Neighbours was a real blessing for me...
Soap fans were delighted when Alan Dale, 71, announced he was reprising his role as Jim Robinson for Christmas. But what prompted his return to the Aussie soap? finds out
NEIGHBOURS fans are in for a festive treat as Jim Robinson returns to the soap on Christmas Day... despite having been dead for more than two decades. The Aussie soap killed the character off 25 years ago after actor Alan Dale had a dispute with bosses over pay.
Father-of-four Jim – whose children included Scott and Paul Robinson, played by Jason Donovan and Stefan Dennis – died of a heart attack in 1993. Alan had been with the soap since it started in 1985.
Since his exit, the New Zealandborn actor has carved out a career in Hollywood and can currently be seen in the reboot of the soap Dynasty. old episodes, and hello, there we are! He was a nice chap, you know, unlike a lot of the characters I play nowadays. So that wasn’t too hard.
And I was working with one of my best friends, Stef, so it was fun. WELL there had been a bit of bitterness at the end, so it was really nice to be able to do this.
Neighbours was very kind to me in a lot of ways ; I was able to bring up my two oldest sons while I was working, which most actors can’t. I mean at the moment, if I didn’t have my wife with me, and I have the two current sons I’ve got (I keep breeding!), it would be impossible. At the moment I’m in L A with my family, but I work in Atlanta most of the time, and then other jobs take me all over the place. IT did for many years. But my trip to the set, back in March/April, was sort of cathartic. I got there and it dawned on me that it had been a real blessing for me.
So although I was right about the things I was upset about, the point was that I had this wonderful job that lasted all those years and I could get my boys through school and be there for them. It was wonderful. NOT even slightly, no. Because it’s not shown here in the US, I don’t get to see it.
But along the way there have been some big stars to come out of it, apparently, and I’ve met one or two of them and they look at me blankly as if I’m a piece of wood.
They had no idea who I was, and when I tried to say, ‘Oh, I was in that show’ they look away, not interested. THE biggest shock we got was when I picked up the Melbourne Age one day, and there was a big article on the front page about the fact that we were a huge hit in Britain, which we had no idea of!
They hadn’t told us a thing because, I guess, it was probably going to cost them more. After that, we were able to go across to the UK with the rest of the cast and perform the theme song from Neighbours for the Royal Family.
Those sorts of things were really quite mind-blowing for us, because we were just working away in the suburbs. I C AN’ T tell you anything because apart from anything else, I don’t actually know.
Depending on what the reaction is, there was some talk of me coming back – after the end of the season that I’m working on now, on Dynasty. There was some talk of maybe I could go out [to Australia] and do a bit more, so who knows? If the fans like it, we’ll see.