The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 155

AMERICA'S No. 1 Selling Gin. Refreshing Seagram's. RT WfW Y1KKI hit in i i in --Wlf THE BIG (M) MOTOROLA I i JomI tit I I 1 1 Qj Cv CFO 1 I a mil i ArrLlL Kv VIKKI BLANCHE STARS IN THE CHANNEL 7 MINI-SERIES, ROSE AGAINST THE ODDS, AS THE WIFE I ik.i Tony Barry, Vikki Blanche, Paul Williams and Kris McQuade in Rose Against The Odds IMPORTED -t. OF ABORIGINAL BOXER LIONEL ROSE.

FRANK WALKER CAUGHT UP WITH HER IN NEW YORK WHERE SHE'S TAKING ACTING LESSONS! See the eomnlete rnnne nf Mntnrnln in-car, transportable and hand portable phones, including the world's smallest pocket-size flip phone. tondonDn Gin afy jrr roir jjr Jmuje OtSKLLEOfff deayram V. Z. Jmtd AUCKLAND PRODUCT OF MEW ZEALAND III take when I was 18 or 19 were going to pass me by unless I moved on it now. "I wanted to make sure that while I still had that youthful energy to risk everything to get what I wanted out of acting and life, I had to give it a go." Vikki enrolled in the prestigious Herbert Berkof Studio acting school in lower Manhattan where Al Pacino and Geraldine Page studied $7 a class for a two and half year course.

No one there, not even the teacher, knew that at 24 she was already an experienced actress. "It gives me the freedom to make mistakes if I go there as a novice like everyone else. Americans tend to hype everything they do so you think they are great stars. We underplay our achievements, so we surprise them when they can see what we can do. "It was very hard in my first five months here.

I didn't know anybody and it was so cold here in winter. I thought it best that I step back and have a good look at what I do and why I enjoy it, but New York is a hard city when you are alone." Now she is enjoying her classes and life in New York. She shares a flat on trendy Christopher Street with a female Israeli dancer, who has become a good friend, and has been offered parts in neighbourhood theatre. "The real show in New York is on the streets. I have seen more high drama and outrageous theatre just looking out my window than I could ever see on TV." Vikki met the real life Jenny Rose in the Victorian country town of Drouin, where she teaches primary school.

"She has been very private and I was grateful she talked to me about her life with Lionel. We talked about the racism of the time, what it meant to be white and married to an Aborigine. She said race was never a factor as she had grown up with Lionel and a lot of Aboriginal people in her town." Vikki says she hasn't seen Rose, nor is she itching to see herself on the TV screen as Jenny Rose. "It has been and gone. I am in a new stage now and learning so much more.

Once you have done something there is nothing you can do about it, so it is best just to move on to something else." With that comment, Vikki Blanche had to rush from the little Greenwich Village cafe onto the New York streets to tackle the next challenge the city had to throw at her. Rose Against The Odds screens on Channel 7 at 8.30pm tonight and tomorrow night AUSTRALIA 3 CONTINENTAL SEAGPAM PTY LTD 32 STREET. BCTAM-NSWM'9 750 ITll 37.0 AtV0L not to try her luck on Broadway or force her way into Hollywood, but to go to acting classes. It seems extraordinary that an experienced young actress who has worked in one successful TV show after another for more than seven years from Neighbours to Young Doctors, Flying Doctors and Col 'n Carpenter should want to go back to school. But Vikki says it was the fact that she had worked consistently for so long that made her feel she was in danger of getting comfortable in her work and in her self.

"I had done a year of Col'n Carpenter and doubling up to do Rose. I felt I was losing respect for what I did because of the heavy schedule. I just felt I had to move to keep the challenge inside me alive. I notice from people around me that the closer they got to 30 the more settled they got with themselves, with their bodies, and that frightened me. "I thought 'My God If I stay here a few more years until I am 27 or 28 I probably will be happy to stay put forever'.

I just felt the risks I wanted to ACTRESS Vikki Blanche says she hasn't stopped since she hit Manhattan several months ago. Even as she accepted an invitation to lunch at a cafe near her Greenwich Village apartment, she was still all go. "There is just so much to see and do here," she gushed. She hasn't even found time to switch on the television at five and see herself in Neighbours, which started with episode number one in New York last July. "To tell the truth I have no fascination with seeing myself on television.

I did Neighbours seven years ago when I was very young. I haven't even turned on the set in the apartment. In New York you are so flat out doing things." But others have seen her on the tube in the Big Apple. She said a couple of New York men were chatting her up and one jokingly asked if she was in Neighbours that he had seen just the other day. "He didn't believe me when I said yes it was me.

It floored him that his best Aussie pick-up line came straight back at him." Vikki flew to New York as soon as she finished filming Rose against the Odds, BROOKVALE 744 fid Ph 939 2977 LAMS VALE CAMPERDOWM 191 Porramatto Sd. Ph 519 5555 NTH. SYDNEY 267 Pac.hc Mwy. Ph 957 6699 133 Ph 725 748B SYDNEY-Head OHfce CONCORD ARTMMOM 49 Rd 382 Poc.t.c Mv. Ph 747 7777 Ph 427 759 CARINGBAH HURSTVIUE 192 Teen Po.ntRd 73 Fores, Ph 540 3022 Ph 5BB 3344 PARRAMATTA PENRITH 406 Chutch St Hem, St Ph 890 1998 Ph 047 31 6677 WOUONGONG NEWCASTLE 85 Ke St 40 Beaumont St Ph .042.

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