Everything you always wanted to know about The Flying Doctors. Dedicated to Lenore Smith and Christopher Stollery.
 

Angel of mercy

Source: VARA TV Magazine, Dutch TV guide, 1990

There was a party last night, that’s obvious. The dark rings under the eyes of Lenore Smith show a very short night. And getting up didn’t go very smoothly either. She was late for rehearsal and to make matters worse she forgot her dress – the one in which she has to appear on stage tonight -. After the dress was picked up, I’m allowed to go in. She is sitting in front of me in her dressing room. Cigarette, glasses, jeans topped by the low-cut dress that was an item of discussion for some people after the show. She laughs when I ask her about last night. ‘No worries, there is nothing a bit of a good make-up artist can’t cope with. I’m no party-animal, but this was a wild trip! With George (D.J.) and his wife Peta, Robert (Geoff) and his wife and my girlfriend. We don’t see each other very often in our spare time, so we did ourselves well!’ Did you say ‘girlfriend?’ ‘I was married and divorced, I don’t have any children, but do have a boyfriend and a great job. Next question.’ She is a bit shocked by her blunt answer. ‘At that point I’m a bit like Kate. She is very short-tempered too.’

In what other ways can I compare you to Kate?
‘Kate is very down-to-earth. A very pragmatic woman. So am I. But Kate is a bit slower than I am, certainly when it comes to men! Her hesitant relation with Geoff, man, that would make me go crazy! Kate is not a carbon copy of my own personality. Let’s put it this way: she is my friend.’ She claims she worked with the same pleasure on the last episode of Flying Doctors as she did on the first episode. ‘From the start I thought: this is for a year, we’ll see what happens after that. They asked me again every season and I never had any trouble responding enthusiastically to that. Kate’s personality continues to develop in an interesting way. That’s the only thing I keep in mind, because I can easily get over the drawbacks of starring in TV series.’

What are these drawbacks?
‘Mostly working in the freezing cold of winter, pretending it is summer. Ten hours work days, five days a week, no private social life, no time to do anything else. And there is the danger that the longer you play a certain role – and become that role to many people – you can never get rid of that type. I may be the Florence Nightingale of Australia, but I don’t want to be that forever.’

If you put it that way, I wonder if there is any fun involved at all?
‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ she says cheerfully, ‘I love acting very much. And how many people actually do something they really like? Flying Doctors was a once in a lifetime opportunity: there was a budget, a good production company and aim at achieving optimal quality for a TV series, because they work on film. That means you have to concentrate and act in a filmic kind of way. You look better on film and you even sound better. Besides, I felt personally drawn to the series because it has such a dramatic subject – angels of mercy in a village in a deserted and wild area – and the role I played in it. For an actress who, till then, had to take every acting job she could, it was a gift from heaven.’

How did this gift lavish upon you?
‘When they asked me for an audition for Kate’s role, I was in London with my sister. It started as a one month holiday, but I liked it there so much, I stayed longer. I found a job as a waitress and before I knew it a year had gone by. I didn’t know what to do in my future. I played a gum-chewing-teenager in Australia in one of the first TV series starring teenagers. After that I did a few commercials. Not very much to build a future on. But then there suddenly was this urgent telegram from my agent in Australia, asking if I could return immediately. The day after I arrived, I could set to work.’

As the last actor from the original cast, you might be able to tell something about those first months?
‘I remember that the citizens from the town we choose as the location weren’t very pleased with our arrival. It was a true invasion of trucks and people. The villagers already had their doubts when the plans where there and they even responded hostile to the gigantic caravan. There was a lot of tension the first few weeks, but nowadays we are more than welcome because the tourist busses and the Flying Doctors merchandise brought the town prosperity. The town changed permanently, naturally, since it became an attraction.’

In what way do the TV series correspond to the real Flying Doctors?
'They are very similar. There is a lot of research involved. I even think I could end an operation successfully, that’s how strict real doctors are being consulted.’

Later on that day she whispers in my ear that she didn’t realize at all that the TV series are so very popular in Holland. ‘But the trick with the glasses works here as well: people only recognize you after a second and that is just enough time to walk on without being disturbed.’

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Lenore