N.Z. actress kept busy in Sydney

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33384, 16 November 1973, Page 5

N.Z. actress kept busy in Sydney

Cecily Polson, the former Christchurch actress who has found a professional niche in Sydney, has no plans for returning to New Zealand. Abounding in energy and enthusiasm, she finds the Australian show business scene very stimulating and challenging. The Australian film industry is booming again, she says, with many overseas directors coming to work on location. Recently she was part of

the ’“boom,” working a film starring Gregory Peck. She 1 had just one small scene as an Australian housewife, but it was an exciting experience. “GREAT THRILL” “It was a great thrill meeting Gregory Peck, though we didn’t work together. He is just as you would imagine him, a softlyspoken, warm, gentle man,” she said. “He shook my hand and I didn’t want to wash it for a week.” Miss Polson has been visiting her mother, Mrs T. G. Polson, at Holmwood Road. It is something of a family , reunion as she has not been home for more than three years. Although she gets “terribly homesick” for New Zealand at times, she is, she says, very happy with life and her career in Sydney, where she has a flat at Darling Point. Now working free-lance, she is kept very busy with radio drama, schools broadcasts, commercials, and television. “Conditions and money are so much better there than here,” she said. “There are very few full-time actors out of work now.” A spirit of nationalism had gripped the Australian theatre scene in the last two years, with playwrights such as David Williamson having

much critical and box office success. Although she has not done much stage work recently, Miss Polson has had a part in an all-Australian radio production.. She has no inclination, however, to try her luck in the Australian “Peyton Place,” television’s “No 96.” The contract for actors contains a clause in which the actor agrees to strip if that is what the script requires. And that is what is holding Miss Polson back—in common, she says, with many local actors. “It’s not that I feel there’s anything wrong in it,” she said, “I would just feel too embarrassed.” Now she is waiting for news of a project that might mean six months television work. Recently she had a trip to Fiji to film a pilot for a proposed television series for the American market. She has the role of the mother of an American family which “opts out” for life in the islands. It is aimed, she says, at children, but has yet to be given the goahead. However, she will not be too disappointed if it does not go through. She enjoys the variety of free-lance work. Next Tuesday she starts work on a new radio Play.