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

The hair!

Source: VARA TV Magazine, Dutch TV guide, 2004

She was one of the regulars of the soapy adventure series The Flying Doctor for years, now shown again by the VARA during the summer re-runs. Time to catch up with sister Kate.

Because of Flying Doctors' re-runs (nine episodes from season five) there are representatives of two magazines and two newspapers standing in the hall of the Banks Mansion-hotel in Amsterdam on a rainy Friday morning, waiting for a session with Lenore Smith. Mind you: an Australian actress who played her last memorable part in 1997. But Smith (visiting the Netherlands because of a performance in VARA's A Summer Saturday Evening) is still in our memories as sister Kate, nurse-on-screen number 1. A nurse of whom some colleagues of ER might take an example. Together with doctor Geoff (Robert Grubb) she was the most important character of the sweet television series about this real existing Australian medical service.

You might not recognize her famous alter-ego when you look at the now 45-year-old Lenore Smith, as people who watched the show could have made up for themselves. No light bleu dress or frumpy hair. Smith meets us in the hotel's lobby; ultra-short hair, tight jeans, sexy sweater with V-neck and some tiny glasses, which she takes off during TV takes and photo-shootings. So a bit vain she is. Thank God, because during the interview she gives a whole new meaning to the idea of being "down to earth".

This is your third visit already to the Netherlands because of Flying Doctors.
'My first visit was in 1990. Some of us came over for the VARA's anniversary. My second visit was in 1992 when the series received the Silver Tulip (award for the best foreign series). From these first visits I remember well how people seemed to really love the series and the characters.'

Do you catch up with the rest of the cast sometimes?
'Robert and I are still good friends. He lives in Melbourne and I live in Sydney, but when he has a performance in the neighbourhood, he always pays me a visit. And I still catch up with Peter O' Brien (pilot Sam Patterson). Not so often, as he works in England. And one of my best friends, for a little more than 25 years now, is Andrew McFarlane (Dr. Tom Callaghan).'

So what's so good about these series? Re-runs pull over a half million people who watch it and many countries, amongst them the Netherlands, still have fan clubs. And that all about a series with certain "doctors-qualities".
'The series contained soap-elements as well as adventure, because it was based on stories of the real doctors of the Royal Flying Doctors Service. And about these "doctors-qualities", I think that every job with lots of working hours and physically and emotionally intense work, is a good base for relationships. Apart from that, there's nothing like the Australian outback. The landscape, the distance, the isolation. A lot of people, especially from Europe, can't imagine that. And I personally think that especially the sense of community is responsible for the success of the series. I mean, in your own neighbourhood you don't even talk to your neighbour next door.'

Didn't it bother you, playing some sort of a doctor novel's nurse?
'I liked her. I liked her spirit and character and her passion for the community. She really felt for these people and she would never let them feel like they were dumb country people. She could be a bit touchy sometimes, and that's something I'm never. I am exuberant, she's more reserved.'

Didn't you prefer the part of the female doctor, Chris Randall?
'Not at all, because these doctors had to learn the most terrible medical terms by heart. A constant fight for the actors, and we teased them with it. Of course there is some sort of difference in status between doctor and nurse, but I really liked playing a nurse, probably because I'm more of a people person myself. As a nurse you have more of a bound with a patient, while as a doctor you're just diagnosing someone's condition.'

Let's talk about the eighties-look of the series, I mean, the hair, the dresses!
'(laughing) It got better during the late eighties. But when we first started, the look was full hair, sometimes backcombed, and lots of shoulder pads. Poor old Liz (Burch) had to wear them under all of her clothes. And that damn hair of Robert. Coiffures were of such importance for the series. Robert's hair was constantly re-styled while we were on location. There were strong winds sometimes and they just kept on styling with hair spray. If he's bald now? No, he still has a lot of hair. And that terrible bleu dress of mine. Although, the first one I owned was even worse. It didn't had any shape at all, so I looked like a waitress. After that I got one with some more shape in it, but only I looked like some kind of carry-on-nurse in it. But I don't mind, I would have cared more ten years ago. It's just like with old pictures.'

Did we see the real Australia in the series?
'Sure, you have to travel a long way to find small country-towns like Minyip (the real Coopers Crossing), but no, it was very authentic.'

When the Flying Doctors stopped flying in 1991 (in the Netherlands on screen till 1994), the actress returned to the theatre. 'After six years of television I was eager to get back on stage again. I did several theatre tours through Australia as well as New Zealand.' In 1997 she returned on screen in the children's series Spellbinder II: Land of the Dragon Lord, for which she spent three months in China. 'That was a real adventure. We had a half Australian crew and half Chinese crew, so there were some extreme difficulties with languages apart from working there.' The same year Smith hosted the cooking program Australia Good Taste. 'It was fun to talk to the camera in stead of acting in front of it, but it only lasted for six months.' Since then it became quiet around her.

Your last acting job was a part in the film The Man who sued God from 2001.
'You have to be realistic in this job: an actress has the most chance of getting a part while she's somewhere in her 20ties and 30ties. As a friend-actress told me: "After you turned 40 you can forget about it, I just turned 50 and now I get a bit more busy again." You're asked again for other kinds of roles then. I didn't feel like waiting next to the telephone, so I went to do another job. Right now I'm working as a personal assistant to the ex-mayor of Sydney, Lucy Turnbull. Her husband is an important politician. I organize official meetings for them and I look after their staff.'

Wouldn't a Flying Doctors' reunion be great? Just like in America where they do that often with series like Dallas, Dynasty, The Dukes of Hazard and recently The Partridge Family, included David Cassisdy?
'If the offer was big enough, I think everyone would join. It's the right time, but it will be difficult to reach everyone. If I would join? It depends on the story, but yes, why not. It would be fun.'

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Lenore