Actress waits for law suit

Press, 19 May 1989, Page 2

Actress waits for law suit

PA Wellington Davina Whitehouse (above), a veteran New Zealand actress, - says she is being threatened with a law suit for $500,000 by a British actor, the Press Association reports. “I can only describe the whole thing as bizarre but I’m taking it seriously,” she said.

Radio New Zealand yesterday said that during a recent public meeting to campaign for New Zealand content on television, Television New Zealand was criticised for importing an actor, Robert Hardy, to front advertisements

promoting TVNZ. Hardy is best known in New Zealand for his role in “All Creatures Great and Small,”, the English series abdut a small veterinary practice.

Whitehouse was captured on videotape at the meeting singing a little ditty about falling stars coming to New Zealand, which was later broadcast on a television news programme.

Last Friday afternoon she was telephoned by a tabloid newspaper, informing her Hardy was suing her for $500,000.

“That was bizarre. I hung up and within a quarter of an hour I was rung from what purported to be London, and I do believe it was London, from a lawyer calling himself Cartwright. “It went in one ear, out the mother, and he also repeated this and I can only say that the whole thing is totally bizarre.” Whitehouse said she believed the call was genuine, although there had been nothing in writing.