hugely exciting evening.  We are not launching Breakfast on Monday.  Ten are launching Breakfast tomorrow morning at 6am. How good is that!”

Joining Henry on Breakfast will be Andrew Rochford, Kathryn Robinson and Magdalena Roze. 

And in an interview published in this week’s TV Week, Sunrise producer Michael Pell is not overly concerned about his show’s new competitor.  “We just concentrate on what we do and what we’ve got coming up.  We don’t look over our shoulder,” he said.  And in comparison to the successful chemistry between Sunrise presenters Melissa Doyle, David Koch, Natalie Barr, Mark Beretta and Grant Denyer, Pell says Ten’s combination is an unknown quantity.  “The presenters on Ten’s new show… we haven’t seen them work together.  So it’s anyone’s guess how it will turn out – chemistry is the key.”

Meanwhile, Today co-host Karl Stefanovic welcomed the addition of the new Ten program as it will force all players to be at their competitive best and viewers will be the winners there.  “The more competition in the slot, the better it is for everyone,” he said.

Currently, Sunrise still dominates the breakfast slot nationally, and while Today is ranked second nationally it is now leading in the key markets of Sydney and Melbourne.  ABC News Breakfast is coming a distant third.

Breakfast.  Weekdays, starting today, 23 February, 6.00am.  Ten.
Sunrise.  Weekdays 6.00am, Seven.
Today.  Weekdays 5.30am, Nine.
ABC News Breakfast.  Weekdays 6.00am, ABC1, and 6.00am (live, AEDST) on ABC News 24.

Source: Network Ten. TV Week, 25 February 2012. The Age.

Prime7 backs down on Tamworth axe

The Prime7 television network has backed down from last month’s decision to relocate production of its Tamworth-based news bulletins to Canberra.

Prime7 chief Doug Edwards told Tamworth staff that the news production unit of around 14 staff will now stay in Tamworth as opposed to the previous plan which was to see some production staff redeployed to Canberra and the local news presented by network weather presenter Daniel Gibson.

The move of the Tamworth-based news bulletins, covering the Tamworth and Taree regions, was scheduled to take place in April.

The turnaround is reported to have come after a review of the logistics in producing as many as five regional newscasts out of Canberra – with the Prime7 studios in the national capital already compiling local news bulletins for the Orange, Wagga Wagga and Albury markets each weeknight.  The original plan would have seen some pre-recording of newscasts and this raised the concern that late-breaking news stories could be left out from the evening bulletins, although Prime7 at the time said it would still have the capacity to cover late-breaking news to local markets.

Political lobbying against the move to Canberra – led by federal MP Tony Windsor – plus strong viewer and staff reaction are also believed to have been contributing factors in the network’s reviewed strategy.

The Tamworth studios have been producing local news since 1965 when the station originally known as NEN9 commenced transmission.  The station became part of the Prime network in the late 1980s in the lead-up to aggregation.

Source: Northern Daily Leader

1992: February 23-29

Sophie set for TV sex special
Sophie Lee is to host an upcoming one-hour special on the topic of teenage sex for the Nine Network.  The special, to be produced in association with A Current Affair, aims to “educate both parents and teenagers about a lot of sexual issues”.  “It’s there to bridge the gap between teenagers and their parents… and I hope they have an open mind about sex,” she told TV Week.  The upcoming special comes after certain sections of the media savaged Lee for comments she made in the Fact And Fantasy File diary – an initiative of the NSW Family Planning Association that has since been banned by Prime Minister Paul Keating.  In an interview published in the diary, Lee stated that one-night stands were “okay” – a comment that the print media focused on and made much controversy.  “What I’m saying is that if you want to go ahead and have casual sex, that’s your business and that’s okay, if you practise safe sex.  That’s it.  That’s all I said.  I was appalled at the way the diary was handled by the media.  To dismiss it as smutty, they are missing the whole point.  Kids have a right to be educated… otherwise they are going to die if they make the wrong decision.”

John’s jetting in!
Full House star John Stamos is coming to Australia to be a VIP guest at the upcoming TV Week Logie Awards.  “I’m really excited about this trip.  My whole life I’ve wanted to go to Australia and then I heard Full House was very successful there, too,” he told TV Week from Los Angeles.  Also on this year’s Logies guest list is former Minder star Dennis Waterman, who is currently touring Australia in the comedy Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

Mad Max III
Five years since The Gillies Republic, comedian Max Gillies (pictured) is back in a new series, Gillies And Company, which debuts this week on ABC.  Known for his brilliant parodies of politicians, royalty and celebrities, Gillies this time around has expanded his repertoire to include gardeners, bank managers, tourists, sports coaches and bureaucrats.  “It’s an opportunity to explore new avenues,” he told TV Week.  “I always wanted to do a brighter show, which is why this has been so much fun, but the characters still require a lot of concentration and a lot of time in the make-up room.”

Briefly…
The Nine Network’s new Melbourne Extra current affairs show was recently launched at a lavish function attended by network identities and Victorian Premier Joan Kirner, who will be making regular appearances on the program.  Despite the insecurity that comes with working in commercial television, ex-ABC host John Jost is confident of success.  “If you are going to cover all the important news in Melbourne, you need the time and resources to do it – and that is the commitment that Channel Nine has made to this program,” he told TV Week.  Joining Jost on Melbourne Extra will be reporters Tracey Spicer, Helen Ballard, Natasha Johnson, Des Dowling and Stephen Claney.

E Street’s Sheridan Sturgess (Kate Raison) takes the law into her own hands to try to put an end to serial killer Mr Bad’s (Vince Martin) reign of terror.  The pair agree to meet at Sheridan’s television studios.  The meeting ends when police arrive and Sheridan fires a shot at Mr Bad.  She is arrested and ends up in jail on remand. 

The Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) has announced that their annual ARIA Awards event will be televised for the first time this year.  The Nine Network will be broadcasting the event live from Melbourne next month and is securing a top line-up of presenters and performers – including Rod Stewart, Julian Lennon, Spinal Tap, John Farnham, Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, Anthony Warlow, Jimmy Barnes, Johnny Diesel and Crowded House.  Negotiations are also continuing with Kylie Minogue, INXS, Midnight Oil and Phil Collins.

Steamy soap opera Chances has been sold to the BSkyB network in the United Kingdom.  The sale follows the network’s recent purchase of another Aussie series, E Street.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”Welcome to something of a new-look TV Week!  The changes, however, are not just cosmetic.  In fact, TV Week makes one of the most profound movies it has made in the 14 years I have been associated with the magazine – our on sale day is now Thursday instead of Monday.  As explained in last week’s issue, that facilitates much tighter deadlines, particularly in our program listings.  Undoubtedly the networks will still find ways of making late alterations and getting under our guard, but it’s going to be more difficult from now on.  And that should mean a better service for you.  We hope you regard as a bonus, too, the fact that – apart from our program listing, which we print in 14 different editions each week to cover the whole of Australia – TV Week is now basically 100 per cent colour.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, February 23-29):
Sunday:  Afternoon sport includes cricket (Ladies’ International Super Test on ABC, and Benson And Hedges World Cup on Nine), football (AFL Foster’s Cup on Seven) and basketball (Ten).  Sunday night movies are A Fish Called Wanda (Seven), Miami Blues (Ten) and French film Life Is A Long Quiet River (SBS), up against the Winter Olympics on Nine.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), former prostitute Lizzy Walker (Joanne Hunt) returns to Dr Terence Elliott (Shane Porteous) to have her baby.  In Mother And Son (ABC), Arthur (Garry McDonald) didn’t really expect to be excavating his father’s ashes in the middle of the night.  ABC debuts new comedy series Gillies And Company and arts program Review.  Nine’s coverage of the Winter Olympics comes to an end with live coverage of the closing ceremony.

Tuesday:  With the Winter Olympics now over, Nine’s prime-time line-up is getting back into full swing – with the return of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show (with new host Lisa Patrick), All Together Now, Chances and The World Tonight With Clive Robertson.  Veteran actors Queenie Ashton (pictured) and Willie Fennell are guest stars in this week’s GP (ABC).

Wednesday:  Nine crosses to Sydney for day-night coverage of the Benson And Hedges World Cup Cricket: Australia versus South Africa.  Seven has live coverage of the AFL Foster’s Cup.  Prime Minister Paul Keating presents his Economic Statement, in a one-hour broadcast on ABC.  Dateline (SBS) takes a look at the increasingly popular Communist Party in Greece.

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), Alice (Marianne Howard) has urgent news, while Sheridan’s (Kate Raison) feelings for Wheels (Marcus Graham) begin to change.

Friday:  Seven presents a delayed telecast of the 34th annual Grammy Awards from New York’s Radio City Music Hall, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.

Saturday:  Nine crosses to Auckland, New Zealand for the Benson And Hedges World Cup Cricket: South Africa versus New Zealand, followed by rugby league highlights of the Toohey’s Challenge Cup.  This week’s documentary on World Around Us (Seven) is Coronation Hill: Land Of The Apocalypse, looking at Coronation Hill, located within Kakadu in the Northern Territory, where the richest uranium deposits on Earth are believed to lie – and the Aboriginal people have a warning for those who would mine it.  ABC’s late-night review of the week in politics, Order In The House, begins a new series. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  22 February 1992.  Southdown Press