When Kerry Armstrong presented the weather for Nine News
She was really a schoolgirl when she presented the weather in the 1970s. But everybody thought Kerry Armstrong was 22.
- Published by David Knox
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EXCLUSIVE: Before her acting career on Prisoner, SeaChange, Dynasty, Bed of Roses and Lantana, Kerry Armstrong had briefly been a weather girl on GTV-9 Melbourne.
But not even the management at Nine in the mid 1970s knew she was really a schoolgirl when she applied for the role, instead of the 22 year old she led them to believe.
Speaking to TV Tonight, Armstrong had good memories of her nightly job reading the weather.
“I remember thinking how great it was to get $400 bucks a week, instead of 40 bucks away from my milk bar job,” she recalled.
“That that was the first time I met Deborra-Lee Furness, who was working at Channel Nine and she knew that I was a fake. I wasn’t really a freelance secretary who was 22!”
Armstrong had succeeded Delvene Delaney in the position and acknowledges they were certainly different times back then…. she would even present the weather in a bikini. No surprises, it sent Nine’s ratings up!
“I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, all these girls have lots of make-up and I was in a pair of bikinis and a sarong or whatever, thinking ‘They’re not going to want me.’ I also remember (news director) John Sorell and the news team being incredibly decent and good to me. And I remember thinking, ‘I wear bathers every day so I’ll put them on,'” she continued.
“I had no knowledge of what was supposedly, I guess, a terrible thing. What I mostly remember is being picked up by a limousine at my school. I was in Year 11!”
Armstrong, now one of television’s most formidable actors, is currently appearing in ABC comedy Frayed. Bikini optional.
6 Responses
Kinda creepy a 15 year old ? in a bikini presenting the weather.
For some reason I do remember her first time doing the weather. They made a big deal of their new weather presenter.
She was naturally nervous as hell and she fluffed her lines…understandable!
Err… they thought she was 22 and a freelance secretary… but the limousine picked her up at school? Something doesn’t compute here.
I think they realised later yes, but by that stage she had the gig.
I think Kerry Armstrong may have succeeded Rosemary Margan at Nine? Delvene Delaney was a weather presenter at Channel Seven and before then was doing the same at Channel 0 in Brisbane.
It’s what she told me (and I even mentioned RM).