Star dislikes her wardrobe

Press, 10 March 1987, Page 11

Star dislikes her wardrobe

Lorraine Bayly does not like many of the outfits she wears as the vital, hard-talking twenties lawyer, Jennifer Carson, in “Carson’s Law,” screening on Two at 9.00 tonight. “They’re not waisted garments, and seeing my waist is my best feature, I try and show it off,” she says. “I like to feel comfortable, and that’s why I don’t wear frilly clothes. I like simple garments that don’t have bows and a severe look about them. In her last role on New Zealand television, Lorraine did not have a waistline to speak of — she did away with it in the quest for authenticity. Portraying Eileen Bond, wife of the Perth tycoon, Alan Bond, in the miniseries “The Challenge,” Lorraine felt obliged to follow her path ... during the nail-biting lead-up to the 1983 America’s Cup Challenge Eileen "ballooned” by 7kg.

Putting on the weight was painless enough. Lorraine just sat down and ate anything in sight — “it was heaven." But when filming finished Lorraine was faced with the task of losing the weight. “At 157 cm (5 feet 2 inches), every extra kilogram on me looks dreadful. If I ever do another part which calls for weight-gain, I think I’ll just stick to plenty of bulky padding and forget about the ‘reality.’ It was fun putting the weight on but murder taking it off.”