Latest news with #BlueHeelers
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Williamstown Blue Heelers house could fetch $2.4m
A historic Williamstown house that appeared in the long-running police drama Blue Heelers is poised to cop a $2.19m-$2.4m sale. The circa-1907 home at 8 Thompson St was used in external shots for the television show, alongside its neighbour at 10 Thompson St that served as the fictional Mt Thomas police station. Airing from 1994 to 2006, Blue Heelers starred actors John Wood, Lisa McCune and William McInnes and won 25 Logies. The two properties are heritage-listed as Williamstown's former real-life police station, known as the Sergeant and Watchhouse Keeper quarters. Nowadays, No. 8 features a sitting room that doubles as a fourth bedroom, Baltic pine floors, ornate fretwork, decorative fireplaces, pressed-metal ceilings and a kitchen with a walk-in pantry. It's also set for a significant windfall from its days on the show, with sales records showing it sold for $832,500 in 2003, potentially a $1,567,500 uplift. Jellis Craig's Anthony Christakakis said that council-approved plans to extend the home, accompanied by a garden redesign from Richmond's Eckersley Garden Architecture, were in place. 'The owners who intended to do the extension have moved overseas for work reasons,' he said. 'We have had lots of interest with some young families, especially locals – I think, being on a corner block over 700sq m with the potential to subdivide, subject to council approval, creates endless possibilities.' Mr Christakakis also had the listing for no. 10 that changed hands in June after being advertised with a $2.85m-$3.1m asking range. He declined to comment on the sold price but said the five-bedroom abode was bought by a family. 'They are in the process of getting plans drawn up, I believe, for a renovation,' Mr Christakakis. And plenty of Blue Heelers fans came through the doors during the sales campaign. 'There were many people who came through just to have a look and a lot of people took photos out the front,' he added. No. 8 Thompson St will be auctioned at 10am on August 17.
Sky News AU
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Australia mourns loss of Blue Heelers star and music legend Bobby Bright after his passing at age 80
Bobby Bright, half of the beloved 1960s beat-pop duo 'Bobby & Laurie' and a notable actor on the hit TV series Blue Heelers, has passed away at the age of 80 after battling lung cancer for three years. It marks the end of a remarkable journey that spanned music, television, and live performance. Bright was born Robert Harry Bright on February 3, 1945, in Watford, England and migrated with his mother to Adelaide around 1954, starting an early career as a solo singer throughout the 1960s. In 1964, destiny brought him together with Laurie Allen in Melbourne, and together they formed one of Australia's most memorable pop duos. Their fame rise began with the smash hit 'I Belong with You', which reached No. 1 on the Melbourne charts and later cracked the national top 10. Their follow-up cover 'Hitch Hiker' also claimed the No. 1 spot, solidifying their place in the Australian music history. While the dynamic duo officially parted in 1967, they reunited briefly and continued to perform occasionally until their final concert back in 2002, shortly before Laurie Allen's death. Meanwhile, Bright's career extended beyond music. He appeared on Australian TV most notably in Homicide and served as a DJ at Melbourne's 3XY radio station. In the early 1990s, he also took a vital role as Eddie Nelson in an episode of Blue Heelers. His film credits include a cameo in Queen of the Damned (2002), showcasing his versatility as an actor. In later years, Bright remained active in Melbourne's live entertainment scene and released an autobiography titled Child of Rock and Roll. Bobby Bright's passing marks the end of an era for Australian entertainment after spending five decades in both music and film.
Perth Now
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
‘Scientific': Actor to fight Nazi salute charge
An Australian actor will challenge what exactly constitutes a Nazi salute as he fights a criminal accusation levelled against him. Damien Richardson's lawyer said what exactly equalled a Nazi salute was 'scientific' and 'mathematical', including the gesture-maker's arm angle and finger arrangement. Mr Richardson, an actor from some of Australia's most successful serial dramas, appeared in the Moorabbin Magistrates' Court on Tuesday. He will challenge the definitions of the Nazi salute-banning laws, which took effect in Victoria in late 2023. 'It's a single issue as to the interpretation of the law,' defence lawyer Peter Monagle said in court. 'There seems to be some sort of mathematical formula about the arm and whether the fingers are together.' Damien Richardson was supported by his mother in court on Tuesday. NewsWire / David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia In court on Tuesday, the charge was also amended. Mr Richardson is now charged with did intentionally perform a Nazi gesture by performing a Nazi salute, or a gesture that so resembles a Nazi salute, that it is likely to be confused with or mistaken for a Nazi salute whilst knowing that the gesture is a Nazi gesture and the performance of the gesture occurred in a public place. The case has been scheduled for a two-day contested hearing in November when the prosecution will look to call an expert on what constitutes a Nazi salute. Mr Richardson and his lawyer asked for a sentencing indication from the magistrate this week, which was refused. The police also refused a push for a diversion sentence, which would have meant Mr Richardson avoided a conviction. Mr Monagle also raised the case of Victoria's first Nazi salute conviction – an act Jacob Hersant committed in front of media – when discussing a sentence indication. Hersant is appealing. Mr Monagle also said that a Victoria Police sergeant was not charged for making the salute 'at the police academy two days in a row', though the defence lawyer quickly retracted the statement when magistrate Luisa Bizzani cut him off. 'It was a gesture that was made without thought to what the ramifications could be,' Mr Monagle said of his client's alleged act. Ms Bizzani also rebuffed this point, saying Mr Richardson's statement to police showed he 'knew he could be fined or jailed'. Prosecution lawyer Nicholas La Mattina said the defence conceded 'it was a Nazi gesture but not a Nazi salute'. Mr Richardson starred in Neighbours, Blue Heelers, McLeod's Daughters and Wentworth. NewsWire/Sarah Matray Credit: News Corp Australia The court was told the event at which Mr Richardson allegedly committed the act was livestreamed, and the two-hour recording would be played at the November court date. Another person spoke at the event, and Mr Richardson's lawyer wants the other speaker's section cut from the evidential video so as not to prejudice his case. Outside court, Mr Richardson declined to comment to NewsWire. Mr Monagle reiterated his point about what constitutes a salute. 'I didn't know there were scientific facts involved in this, but we'll see what he says' the lawyer said, referencing the prosecution expert. Mr Richardson had a recurring role on Australian television show Neighbours from 2014 to 2020. He also acted in Blue Heelers, McLeod's Daughters and Wentworth. Without an acting credit to his name since 2021, Mr Richardson unsuccessfully ran for politics in 2022. At the state election that year, he ran for the right-wing Freedom Party. He contested a federal senate seat as an independent. In 2023, the Victorian government criminalised Nazi symbols and gestures. The ban took effect in October of that year. Displaying the Nazi swastika was already illegal before the new laws, but the reform banned further symbols, including the salute. Hersant, a Victorian neo-Nazi, performed the salute on courthouse steps in front of media cameras less than a week after the laws took effect. He was sentenced to a month in prison but is appealing.
ABC News
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Tasma Walton explores a tragic family story in her new novel, I Am Nannertgarrook
Growing up, there was a story actor and author Tasma Walton often heard about one of her Boonwurrung ancestors. According to family legend, Walton's great-great-great grandmother, Nannertgarrook, fell in love with a merchant seaman and ran away with him. But Walton came to realise this story wasn't the full one. It was a "more palatable and romanticised version" of the truth, she tells ABC Radio National's The Book Show. The man wasn't a merchant seaman, and this wasn't a love story. From the late 18th century, seal and whale traders rode the wave of British colonisation, pillaging the oceans in pursuit of their lucrative prey. Operating in treacherous conditions far from home, they relied on First Nations' knowledge to survive. "In the 1830s, [Nannertgarrook] was abducted alongside some of her sister-cousins and their kids by sealers and then taken to the islands off the coast of Tasmania and sold into a sealer slave market," Walton says. Sadly, they weren't the only Aboriginal women subjected to this treatment. "There's a lot written about [the sealers] in the colonial records," Walton says. In I Am Nannertgarrook, Walton's second novel, she tells her ancestor's story, exposing a dark chapter of Australian history. Walton, a Boonwurrung woman born in Geraldton, is a well-known Australian figure, thanks to her roles in television series including Blue Heelers, Mystery Road and The Twelve. She says writing is not all that different to acting: both require world-building and crafting a character's "inner monologue". "It's an extension of the same approach to storytelling," she says. In researching her grandmother's life, Walton uncovered stories of atrocities long obscured by history. "It was very clearly something that we're not taught in schools. We're not shown the true complexity and depth of what was happening and, a lot of the time, we're seeing [history] from a very limited perspective," she says. The fate of Nannertgarrook disproves the widely held belief that slavery has played no part in Australian history. "She was kidnapped by a group of men, she was sold for money to other men and she was their captive to do what they chose with her, which included making her work so that they could earn money off her labour," Walton says. Walton found only a handful of references to her grandmother in colonial-era diaries and journals held in historical archives. To flesh out Nannertgarrook's story in the novel, she relied instead on family stories and contemporary firsthand accounts from other women taken by sealers. Walton wanted to tell the story as a first-person narrative to allow the reader to see the world through Nannertgarrook's eyes. "I don't know what she was thinking. I don't know what she was feeling. I wasn't there. But … I can imagine how it would have felt as a young woman, having to look after kids and try to keep yourself alive," she says. "What I wanted to do with the story was channel a perspective we don't ordinarily see, which is a young black woman … so that, as a reader, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, we can travel in those shoes [and] walk on that songline." As the novel opens, Nannertgarrook is living on Boonwurrung/Woiworung Country on what is now known as the Mornington Peninsula. "When we first meet her, she's happily married and going about women's business as well as her family responsibilities," Walton says. Nannertgarrook and the women and children of her clan are gathered on the shores of the bay, awaiting the seasonal arrival of whales and their calves to the sheltered waters. The whale —betayil in Boonwurrung — is her family's totem and they will celebrate the annual migration and honour Babayin Betayil, the sacred Mother Whale, with a ceremony known as ngargee: "an ebbing and flowing of song and story, dance and drumbeat". As Nannertgarrook lays down by the campfire one night to sleep, her two children close by, the world is as it should be. "All is peaceful. All is perfect," she reflects in the book. Nannertgarrook and the Boonwurrung women were highly skilled skin divers who collected abalone and crayfish from the giant kelp forests on the sea floor. "They were renowned for being able to hold their breath for huge amounts of time," Walton says. "[She's a] Saltwater woman through and through." Walton took great joy in describing the landscape as it would have appeared before colonisation. "Whenever I'm out on Country at different places where there's less city and urban noise, I always imagine what it would have been like," she says. "I really enjoyed writing the first part of the story because I could feel myself in that place, having walked that landscape so much in my lifetime. "Imagining it back in that time when it was fully itself was a lovely experience." Walton evokes a culture rich with ritual and myth that existed in harmony with the natural world. Nannertgarrook's chest is marked with initiation scars, marking her as a mother, and she teaches her children to respect the flora and fauna around their camp, or wilam. As she prepares for ceremony, she uses ochre to paint patterns on her body, signifying her story: "The tracks of koonwarra the swan, waving lines that speak of the sea, the shapes and stories of our Biik." Woven through this portrait of traditional life are the "threads of women's lore" shared with Walton over the years. "It's like a love letter to women's business, sisterhood and motherhood," she says. Tragically, Nannertgarrook, who was also known as Eliza, is taken far from her beloved Country, or Biik. Initially, the sealers take the group to their meeting place on an island off the coast of Tasmania. "In Nannertgarrook's case, she is then taken to Kangaroo Island off South Australia and then onto Bald Island off the coast of Western Australia … [which is] literally [just] a rock that's thrusting up out of the ocean," Walton says. Windswept and desolate, it's an alien world to Nannertgarrook. "She goes from … the Mornington Peninsula, with all of its incredible beaches and giant trees, to a rocky outcrop in a very isolated place on the southern Western Australian coastline." Walton offers few details about Nannertgarrook's abductor, who she never names in the book. She says excising the man from the narrative was a deliberate decision. "That was my way of mirroring the colonial records … [which contain] a lot about the sealers. We know all their names; we know all the terrible things they've done. "What we don't see are the women: their names, their true identities, anything they're experiencing in any depth or context." Walton says there was a "half-hearted attempt" to rescue the group by the colonial government of the day. "My ancestor and the women that are with her are mentioned by a travelling government surveyor to the Aboriginal protectorates at the time in Port Phillip. "And they ignore it. Nobody goes for her. They know they're there. They talk at length about them, but all we get in the colonial records is a cursory nod to them and the fact that they want to come home to Westernport." Nearly 200 years later, Walton wants to restore the women to the historical record. "This is about reclaiming [Nannertgarrook's] voice and identity and those of her sisters and their bubup, their children," she says. I Am Nannertgarrook is published by S&S Bundyi.
Metro
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Neighbours and Prisoner star Gerard Kennedy dies aged 93
Australian actor Gerard Kennedy has died aged 93. The award-winning star was best known for his parts in a number of soap operas in his home country – including Neighbours, Prisoner and Blue Heelers. A family friend confirmed in a statement: 'Vale Gerard Kennedy. 1932 – 2025. An iconic Australian actor of many decades. 'Well-remembered by Prisoner fans for his portrayal as terrorist Al in The Wentworth Siege episodes.' The two-time Gold Logie winner also had parts in Underbelly, Division 4, The Flying Doctors and A Country Practice. Born in Perth in 1932, he played six different characters in Crawford Productions television series Homicide, before finding fame in the Australian television spy drama Hunter. More Trending His portrayal became so popular that his character, Kragg, became the central figure of the series following the departure of co-star Tony Ward. Flying Doctors star Liz Burch has led tributes, sharing: 'Vale Gerard.' Gerard joined the cast of Neighbours in 2002, playing Pat Scully – the father of regular face Joe (Shane Connor). View More » This is a developing story, more to follow.
