Weird and wonderful roles for Pamela Stephenson

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 15

Weird and wonderful roles for Pamela Stephenson

From

KEN COATES,

in London

Although Takapuna-bom Pamela Stephenson left New Zealand at the age- of four, her Australian drama teachers did her a favour.

They told her she was too pretty to be interesting and made her play unusual roles. Today, she is a star of 8.8. C. television’s “Not the Nine O’Clock News,” which opens on New Zealand Television tonight, and which is into its fourth series as a top-rating programme popular with millions throughout Britain. Pamela is still playing a wide range of weird and wonderful roles. Her parents, both cancer research scientists, moved from Auckland to ‘Sydney where Pamela and her two younger sisters grew up. As therapy after a mild attack of polio, she took dancing lessons at five, learned the piano and later, after becoming keen on mateur drama, enrolled at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. “They would never allow me to play the heroine, or any girl my age,” she says. “So I was cast as everything from fat 40-year-olds and slovenly old women to men and boys. “I loved it though — the further away the character was from me, the more I was stimulated by it” The Pamela Stephhenson we know today emerged briefly at an audition- for agents at the end of the course. She gave a monologue about a character who appeared in a strip club as atopless highwayman. Pamela spent a period in repertory'in Perth and was a notable success in “Assault With a Deadly Weapon,” a political drama which transferred to Sydney and won excellent reviews. Among many TV roles was the female lead in 32 episodes of a detective series, “Ryan,” as the detective’s secretary — a time she looks

back on as particularly frustrating. “The part was too limiting, and. although I tried to make the detective ill so I could tackle a case alone, it did not work,” she recalls.

A novel TV experience was portraying leading ladies in “The Yeoman of the Guard” and “The Violins of St Jacques” so that real opera singers’ voices could be superimposed over hers.

“I had to learn a complicated score and correct breathing. Then I let it rip in the studio, knowing that it would be someone else's voice the viewers would hear.

"My suffering leading man stuffed his ears with wads of cotton wool while I gave an angelic, heart-rending earsplitting performance gazing into his eyes.” Although her voice was not quite up to opera standard, it brought major roles in stage musicals, among them “Cabaret” and “Gypsy.”

She joined Australia’s bestknown theatre company, the Old Tote, and played two lead roles in the opening season: Queen Isabel In “Richard II” and Polly Peachum in a production of "The Threepenny Opera.”

After further roles at the Sydney Opera House, she decided to take a look at theatre in other countries. "I acted on instinct because I know what travelling would do for me, v she recalls.

Travelling alone with little money she saw productions in Manila, Japan and the Soviet Union.

By the time she reached

Poland.she was “hooked on political theatre.” She arrived in Instanbul just after a military coup and in West Germany she regularly went into East Berlin to see the Berlin Ensemble at work.

She also visited France, Italy, Greece and Hungary. “It was all magic,” she says. “But after three months behind the Iron Curtain, I was very tired and very cold.

“My money was running out fast so after wandering about Paris wondering about my next meal, I cashed in my air ticket (which would have taken her to Spain and the United States) and arrived in London with just £ 30 ($70).”

She knew no-one and admits to feeling “a bit frightened” after ringing all the accommodation in a guide book “London Under $lO a Day” and finding no vacancies because it was the height of the tourist season.

A man who saw her leafing through the guide book took her under his wing and invited her to a dinner where she met a girl who arranged for Pamela to stay at her sister’s place.

From there, a whole series of fortuitous meetings led to Pamela’s career taking off in Britain with roles in popular TV series, including "Space 1999”, “The Avengers,” “TJie Professionals,” “Hazell,” arid “Target.” .

She also played in theatre, and .once again, it was a chance meeting which led her into “Not the Nine O’Clock News.”

John Lloyd, one of the producers, spotted Pamela at a lunch party. “She was the

most attractive girl there and I got to talk to her. We had not cast an actress at that stage, and I found her very amusing." The programme now pulls in 11 million regular viewers and Pamela is popular for her devastating portrayals of notable pesonalities in political, show business and royal circles — not all of whom will be immediately recognisable to New Zealand viewers.

A stage version, “Not in Front of the Audience,” opens at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, early next month.

Meanwhile, Pamela has recorded “Unusual Treatment,” which will be released in February. A one-woman stage show is being planned for later this year following the success of her first at the Edinburgh Festival in 1980. She is at present to be seen as Mademoisel Rimbard, a French noblewoman in the Mel Brooks feature film, "History of the World,” screening in London. There are more movies in the pipeline.