ALL ABOUT ABIGAIL SEX SYMBOL TO RECLUSE!
NUMBER 96’S RESIDENT PROVOCATEUR STRUGGLED WITH THE SPOTLIGHT
With her sultry looks and hourglass figure, blonde bombshell Abigail Rogan was at the very heart of what was billed as the “world’s sexiest TV show” when Number 96 premiered on Network Ten in March 1972.
The French-born star fast became our answer to Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, titillating blokes around the country with her sexy pout and revealing outfits on the groundbreaking show.
She was so famous at the height of her career, she rarely left her home except to go to the studio – and her sex symbol status continued to haunt her until she eventually dropped out of the limelight and became a total recluse.
“I’m really frightened to go anywhere by myself,” she revealed in a TV Week interview in 1972. “People stare and point, which is very embarrassing. It would be nice to go out occasionally knowing that I could be left in peace.”
It wasn’t just that she was young, beautiful and occasionally semi-naked in her role of the sexually permissive Bev Houghton, but she was also the biggest star on a show that was the most controversial Aussie TV series ever seen. More than five million viewers tuned in for half an hour, five nights a week, to be both enthralled and appalled by a show that tackled then-taboo subjects like homosexuality, mastectomy and rape.
Television was said to have lost its virginity the night Number 96 went to air, and while Abigail only appeared in the series for two years, she spawned dozens of magazine covers, including New Idea, and became the most famous woman in Australia. When she left the sex-and-sin saga, Abigail was courted by Hollywood and legendary acting agency William Morris signed her up. The late powerhouse producer Aaron Spelling, who created The Love Boat and Dynasty, then wooed her for US television.
Ironically, her Number 96
character may have appeared in skimpy costumes, but she never appeared fully naked or even topless in the show – set in Sydney’s Paddington – and was a virgin afraid of sex.
Never able to shake her sexy reputation, she initially embraced it by starring in the Alvin Purple
sex comedies before playing the assertive Hilary Templeton in
The Young Doctors and Caroline Morrell in Sons and Daughters.
Then she shocked her legion of fans by turning her back on showbiz, after appearing on Family and Friends and Chances in the 1990s, and retired to live a reclusive life with her second husband, Prisoner star Adrian Wright, in Victoria.
After Adrian died in 2015, Abigail, now 75, moved to the NSW Central Coast to be closer to her tight circle of friends.
“She is very proud of her career, but is happy to stay out of the spotlight these days to concentrate on her health, wellbeing and to enjoy life by the beach,” says close friend and TV star, Clayton Williamson.