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THE GLAMOROUS STARS OF COP SHOP |
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- A taste of the media frenzy the followed the Cop Shop cast - |
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Contents |
PAULA
DUNCAN
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. JOHN
ORCSIK
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. THE
WEDDING OF PAULA AND JOHN
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 SHOPAfter 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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Originally uploaded August 2000 Last updated 13 November 2008 |
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