‘IT MADE ME FEEL LIKE A ROCK STAR!’
The former E Street heartthrob reckons his second chance at fame is like winning lotto!
Bruce Samazan bursts out laughing when asked how he explains to his two beautiful young daughters just how crazy his life was 20 years ago – when he was being mobbed in the street and featured on the cover of teen magazines. “They know Dad was on TV but that’s about it,” says Bruce, 49, flashing his famous dimples and megawatt smile.
What Leala, 13, and Zoe, 10, may find difficult to understand is just how adored their dad was at the height of his fame in the early 1990s.
When he arrived for an event at Sydney’s Darling Harbour onboard a ferry in the early ’90s, there were 15,000 screaming teenage girls wanting to meet Bruce, and he caused mini-riots when he appeared at shopping centres around the nation. “It made me feel like a rock star,” he laughs. “I was only 19 years old and I was living large and hitting the town. I didn’t have to
queue or pay a cover charge at any nightclubs. I remember some of the shopping centre appearances, where girls would be hanging over the balcony trying to get an autograph.
“My star was shining really bright and it was a crazy time.”
BREAKTHROUGH ROLE
This former brickie’s labourer from Wollongong, south of Sydney, hit the big time by accident in 1989, after he accompanied his then-girlfriend to a casting for a soapie called E Street.
His girlfriend didn’t get the part but the casting director liked Bruce so much, they offered him the part of goofy police officer Max Simmons.
“It changed my life overnight,” he says.
“I hadn’t had a lot of life experience and it was a pretty crazy learning curve. I was blessed to have a character that was so popular. At one point Ten had to hire two personal bodyguards for me, who would travel with me.
“I was just a kid and I didn’t take it too seriously.”
He picked up a “treasured”
TV WEEK Silver Logie Award in 1992, confirming his status as one of the
most popular actors in the country. He capitalised on that achievement the following year, when
E Street was axed and he was immediately cast in Neighbours.
Bruce then scored a role on Home And Away
– making him the only Aussie male actor to have a regular starring role on all three soapies.
This month, to mark
Neighbours’ 35th anniversary, he returns to the show to reprise his role as Mark Gottlieb – which also made him hot property for a minute in overseas markets like the UK and Germany.
‘I was blessed to have a character that was so popular’
His karate-loving daughters – Leala is a junior black belt and Zoe has her red belt – thought it was “very funny” when an Irish competitor at the World Shotokan Karate Championships in Japan approached Bruce for an autograph and a selfie last year.
RETURNING TO HIS ROOTS
They haven’t seen their dad in any old episodes of E Street or Home And Away, but they’re over the moon he’s back on Neighbours.
Bruce says the girls race home from school super-excited to watch his new episodes with both he and wife Nanette, 48. “Some of our friends know our dad is an actor,” says Leala, adding that her friends’ parents know far more about Bruce’s acting career than their schoolmates. “Dad told us he won his TV WEEK
trophy from acting.” When the acting gigs started drying up for the former heartthrob in the late-’90s, Bruce did a short stint as a Foxtel salesman. “I got invited in for lots of cups of tea,” he laughs. Later, he turned to real estate in his hometown of Wollongong.
But in 2006, Bruce and Nanette decided they needed a complete change and relocated to Noosa, where they honeymooned.
When their “two best little friends” came along a few years later, life was pretty much perfect for the pair, although Bruce never completely gave up on acting. And he hopes his guest-starring role on Neighbours may even lead to a career revival.
“It would be like winning lotto,” he says.
“For me, it’s a bit of fun and a great opportunity to get back on set in front of a cast and camera, and, of course, I had butterflies.
“The kids are so excited to see Dad on TV.”