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Art imitates life for Tom Oliver

Charity work in Cambodia by Tom Oliver will be written into Neighbours storylines for his character, Lou Carpenter.

2013-04-19_0007Australian soaps are known for their matriarchs and patriarchs, and on Neighbours the oldest resident cast member is none other than Tom Oliver, who turns 75 in June.

As the genial and sometimes scheming Lou Carpenter, Oliver joined the show in 1988 after earlier television appearances on Number 96, Bellbird, Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Holiday Island, Sons and Daughters,  and Prisoner.

“Since I first walked up Ramsay Street it’s been 25 years. Still here!” he laughs.

“My wife and I had an apartment in Sydney when I was offered the job, but I said ‘Let’s make the move.’ I was always coming down to Melbourne for Crawford shows.

“So we moved down here, rented in Blackburn then bought a house 18 months later. My first contract was for 6 months with a 6 month option on their part. They picked it up and picked it up and I’ve been here ever since!

“We live out towards the Yarra Valley on a sloping hill and looking out towards the Warburton Ranges, with a ¼ acre of garden for the wild birds. It’s just beautiful.”

Oliver shares much in common with Home and Away‘s paternal figure played by Ray Meagher. Both had been regular guest artists in 1970s dramas for Crawford  and Grundy Productions.

“Ray Meagher and I used to come down with Bill Hunter and Mark McManus from Sydney. Mark eventually went back to Scotland and was the original Taggart. He died rather young,” he says.

“They wrote an article once about Bill, Ray and I and said ‘Are there any other baddies in Crawford shows apart from these three?’

“But Ray holds the record. He’s been on Home and Away longer than I’ve been on this show.”

One of his more unusual but memorable roles, was as one of the few Australian actors employed on ABBA: The Movie in 1977.

“When people ask me I always answer, ‘One of my most favourite jobs,” he says.

“It was a Grundy production originally with Polar, which is ABBA’s company. Grundy’s had 75% of it and Polar had 25%. They came over here, we toured without a script and made it up as we went along. I was their ‘bodyguard’ and we filmed in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, then they went back to Sweden,

“Lasse Hallström directed it and he’s gone on to do wonderful things now.  He said ‘We may get you over to Sweden’ and 6 months later they did! I went over, Robert (Hughes) went over. I played 4 different roles, like a Peter Sellers thing.’

“I was a wild west barman in a saloon drunk as a skunk, I was a gay butler at a dinner party, and an Aussie taxi driver which we filmed in an old yellow cab with a left-hand drive in the rush hour in Stockholm on my second day there! So they flipped the negative and then I was driving on the right-hand side of the car.

“I had the window down and was yelling Aussie expressions like ‘Get out of the way you raw prawn!’

“They were the nicest people. We just got on famously.”

These days Oliver has pulled back his workload, to allow him more time with family and his work with charities in Cambodia. I ask how much longer he sees himself staying with the show.

“I really don’t know. I’m semi-retired now. I do 2 months on, 2 months off which enables me to do the work that I do in Asia with a charity.

“We’re a partner with a sister charity in Phnom Penh. We fight human trafficking and rescue child sex slaves. They’re not paid prostitutes, they’re sex slaves.”

The charity has 3 locations in Cambodia, caring for 240 residents.

“They’re the most beautiful children. They’re getting younger and younger, unfortunately, ranging from 5 – 14. And we had one 3 year old rescued,” says Oliver.

“I wrote a storyline here 20 years ago about having an Asian daughter through being conscripted in the Vietnam war but they said ‘No we did that with Alan Dale’s character, so let’s make it his first overseas holiday.’ So I meet a medical student and come home not knowing she’s pregnant.

“Now 20 years later in Erinsborough that child catches up with me.”

In a case of art imitating life, Neighbours will include storylines for Lou Carpenter that send him to Cambodia but bring a message back to the neighbourhood.

“Lauren and her family have moved to Erinsborough so I can’t go Queensland and they’re resurrecting, god bless her, Mae Ling, my Asian daughter who is now running a charity for children in Phnom Penh, so I go over there,” he explains.

“Lou gets so impressed that he wants to help out and start one here. We’re going to call it what our (real) charity is actually called, Connecting Hands.

“It will hopefully be very beneficial to us with donors because it brings us worldwide publicity.”

Neighbours airs 6:30pm weeknights on ELEVEN.

3 Responses

  1. Thank you, David, a wonderful interview 🙂
    Now I love Tom Oliver even more 🙂
    And I agree with @Earthquake,
    “Neighbours” would never be same without Tom!

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