Bo Bo Faulkner in town

Press, 9 December 1976, Page 16

Bo Bo Faulkner in town

By

LEONE STEWART

Bo Bo Faulkner is pleased not to have been asked whether she likes Australian men. The “Dorset dumpling,” as she once described herself, has some problems with the image both the Australian public and the media have of her.

In the early days of her career in journalism she was regarded by some as a “blue stocking.” Now she seems stuck with the glamour girl tag. Neither pleases her. New Zealanders are just as confused. “Who is Bo Bo Faulkner anyway?” they have been asking since she introduced herself to television viewers on a deodorant commercial a few years ago. In Christchurch this week to do a series of television commercials on location, she recapped the stages of her career since an invitation from “Vogue” magazine took her to Australia nine years ago. The short answer to the question is that Bo Bo Faulkner has been a television journalist and personality, and a newspaper columnist.

She is now an aspiring playwright. She also makes television commercials. The latter exercise is now a means of building an independent investment income while she is in her thirties.

Ten years ago in England Bo Bo Faulkner was married and mothering, working in public relations, and doing only a little modelling. Then came an invitation from “Vogue” and Myers of department store fame, for an English model to take part in an international fashion parade in Australia. All the other models were mildly horrified at the prospect of visiting the far off land of Ned Kelly and assorted other characters at the height of the London fashion season. But her adventurous spirit, the part of her that is a “bit of a rolling stone,” thought the assignment sounded interesting. As she once told it: “I didn’t know what to do, I just followed the girl in front of me.” In fact, all she had to do was slim after the birth of her baby.

Of course it was obvious Miss Faulkner knew exactly what she was doing. Not for nothing was she chosen as the Cool Charm woman — composed, assured, seeming to know where she is going and why. That short, six months of modelling keeps coming back to haunt her. Recently she was furious to read of herself described as an international model. The lucrative television commercials perpetuate the image of just a pretty face. GLAMOUR ANGLE That she disclaims. "I’m past being called a pretty face now,” she said. “Though people always put the glamour angle first.” When she left full-time television and became a columnist for the national daily, the "Australian,” people asked her if she wrote her own copy. Luck has played an important part in her success. It is a story in the show biz tradition. And it is impossible not to wonder whether she would have got the breaks in Australia if her intelligence had not been contained in brunette, leggy, and very photogenic good looks. Her first major break came in the Melbourne-based “Today” show, with the television journalist, Mike Walsh. She was asked to replace the then “Miss Australia” who was to supply the feminine — and presumably glamorous presence — but chose a European trip instead. Bo Bo Faulkner chose a new life in Australia. Then separated from her husband, she returned to England to collect her baby daughter,

Sasha, and settled into the hectic routine of doing a breakfast television show. The “Today” show was telecast from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., a subsitite morning newspaper of hard news and interviews. Bo Bo Faulkner covered both. After two years on “Today” she moved to Sydney and her own news and views show, Bo Bo’s Late Show. Three mornings a week she was continuity announcer for the channel’s morning soap operas, linking all the “slush” they put on for housebound women. Being the network personality, “Channel 9’s bird” became repugant. She stayed with the channel for three years, until she “couldn’t stand it any more.” TO CANBERRA Then came a sojourn in Canberra. There she did a series of six interview programmes, called simply. Personal. They were “intimate” conversations with influential politicians, such as Gough Whitlam, Sir Mark Oliphant, recently retired governor of South Australia, Andrew Peacock, now Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“The men were very relaxed with me because they knew I was not out to boil them in oil, or make the next day’s headlines. I was able to draw out their personality. At times they felt a bit left-footed because they thought I was asking a trick question when I wasn’t.”

About this time Bo Bo Faulkner also became a panelist on an advice programme similar to Television One’s Beauty and the Beast. Chaired by John Laws, Australian radio personality and poet, it refused to take itself seriously and often became, she recalls, very ribald. THE “OTHER SIDE” And for the Australian Broadcasting Commission she wrote and produced a documentary series, putting the other side of women’s liberation. "In Defence of Men” became rather frustrating because she lacked total, professional control. Recalling it, she sweeps back her long, brown hair in a gesture of irritation. Writing her weekly newspaper column became allconsuming. “Initially it appeared on the paper’s women’s page, which, thank God, they no longer have. Then they moved me to the editorial page. I considered that a great honour, to be there among a lot of very intellectual writers,” she said.

Her column was invariably thought-provoking, always

refreshingly readable. Inevitably it became a “tremendous strain” to maintain her standards of subject matter worthy of a national newspaper.

And the stage play? “I’m working on an idea of a man who invites all his ex wives home for Christmas.” Obviously she delights in the intricate Variations and implications that that could involve.

Meanwhile, the commercials go on apace. Bo Bo Faulkner is particular about what she will do. Each contract is overseen by a lawyer. Each has a clause pertaining to taste. Cigarette advertisements are refused on principle. Now she also has a big say in the scripts. No more expecting her to say lines with which she feels uncomfortable. Whatever the product she hopes the viewers see her as friendly, approachable. “I’m just myself.”

The palmy days of advertising—“the big, expensive lunches, sloshing around on water beds, suede shoes”— are, she believes, finished in Australia. Bankruptcies have forced rationalisation. “Though a lot of television

commercials are appallin' standards are rising.” Bo Bo Faulkner seems t be untroubled by a big eg' Only in her television da; has she found the attitude > her male colleagues offe sive. Then she found she h to assert herself. “Women are consider very inferior in the tele vision world. They were always hostesses. Men wanted to dominate the programmes. The men in administration too, treated their female staff very badly. “But that is improving,” she said. “There are now more women in Australian boardcasting and many more women doing hard news on television. I’m very glad to see it. Yes, I suppose I was a pioneer there, though I didn’t realise it at the time.” Of what achievement in her career so far is she most proud? “The column,” she replied. And about those Australian men. Well, Bo Bo Faulkner has married again. Her husband is an Australian businessman, That seemed to make the question superfluous.