‘WHY I HAD TO LEAVE TV’
Play School’s favourite mum talks fame, fun and feeling fulfilled
Infidelity, intrigue, blackmail, prostitution, miscarriage, amnesia and murder! Even actress Benita Collings struggles to remember the many melodramas of The Restless Years – and she starred in the iconic Aussie soap.
Benita played Clare Moran on the series, which premiered 45 years ago and rapidly became essential viewing.
“You look back and go, ‘Gosh, yes,’” laughs Benita, now 81 and vibrant as ever, thanks to regular workouts and brisk daily walks.
“The show launched some extraordinary people whose careers just kept going and going.”
The Restless Years, which ran from 1977 to 1982, has an honour roll including Penny Cook, Tom Burlinson, Peter Phelps and the formidable June Salter, among others.
Producer Reg Grundy’s wife Joy Chambers featured as demented villain Rita Merrick, wearing a black curly wig. And a very young Kerri-anne Wright – later to become Kerri-anne Kennerley – debuted as ugly duckling Melinda Burgess.
TRAINING GROUND
“It was a long time ago and to be honest, I actually don’t recall very much about my character but I think she was very nice,”
confides Sydney-based Benita, smiling broadly. “It sounds silly, but it was so far back and the industry was very different then.
“Getting changed wherever you could, sometimes in the street on location, that was usual. We were always pushed for time. We weren’t hanging around having cups of coffee, it was definitely all systems go.
“You’d finish one scene, knowing you had another one straight away. You’d whirl off to wardrobe, whirl back on set if you were shooting in the studio. Then it was camera and lighting and off you went again. It was hard work but it was always fun.”
Not least because of actor John Hamblin who, with Benita, starred in The Restless Years and co-hosted Play School, where his cheeky innuendos became legendary.
“He just had a wonderfully naughty sense of humour,” she says, eyes sparkling. “John was delicious to work with, like Simon Burke, who was also on The Restless Years.”
‘It was hard work then… but it was always fun’
Benita and John went on to become Play School’s two longest-serving presenters, beloved by generations of children and parents alike. So it’s a surprise to find out she failed her first audition to appear alongside Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima and Humpty Dumpty.
“I was very, very naughty. I didn’t know my script properly so I didn’t do it well. End of story,” she crisply reveals. “But part of the audition was telling a story and apparently on the strength of that, they gave me another chance two years later. The rest, as they say, is history.”
For 30 years, from 1969 to 1999, Benita became a household name, inviting the Play School audience to “open wide, come inside”, filming 45 episodes a year.
At first, her newfound fame was hard to handle for the self-confessed introvert. “I used to freak! One time I said, ‘Oh no, that’s my twin sister,’ when someone recognised me.”
VARIED CAREER
Since then, Benita has been spotted by fans in some very strange places, including 1970s Afghanistan. On screen, she got peed on by a baby goat – prompting much hilarity from the Play School crew – and even played Nicolas Cage’s mother in a movie called Knowing.
None of this is quite what she expected growing up on Sydney’s North Shore as a ballet-mad schoolgirl. “That was my first love,” she admits. “I wanted to be a ballerina but twigged in my early teens that I’d never make it, I wasn’t good enough.”
Benita turned to drama, but also, at her mother’s insistence, studied shorthand and typing in case her acting career failed.
“After a while, I didn’t need to temp as a secretary any more,” laughs Benita, who “funnily enough” never had children of her own, although she is close to her stepdaughter and step-granddaughter.
Today, happily “single by choice” she teaches part-time at NIDA and remains in demand for voice-overs, ads and the occasional film or theatre gig.
“I don’t have any unfulfilled ambitions,” she reflects. “There aren’t that many roles for women my age, but I’m very happy with my life and when work comes in, that’s fabulous.”