‘Opportunity’ host may be asked to leave

Press, 13 April 1978, Page 15

‘Opportunity’ host may be asked to leave

Robin Stewart, the frontman for TV2’s “Opportunity Knocks.” which will begin a new season next Saturday, is still technically an overstayer. His second six-month permit to stay in New Zealand expired last month, and he has not yet received an answer from the immigration authorities to his application for permanent residence. Robin Stewart wants to make New Zealand his home base — “I like the country and the people,” he says — and to work perhaps for three months abroad. He has been a member of American Equity since i 960, and of the association of actors who work in television in the United States. “I think I am alien number 604 — in other words the 604th British actor to be allowed to work in the United States,” he said yesterday. He has been, for a long time, a member of Actors Equity in Britain. With the late Sid James, he costarred in the comedy series, “Bless This House.” Stewart first came to

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New Zealand as one of the stars in South Pacific Television’s 1976 Telethon. He was joined by his wife, who worked for a period as a publicity officer for TV2 before she went to Australia last year. Robin Stewart says that uncertainty about his residency status is rather unsettling. “It would certainly be less strain as far as doing the show is concerned to know one way or the other,” he said.

To make it worse, people keep coming up to him, congratulating him on his being allowed to stay in New Zealand. “But 1 have no idea what will happen,” he says. “I believe they are working on it now in VVelBy KEN COATES

lington. 1 could get a letter tomorrow, telling me to go.” This year “Opportunity Knocks” has been transferred from Thursdays to Saturdays at 6.15 p.m. — opposite TVls pop show, “Ready to Roll” and the main 6.30 news bulletin. It will also run a full 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes. The contest will run through a series of quar-ter-finals and semi-finals, and the grand final, on Saturday, September 16, will be telecast “live.” There will be five competitors in each heat, and the winner of each heat will make a guest appearance during the next heat. Each of the four heat Winners, and the four acts which score the next places in the group of four heats, will then contest the semi-finals. Sharon Tuapawa, winner of “Opportunity Knocks” last year, will make a

guest appearance in heat one. The recording of her performance was made when she appeared in Australia in the “Mike Walsh Show,” as part of her prize. Contestants in the first heat are Tony Wood, of Auckland, who will sing one of his own compositions, “Funny Feeling”; Linley Rouse, of Auckland, singing “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?”; Momentum., a dance group, of Auckland; Mike Rose, of Wellington, classical guitarist, playing “Cancion Triste”; and Peter and the Asi sisters, aged from 16 to 20, of Auckland, singing “Operator.”