Neighbours’ Ian Smith, famed as Harold Bishop, is writing memoir
Sunday Telegraph article today:
Neighbours’ Ian Smith, famed as Harold Bishop, is writing memoir
“I COULD have been an actor”. That is Ian Smith’s stark admission despite winning worldwide fame as Harold Bishop on Neighbours.
The 78-year-old is in the midst of writing his memoirs which will detail his time on the iconic Aussie soapie as well as his battle with depression and the shock of learning he was adopted.
Smith had a wideranging acting and writing career including stints on Bellbird and Prisoner before he was offered a five week stint as Bishop in 1987
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/6...ac07?width=650
The role changed the course of Smith’s life. Smith played the fussy Bishop, a tee-totalling Christian whose hobbies included playing the tuba and birdwatching, off and on for the next thirty years.
During that time, Bishop was married multiple times, had amnesia, a stroke, a cancer scare, and was washed to sea.
Smith says there was plenty of upside to playing Bishop but the downside was that he was forever typecast.
“I think I might have been a good actor if I was tested,” Smith said. “When I see people like Guy Pearce … he left the show and when I saw his work (in films including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and LA Confidential) I sat there with my mouth open.
“Guy rang me a year ago. I was dumbstruck. He invited me to his place for a meal. There was no bull****. I said to him “I could have been an actor” and he laughed at me.
“I said “what I’ve done for 25 years is a variation on one character — fifty shades of Harold, that’s all”.
“One time I went for a bit of a taste outside the protected walls (of Neighbours). But all the casting people were kids. They adored Harold and couldn’t see me playing anything else. So I gave in to security.
“I would still like to get stuck into some serious acting.”
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/f...ad2b?width=650
Smith says he was encouraged to begin his memoirs by his doctors after years of battling depression. He has been writing for the past six months and has penned around 15,000 words so far. Smith said he would consider offers to publish it.
Smith was 54 when his dying mother Connie Smith admitted to him that he had been adopted. That led Smith on a search for his natural mother, Peg Kline, but also sent him spiralling.
“I had a breakdown — a total one,” Smith said. “I went nuts. I’m still on medication. I’ll never come out of it. It’s a bugger of a thing, the black dog.
“I said to the doctor ‘why me’. He said ‘because you’re an actor’. Because we’re playing cowboys and Indians all the time, we never grow up.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/5...1d4a?width=650
“It was around the time I left Neighbours (the first time in 1991) that I found out I was adopted. My father had died less than a year prior. You don’t think these things will affect you. Mum was dreadfully down. That is when she called me one day and said “I’ve got something to tell you”. I wasn’t ready for that.
“It had been a lie for 54 years. I got to the point where I couldn’t look in the mirror because I didn’t know who I was looking at.”
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/2...e085?width=650
Smith is proud of his work on Neighbours despite the lack of other acting opportunities. He built Bishop from the ground up — and viewers responded.
“I love those Old English characters that you want to pick up and cuddle,” Smith said. “I had a sneaky visit to the writers and told them what I was going to try. I was very fortunate because they gave me carte blanche. They said “give us Harold”. How many actors get that opportunity?”
Smith’s first stint on Neighbours — from 1987 to 1991 — was the show’s golden era working alongside Pearce as well as Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Anne Charleston played Bishop’s first wife, Madge.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/f...17fb?width=650
“Annie and I got to be like a real married couple,” Smith said. “We trusted each other. When I read a script I knew what Annie was going to do.”
Smith returned to Neighbours in 1996 and stayed until 2009. He did another short stint in 2011 and was there in 2015 for the 30th anniversary of the show.
“It was always nice to come back,” Smith said. “The first time I came back, I was having a very bad mental time. Gosh I was a mess. I went to Ramsay Street (Pin Oak Court, Vermont South) for my first scene and I started crying.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/4...d6a4?width=650
“The first time they sacked me. They had Harold washed off a rock. The second time Harold left in a caravan. One of the comebacks (2011) was that I wanted money for a holiday. I did it for the money which is the very worst reason.
“The fans were mostly nice but I used to get people shouting “Harold you big poofter” (out the front of the house) and then they’d tear off.
“My wife, Gail, and I have been out for dinner and people have walked to our table and pushed her to one side. I’ve got a mongrel of a temper (when that happens).”
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/5...1181?width=650
These days, Smith leads a quiet life with Gail in bayside Melbourne. Late last year he made a guest appearance on Family Feud. He is plotting a crime novel which could be turned into a television series. And he is still working on his memoirs.
“The body is arthritic and I do have a pacemaker,” Smith said. “My wife and I are both animal freaks. We do a lot of fishing. I’m doing photography, but I’m not very good at it. We try to do as much travel as we can though at the moment we’ve got two old cats and we can’t leave them.
“I can only suggest that everyone does it (write their memoirs). It is amazing what you remember. You don’t have to go nuts to do it. And you don’t have to publish it. Just do it for your own satisfaction.
“I believe I’m not going to be forgiven (for Bishop) until the day I die. I am at the point where I have given up anonymity. I take a certain amount of pride in it (creating Bishop). People still come up to me.”
