VAL LEHMAN ‘I BROKE HER NOSE’
VAL LEHMAN’S TOUGH DAYS ON PRISONER – AND HER REUNION PLANS
She’s famous for playing Prisoner’s fierce Top Dog Bea Smith in the famous Aussie series. But Val Lehman’s beloved character almost didn’t see the light of day – and neither did the show.
Speaking to New Idea, Val, 75, reveals bigwigs behind the scenes were set to can the Network Ten series before it had even aired.
She says there was little confidence the public would go for a show about a bunch of female inmates at the fictional Wentworth detention centre.
“The powers that be said, ‘No, no, it’s not going to work, give it up,’” Val says. “They said, ‘All the women are too ugly, their clothes are too boring, no-one’s going to watch it’”
But Prisoner writer/producer Ian Bradley stuck his neck out for the show, pleading with his superiors to give it a chance. A public survey group was shown Prisoner and they went “mad” for it, Val recalls. “That saved us.”
Prisoner made Val a star. The actress garnered three Logie Awards for her portrayal of Queen Bea. Val says she has enough memories of her Prisoner days to last a lifetime. Like the time she accidentally thumped co-star Amanda Muggleton, who played Chrissie Latham.
“She will tell you I broke her nose,” Val says. “We were doing a fight scene and I said, ‘Amanda, don’t put your head down. I’m going to catch you on the nose if you keep putting your head down.’ And she did, and bang, I caught her on the nose. She got a nice, deep bruise, and she said, ‘It’s broken.’”
Filmed at Melbourne’s Nunawading Studios, Prisoner ran for eight drama-filled seasons from 1979 to 1986, and went on to be a huge local and international hit. In recent years, the series has been reimagined as the Foxtel hit, Wentworth.
Why did the show click with audiences around the world? For starters, it was groundbreaking.
“We had a cast full of women who weren’t in couture gowns and thick makeup,” Val says. “We were all in prison, but we were very identifiable women.”
Now, Val, who has since appeared in Neighbours and on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!, is organising a Prisoner reunion in Melbourne next year to mark 40 years since the series first aired. Along with Val, other original cast members who’ll be there include Amanda Muggleton, Colette Mann, Jane Clifton, Paula Duncan and Fiona Spence.
“I’m so very proud to have been part of a show which still has a huge international following,” she says. “You’d be amazed by the number of bookings we’ve had for the reunion from the UK and Sweden and America.”
The series was ahead of its time in addressing women’s issues such as domestic violence, incest and rape. Some of the subject matter would likely have been tough for the cast to deal with. Val is a mother of three children – Cassandra,
Joanne and Jason
“THE POWERS THAT BE SAID, ‘NOONE’S GOING TO WATCH IT … ALL THE WOMEN ARE TOO UGLY’”
Lehman. Eventually, after four years on the show, Val decided it was time to move on.
Reminiscing about the bond between cast members, Val says: “We were a family. We could bitch to each other, but if anyone came from outside to bitch, we came together like a family.”