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Popular
soap starlet Paula Duncan started on the road to success with the role of
chirpy Carol Finlayson in Number 96 in 1974. She had suffered an
early setback after being told by a teacher from the National Institute of
Dramatic Arts that she did not have the talent to be a successful actor. [1] Despite this Duncan quickly became highly popular in a
series of leading roles in popular soap operas. In Number 96 young wine-bar waitress Carol was
more than just another pretty starlet for the show that was at the time
ranked as Australia’s most-watched television program, she was sister to the
highly popular Don Finlayson character (played by Joe Hasham)
and would live with him and his boyfriend Dudley in Flat 4 (AKA “The Girls’
Dormitory”), staying in the role several months.
Eventually
the character was written out of the series and though Duncan later mused that the probable reason
for this was her inexperience as an actress, viewing her Number 96 episodes today reveals that she was as good there as she would ever
be. A classic soap opera actress adept at showing heart-rending concern, at
being generally bright and bubbly, as well as being an expert crier, Duncan
would go on to act in several soaps over the years. She would play an uptight
nurse in The Young Doctors and much later, in 1988, would
play a rather earnest policeman’s wife for the twelve months that serial Richmond Hill remained in production. However
it is for the intervening role of Danni Francis in the popular Cop Shop that she received the greatest
popular - and critical - plaudits.
PAULA DUNCAN JOINS COP
SHOP
Duncan’s role in Cop Shop came about after a meeting with Ian Crawford where he asked her to
audition for the role of a bisexual young policewoman in a new series to be
produced by Crawford’s Productions. Though Duncan
was reluctant at first to move from her home in Sydney
to take up a role in a Melbourne
made program her actress sister Carmen encouraged her to audition for the
part. Cop Shop’s producer Marie Trevor directed Duncan at her audition and after playing the scene four
different ways as directed Duncan
felt sure she had the role.
A week later
the phone rang and Duncan
had the part of policewoman Danni Francis. Arriving in Melbourne Duncan was
soon greeted by co-star Greg Ross, and later befriended another of her
co-stars, and fellow Sydneysider, Joanna Lockwood. Duncan had spied Lockwood at the Sydney auditions and had judged her as
competition for the role of Danni Francis. Lockwood was in fact playing the
stripper, a role Duncan
would never have taken on. Joanna Lockwood, like Duncan,
had left behind a husband in Sydney
and was commuting back and forth.
As Duncan met her remaining
co-stars there were other familiar faces; Peter Adams had worked with her in Number 96 while Tony Bonner had once dated older sister Carmen. Duncan had never met
Terry Norris before, but he would become like a second father to her. As
filming got underway it transpired that Paula Duncan’s character had been
straightened-out. She was no longer bisexual, and was developed as the kind
hearted character of the series.
Despite
previous television work Duncan admits she had
remained ignorant of the technical side of television in her earlier roles,
though Tony Bonner would teach Duncan
to act to the camera while George Mallaby provided
acting tips of his own. The Cop Shop cast became great friends and the
show’s ratings soared. After the long hours of shooting the cast would
frequently party on together. Meanwhile Joanna Lockwood and Paula Duncan were
soon moved into the same accommodation unit; a plush, old-style city hotel.
After her initial contract expired Duncan
didn’t hesitate to renew with the show, but at the same time came her first
blow when co-star Tony Bonner, who played Danni’s lover in the show, decided
to leave. Adamant he wouldn’t be returning Tony insisted his Cop Shop character be killed off.
While
Paula Duncan was away ill a new co-star arrived. John Orcsik
would play hunky Greek detective Mike Georgiou, though as Joanna Lockwood
warned this new actor was nothing like Tony Bonner but rather a self-assured
stud who drove a red Monaro
and wore his shirts unbuttoned to the waist, frequently accompanied by a
collection of jangling chains around his neck. Duncan reports that when John Orcsik and his too-tight pants first appeared it brought
the first hint of friction to the Cop Shop set; basically the two actors
clashed. She thought him arrogant, he thought her snooty and stuck-up.
However those clever scriptwriters spotted a handsome couple when they saw
one and soon devised an on-again, off-again romance for Mike and Danni.
Orcsik
had joined the show on a thirteen-week contract but would stay in the role
until the series ended six years later. Duncan
would also continue through to the show’s demise. Another cast addition that
ruffled a few feathers was that of glamorous former beauty-queen and The Young Doctors starlet Lynda Stoner who would come in as
sexy policewoman Amanda King. Though Stoner’s pouty sexual allure was never
doubted Paula Duncan was worried about her acting abilities. Meanwhile Joanna
Lockwood, who played the shrill and buxom former stripper Valerie Johnson
(who was billed as the “The Big V” at her strip club), worried that the
addition of the sultry blonde with ripe figure and yearning eyes would
overshadow the existing female characters.
Certainly
Paula Duncan with her trim figure, warm and perky character and pretty little
face was the sort of girl that the show’s female fans would approve of; she
was your girl-next-door type sex-symbol. Meanwhile luscious Lynda with her
lip-glossed pout, throaty voice and long blond mane was just the sort of
female cop that many blokes fantasised about.
In fact
the scriptwriters soon arranged for Amanda King and her abundant sexuality to
be thrown into an affair with Mike causing Danni to become jealous, though
instead of becoming rivals Paula and Lynda became friends away from the set.
Paula and John would soon manage to get over their initial frosty reaction to
one another and fall for each other in real-life. After dealing with a couple
of pesky earlier marriages the glamorous stars would in June 1982 be wed in a
fairy-tale wedding that had sales of TV Week magazine soaring.
It was
not all plain sailing however. Paula Duncan had problems with her previous
marriage which she had been unsuccessful in having annulled. When the
pressure got too much Duncan
tried to find a solution with a carefully measured dose of sleeping tablets
and some brandy. Luckily John Orcsik arrived home
early and intervened before Duncan
could come to any harm. The event was not widely reported at the time. This
and many other aspects of the lives of Paula Duncan and John Orcsik - and of John’s former wife Maggie Strike - are,
however, candidly detailed in the sensitive 1994 book The Mother of My Son by Paula Duncan with Maggie Strike. [2]
The
wedding went ahead and emcee at the reception was Cop Shop co-star Gil Tucker who gleefully
produced nude pin-up shots of Orcsik, demurely
posed with strategically-placed gun, which had been taken years earlier for
the Truth newspaper. Orcsik had a history of
appearing in nude and sexy depictions: he was a bit part stud and hang
gliding enthusiast in The Man from Hong Kong (1975) said to be able to stay up
all day (while hang gliding) in a scene where a well-inflated wind sock indicates
the potency of the gale. He also enacted a gay kiss with actor Joe Hasham in the 1974 Number 96 feature film. Though the film as viewed today
does feature several carefully posed nude sequences during the provocative
same-sex-seduction sequence, the offending kiss that was brutally snipped
from all prints of the film shortly after its release seems missing for all
time.
In the
film Orcsik played latent homosexual Simon Carr.
First an unwilling Simon is pursued by the lascivious and grasping schemer
Maggie Cameron (Bettina Welch). Then he is seduced by the beautiful and
voluptuous Vera Collins (Elaine Lee). In Simon and Vera’s daring bedroom
scene, Orcsik must deploy all his considerable
acting talent to feign sexual indifference and impotence, all the while
attempting conceal his bashful costar’s naked breasts from camera view.
Luckily
such scandal was forgotten by the time Cop Shop and its handsome, clean-cut young
stars became media darlings. Nevertheless John Orcsik
continued to be regarded as a sex symbol through his run in Cop Shop. He told TV Week that “Georgiou was never meant to
be a glamour role. It’s not my doing - it was more the press and the public -
but it’s obvious that’s what he has become. The idea that I may be stuck with
this image is constantly at the back of my mind. That’s why, at times, I
pressure Crawfords to let me play under-cover
characters. This shows different facets.” Orcsik
added that despite some drawbacks the image did present its benefits: “I’m
working,” he said. [3] Maybe that’s why, despite seeing
the dangers in the sex symbol image, Orcsik so
readily posed for all those TV Week photo spreads wearing just his
Speedos.
Never
willing to waste free publicity the Cop Shop scriptwriters eventually had
Danni and Mike get married in the show, much to the delight of soap opera
fans and entertainment
reporters everywhere. The TV wedding was an elaborate Greek-style affair
which generated masses of mail from fans who wrote as if they were close
personal friends of the fictional Mike and Danni.
Duncan’s subsequent pregnancy posed only
a small problem for the show’s scriptwriters; the married Danni Francis would
also be pregnant in the show. Such topical issues as struggling with
impending motherhood and juggling a career and pregnancy were explored. Soon
co-star Lynda Stoner was in the same condition and viewers were treated to
the sight of Cop Shop’s two main sex-symbols fighting crime with
the biggest breasts on television, even if the dual pregnancy presented
somewhat a problem for the show’s long term storylines. In any event no one
needed to worry about this situation for long because, though it had once
rated in the 40s, Cop Shop’s ratings had by this time
dropped to 21. While 21 is still a quite a respectable viewing figure, with
the decline in ratings Cop Shop was not renewed, and the series
came to an end after 582 episodes.
After Cop Shop finished production in December 1983 John Orcsik
set up a production company. Duncan
would go on to act in a pilot, Matthew and Son, co-starring former The Sullivans and Matlock Police star Paul Cronin. Despite the
reviews commending Duncan’s
performance in this telemovie it never got off the
ground as a regular series. After a much publicised cameo appearance in Neighbours
Duncan would
spend three-months playing dizzy con-woman Lorelei Wilkinson in Prisoner during 1986, the show’s final
year. Lorelei has emerged as one the better-remembered characters from that
series which has since achieved cult status in several countries. John Orcsik had earlier written episodes of Prisoner
in 1984 and 1985.
As their
TV characters had mimicked their real-life romance, their marriage would
itself ultimately follow the soap opera formula and end in divorce. After
playing a rather dull and frumpy character in Richmond Hill Duncan would continue to act in comedic
television commercials for household cleaning products and weight-loss centres, and would do volunteer work raising funds and
assisting the disabled. Orcsik would also continue
acting, appearing in the long-running Neighbours series and making a cameo
appearance as a doctor in miniseries Day of the Roses (1998).
The
eternal soap starlet, Paula Duncan would eventually find herself back in a
regular soap role in Paradise Beach (1993), and would follow that up with an
appearance in another sunny soap-by-the-surf Breakers (1999), though sadly neither show
would emerge as a long-running success. As of 2008 Duncan is still active on the fund raising
scene, and is still regularly seen in television advertisements.
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