Home And Away Nicolle Dickson 30 years later
Summer Bay’s favourite teenage tearaway has swapped acting for accounting – and she wouldn’t have it any other way
Nicolle Dickson still has the same sweet smile Australia grew to love when she played reformed troubled teen Bobby Simpson on Home And Away, but her life couldn’t be more different from those heady days of stardom. “I love my life, but it’s still lovely to catch up with some of the old cast and laugh about the old times,” says Nicolle, who was once one of Australia’s most popular TV stars. During a reunion with her on-screen husband Ross Newton, who played truck driver Greg Marshall, the 49-year-old mother to two grown-up boys admitted she’s still a fan of the beachside drama that’s stood the test of time.
“I do occasionally still see an episode,” says Nicolle. “But it’s a very different show to the Home And Away I worked on.”
Nicolle has no regrets about asking producers to write her out of the soap at the peak of her fame in 1993 – and they accommodated her request with the most dramatic send-off when she was killed in a boat explosion in Summer Bay.
SHOCK DEPARTURE
“I was pleased I went out with a bang,” Nicolle says, despite Bobby’s death shocking millions of fans both in Australia and overseas.
“I’d been on there for six years and it felt like it was time to go. You can get stale doing a show like Home and Away.
“But it was tougher than I had imagined to find work afterwards,” she adds.
“I played a mentally challenged patient in [medical drama series] GP, but it was when I was cast in [police drama] Murder Call that I realised I had to find other work. I didn’t read the whole
‘I was pleased I went out with a bang... It was time to go’
script and it turned out that I was playing a corpse. They could have used a prop.”
The constant struggle to find work encouraged the petite brunette to say goodbye to life in front of the camera and opt for a career as an accountant instead.
But that didn’t come easy. Even when she resorted to applying for jobs outside of acting, her fame proved to be an obstacle, remembering that at the time she was one of the most famous women in Australia, who was mobbed by fans at shopping centres and events.
OTHER SIDE OF FAME
“It feels surreal to look back on that time,” she says, explaining that her two sons, Lincoln, 22, and Winston, 20, grew up often being asked if “your mum used to be Bobby”. “They think it’s funny that I used to be famous.
“Once you’ve been in the public eye, it’s really hard to get a normal job,” she says, adding that eventually she took up her husband James’ offer to do the books in his real estate agency, which led to her studying accountancy.
“There was a point a couple of years ago when I was only called up for occasional auditions, and my manager phoned me to tell me he was downsizing and it was time to part ways,” she says. “It was kind of a relief to tell you the truth. Now I’m really happy.”