The best 100 Australian TV characters of all time

 

Georgie Parker, one of the heroines of our top 100 TV characters list. Source: News Limited

 

Debbie Schipp, The Sunday Telegraph, reports

They’ve touched our hearts in Australia's most popular and enduring dramas - and they've done it more than once.

Television screen queens Rebecca Gibney and Georgie Parker, both 48, have proved themselves the masters - or mistresses - of reinvention. Through characters on hit shows including A Country Practice, All Saints, The Flying Doctors and Packed to the Rafters, they have netted three Gold Logies, a swag of silver and outstanding actress awards, and shared in some of Australia's most treasured televised moments.

Both feature in The Sunday Telegraph's list of TV's Top 100 characters - more than once.

Gibney and Parker agreed that making the cut wasn't just down to them. Their success was a combination of great writing, character resolution, and an audience love of Australian voices telling local stories.

Gibney said 30 years ago she would have scoffed at the idea that she'd still be working post 40. "The fact that I'm 48 and still kicking is great," she said.

The mum-of-one's big break came at the age of 19, when she was cast as the girl next door mechanic in The Flying Doctors - a role she played from 1986 to 1991 - and audiences loved her. She was a hit in All Together Now opposite Jon English and by 1994, as cool, Armani-clad Dr Jane Halifax in Halifax f.p. Gibney was a firm favourite with Australian audiences. Her most recent incarnation as Julie Rafter only reinforced that.

"Of all the characters Julie Rafter probably came the easiest because she felt like a combination of all of my sisters," she said.

And it's her role in Rafters that connects to Parker - they share Erik Thomson as a love interest. He plays Mr Rafter and Parker's boyfriend in All Saints. Parker, currently starring as Ruth "Roo" Stewart in Home And Away, first came to prominence as lovable nurse Lucy Gardiner in A Country Practice. She collected Gold Logie number two as All Saints former nun turned nurse with a heart of gold Terri Sullivan.

"It's the character, not the actor, people fall in love with," she says. "The characters are the stars. They captured imagination, they were in good shows and they hit a nerve, so that the audience wanted what was best for them."

Television screen queens Rebecca Gibney and Georgie Parker, both 48, have proved themselves the masters-or mistresses - of reinvention.

Jolene Anderson's tribute for All Saints co-star Mark Priestley

Mark Priestley and Jolene Anderson in "All Saints."Source: Supplied

The Sunday Telegraph reports

Nearly five years after actor Mark Priestley tragically took his own life, fellow All Saints actor Jolene Anderson has recorded a moving tribute.

Anderson, who played Erica Templeton in the TV drama, has put her voice to a track called Don't Let The Darkness In to raise money and awareness for the Black Dog Institute.

"Depression is like this big cloud that comes over you," Anderson, 32, says.

"Mark's death was really, really tough. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through."

Priestley took his own life in August 2007, aged 32.

He and Anderson played on-screen husband and wife on All Saints.

The Logie Award nominee was the 2007 winner of reality singing show It Takes Two. Partnered with David Campbell, she took out the crown and was offered a recording contract.

But she declined and hasn't touched music publicly since.

"I'd love to do a film that had a music aspect to it but other than that, if I wanted to pursue a career in music, my moment has passed," she said.

Anderson recently wrapped production on a short film called Beyond Memories. It will screen at the Cannes Film Festival.

To support the initiative, visit dontletthedarknessin.com.

Lifeline 13 11 14

Danielle Spencer set for acting return after split with Russell Crowe

Danielle Spencer hits the red carpet. Source: Supplied

Annette Sharp, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Thirteen years after she abandoned her acting career to reconcile with an old famous boyfriend, Danielle Spencer has started having talks with producers about returning to the screen.

It is the latest move by mother-of-two Spencer to reclaim her life after separating from husband of nine years Russell Crowe last year.

Eight months after she and Crowe were last photographed together, Spencer is moving ahead with her reclamation project.

There are not only acting plans in the wind but also plans to resume her musical career.

Last week sources said the change in Spencer since Crowe left Australia for the US and the glory of the Academy Awards season two weeks ago is complete and obvious.

She is no longer withdrawn, inaccessible and looking stressed, her expression pinched as she powers through the eastern suburbs on her weekday morning walk.

To neighbours who have been watching her for the past 12 months - since she moved her two young sons Charlie, 9, and Tennyson, 7, out of a Woolloomooloo Wharf apartment and into the $10 million Rose Bay home her husband didn't want - the 43-year-old appears finally to have found her smile.

She now cuts a cheerful figure as she strides through the neighbourhood, waving and smiling to those who once regarded her as "aloof".

She has actually started laughing on the streets, they report excitedly.

A close friend said that in private and public, Spencer is cracking jokes again: "She was always a natural comedienne, but we haven't seen that side for such a long time. Now she's back in top form.

"She has what she needs and is happy."

For Spencer it seems the burden of being married to one of the world's biggest film stars was always going to be too great for a woman who prized her own independence.

Now buoyant following the couple's official separation - a subject which neither has yet discussed on the record since it was first disclosed in October - the silver-maned singer-songwriter with the fiercely proud bearing is looking for new opportunities and adventure. As well she should. She can, say those who know, afford them.

Despite speculation that Spencer signed a pre-nup before their 2003 wedding, guaranteeing her a minimum $15 million payout, there is no such binding financial agreement.

Without a pre-nup she is, by rights, entitled to 50 to 60 per cent of Crowe's fortune which, if estimates are to be believed, is worth a conservative $80 million, putting Spencer in a powerful negotiating position.

But Spencer, we're informed, is not greedy.

"Dani doesn't want to be defined as being someone's wife," a friend said. "She really is her own person and knows Russell will look after her and the boys, so she doesn't have her hand out for a lot."Divorce is a "work in progress", the friend added last week.

Crowe, who zealously shoots down all rumoured new attachments - the latest to Natalie Imbruglia, with whom he was photographed in the States last month - is possibly still holding out for a reconciliation. Spencer is not.

Her boys remain her highest priority and she is said to be hopeful the estranged couple will continue to share custody of their two sons.

Crowe is expected back in Australia shortly to continue work on the development of a locally produced film which promises to keep him closer to home this year. His long absences in 2011 and last year due to film work are believed to have contributed to the breakdown of the couple's marriage.

However, now liberated, Spencer has much to celebrate. She has her life back, her town back, her privacy restored, and even, for the time being, her two sons back under her roof 24/7.

She has long been regarded as a gifted actress and so a return to the screen now fills her with excitement.

Spencer became a household name in Australia after joining the cast of popular TV series The Flying Doctors in 1989. She worked steadily as an actress until 2000, when she appeared in TV series All Saints and Beastmaster.

But when Crowe, whom she'd dated from 1989 to 1992, swept her off her feet in 2001, Spencer appeared to cut her ties with her profession.