How did the role of Rose on The Sullivans come about for you?
A lot of the people who came onto The Sullivans hadn't been seen on telly for a while, and that was actually to my advantage in playing Auntie Rose. I'd been working mainly in the theatre and doing a bit of comedy work on the ABC but I hadn't really worked for Crawfords much at all at that point. The role really came out of the blue. I'd been doing six months in a theatre restaurant job when I auditioned for that, so it was a great change.
Did the cast and crew realise as you began filming that this was going to be something special?
I don't think so. I think we were working so hard initially, because we were doing five half hours a week. Henry Crawford had put together virtually a sort of film crew, which is why The Sullivans looked so fantastic, but it meant we worked very long hours because they wanted the lighting to be of such a standard and that always takes time. It reached a point where they realised they couldn't keep up the quality, so they dropped half an hour and went to doing four half hours a week and that helped.
It came along at an important time. Local content was being threatened and it was important that we have a show that clicked with the public and fortunately The Sullivans did. It was made with a lot of dedication, everyone became quickly very proud of it because there was such attention to detail, but really when you are doing that kind of workload you don't start thinking 'oh, this is ground breaking television that is going to be talked about for years!' It was just luck in a way, a lot of good shows bite the dust pretty quickly and don't get a chance to get into the audience's psyche, but The Sullivans did.
So when do you think people started to realise?
I think it was probably after the first six months, as the press responded to it, and the public started responding to the people in the street. Melbourne particularly is a city which is very loyal to its television actors. I think because Crawfords filmed so much in that city, they really have an awareness of the industry. So it was a very good city to make that show in, because the people got keen on the show very quickly. But I've never really thought that any of the show's I've been fortunate enough to work on, that people would still be talking about them several years on.
Well, it's now thirty years since it first began.
(Gasp, then laughter). Well, I think there's still a loyal little band out there that still remembers it and that's fantastic. It was a lovely show, it was well cast with good scripts and it's lovely to have that kind of show in your memory.
Poor Auntie Rose died one New Year's Eve, didn't she?
Oh, I'd never been very keen to stay very long in the show, although I'd probably have a different attitude now! Crawfords did ask me to stay on, but I had just made up my mind that I was leaving, partly because I was commuting between Sydney and Melbourne every week. I was always at the airport and it was just relentless doing that every weekend and I didn't want to move to Melbourne because my husband was living in Sydney, so for personal reasons it just seemed silly to keep going.
They asked me if I wanted to get TB and go into a clinic for six months! I said I didn't want to get TB, I just wanted to go, so they said 'well, we'll kill you'. I got a tiny bit miffed about being killed because you do realise it is absolutely permanent, but that was that! So, the next thing I knew was that we were having a picnic on the banks of the Yarra and Auntie Rose skipped off to get the champagne which had been put in the water to cool and she never came back! She just left a ruby slipper on the bank! But Harry found himself someone else in no time at all really, the next thing you know you had got Lou, so the sorrow didn't last long. I went of and did Comedy of Errors in Sydney, so I went from soap to Shakespeare!
Well, everyone remembers Prisoner, which has a huge fan base.
Oh yes, particularly in Great Britain, I think. I really had a very brief brush with Prisoner. When I went into it they originally said they wanted the character for three months and that was agreed to, and then the next thing was I was in and out in a month! It's because the writers and the management were very nervous of the character because she was so vile, so they just backed off totally and I killed myself and that was the end of “The Beast”!
So that wasn't how it was originally meant to be?
No. One of the reasons I got the role was because they wanted to have a real clash with “The Freak”, so they wanted someone tall, but then I never even met her. I think the storyline was that “The Freak” had been suspended, so the only thing Maggie (Kirkpatrick) did was shove me into a cell and then she disappeared. By the time she came back into the prison I was dead!
I think I had a couple of scenes in the first week I worked and then a couple of scenes in the last week, and I was very busy creating absolute mayhem for a couple of weeks, tearing the joint apart, and then suddenly she was gone.
Was it fun to play while you were there.
Oh yes, it was fun to play her because I don't think she had a single redeeming feature. She was a psychopath! Some people don't like playing bad characters but I do, I think they're interesting. I don't approve of violence for the sake of it, it can be a fine line. So maybe it is good it didn't go on too long and maybe she would have crossed that line. But it was a great show to work on, because the girls were great and I've kept in touch with a couple of them ever since. That was the first time I ever met Genevieve Lemon and we've done a couple of plays together since.
Another character you are still fondly remembered for is Dorothy Burke in Neighbours.
Yes. Dorothy came along very unexpectedly and I'd never thought about going into something like that again, but I was glad I did. It took quite a long time to find my feet but again there were some terrific people to work with.
The writers were good to me. I enjoyed particularly working with actors like Kristian Schmidt and Ben Guerens, who's since gone to drama school and is working as an actor now, which is great. And of course there were people like Natalie Imbruglia who's had huge success.
Dorothy had a succession of young charges like Toby and Phoebe, was that the first time you'd worked so closely with child co-stars?
Yes, it was. I loved Simone (Phoebe), she was a gorgeous girl. Simone, Ben and I used to have a lot of fun together. When young actors are good, and those two are good, it's a joy to work with them. Ben had a great sense of humour, we had a lot of giggles. I still keep in touch with Kristian (Todd). He's married now and he's been to drama school and is out there working as an actor, doing some interesting things. Yes, I loved working with that lot, they were terrific.
When Dorothy first came into the show I think the audience expected her to be a Mrs Mangel type character, didn't they?
Yes, I think that's inevitable, because you've got to have that sort of character. But no-one could do what Vivean Gray did. She had that kind of role a bit in The Sullivans as Mrs Jessup and she's just fantastic at that work. But there's always a dark-haired “witch-bitch” on a soap who's hanging around, they're not often blonde – that's my lot in life! It shifted a bit over time, I think it's one of those things when you go on a very established show, the writers need a period to see what your best bits are and then they pick it up and go with that. I think some of the writing in Neighbours is terrific. Given what they do, they are an amazing bunch.
Dorothy's storylines were a mix of comedy and drama, which did you prefer?
I'm happy with either. The main thing for me is who you are working with. When Sue Jones came into the show (Pam Willis) I think she's such a terrific actor and I had some good storylines with her. And Anne Charleston, we'd worked together before on another soap, and Anne Haddy, God rest her soul, I loved working with Anne. A couple of the people I was working with weren't on the same wavelength as me, and sometimes that was a little difficult, but it didn't happen very often.
Of the roles I've asked you about, and the ones I haven't, is there one that stands out for you as a favourite?
Oh, I don't know. I guested in a series called Kingswood Country a few times playing an ex-flight attendant who was an alcoholic, that was always nice to do. I'm probably fonder of Auntie Rose in retrospect than when I was doing it because at the time we always seemed to be so rushed and I enjoyed The Mavis Bramston Show because it struck such a chord with the audience, and also I was working with Gordon Chater, who was a bit of an idol of mine, so to find myself actually in a series with him was such a thrill. I think they were all favourites really, but for different reasons.
