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Thread: Alf Stewart (Ray Meagher)

  1. #41
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    Great Daily Telegraph article on Ray Meagher's 30 years on Home and Away:


    After nearly 30 years playing Alf Stewart, Ray Meagher still can’t believe his luck


    RAY MEAGHER is one of Australia’s best known faces, thanks to his long-running role as Alf Stewart on television’s Home & Away, but in his neighbourhood of Milsons Point he’s just one of the locals.

    “Around here, and I’ve lived here for nearly 20 years, you don’t get [approached] very much at all,” he says, over a coffee at his favourite local spot, Cafe Pompidou, on the appropriately named Alfred St.

    “Once you go to places on a regular, or semi-regular basis, people just go ‘ho-hum’, and that’s terrific.”

    “I think there’s a lot of most people in the characters they play.”

    Away from the set, where the 73-year-old still spends a significant amount of his time, Meagher likes to spin a yarn, have a laugh, and if it’s later in the day, enjoy a glass of “something nice”. Meagher loves his suburb of Milsons Point, where he’s lived in the same unit for two decades, and which he shares with his wife Gilly.

    The couple married in 2010, which was the same year Meagher won the Gold Logie for most popular personality on Australian Television.

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/d...da55?width=480 (with wife Gilly)

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/8...9d3d?width=480

    Earlier this year, he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia, or OAM, for his work in the performing arts.

    Rather than Milsons Point, it is Sydney’s far northern outpost of Palm Beach, or Summer Bay as its known on Home & Away, that Meagher is best associated with.

    The veteran actor has been playing Alf “stone the flamin’ crows” Stewart since the show’s pilot episode, filmed in 1987.

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/2...c621?width=650 (classic Alf...having a run-in with Don Fisher)

    The series has aired since 1988, making the end of this year its 30th birthday.

    “How many times have I said ‘flamin’ this morning?” Meagher responds, when asked how close he is to Alf. The answer is none.

    “That’s a little key, I suppose.

    “Obviously there’s a lot of me in Alf,” he continues, “I think there’s a lot of most people in the characters they play, but some actors put their fists to their foreheads and say ‘I’m an actor darling, I can play anything!’.”

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/c...7249?width=480 (As Bad Bob in A Fortunate Life in 1985)

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/9...68ba?width=480 (With Graeme Kennedy in The Odd Angry Shot in 1979)

    It’s clear Meagher doesn’t subscribe to this view and sees himself as highly practical when approaching his craft of many decades.

    “If all acting is 100 per cent,” he begins, drawing a circle in the air, “Then most pretty good actors can play about that much of the circle really well.”

    His two hands indicate a pizza slice-sized part of the circle, to show the zone.

    “I don’t think anybody can play everything, I think there’s always someone that can play it better than you, the further you get away from your core.”

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/5...1223?width=480 (Down at his beloved Milson's Point)

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/1...eaa9?width=480 (With the Gold Logie he won in 2010)

    Within his core range, however, Meagher has played his share of diverse character roles.

    Early on, he had parts in iconic Australian movies such as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, My Brilliant Career and Breaker Morant.

    On TV, he’s been seen in Number 96, Prisoner, A Country Practice, Kingswood Country, and for nearly 30 years, Home & Away.

    Meagher grew up on a Queensland cattle and sheep station, went to boarding school in Brisbane and, in his teens, found he was good at rugby.

    So good, in fact, that he played in the first ever first grade game at Ballymore Stadium.

    He was recently invited back to Queensland for a 50th anniversary of that historic game and he remains very tribal about the Queensland Reds in the Super Rugby.

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/f...a761?width=650 (Alf and Carly's wedding day, with Kate Ritchie, Sharon Hodgson, Nicole Dickson & Rebekah Elmaloglou in 1991)

    In 1973, following a stint in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast with a theatre restaurant production called Dimboola, Meagher moved to Sydney with the show. He’s been in Sydney, and in work, ever since.

    “The biggest surprise to me is that I’m still in it,” Meagher says of the acting industry.

    “And that I got a second job. You think you’re never going to get the first one, and then when that finishes you’re pretty sure you’re never going to work again.”

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/c...8d63?width=650 (2013 Logies)

    He’s in awe of the hard work that’s kept the production of Home & Away going for almost three decades.

    “We’re an easy show to take cheap shots at,” he says, noting that many who started on Home & Away have gone on to global fame, including Guy Pearce, Isla Fisher, Chris Hemsworth, Naomi Watts, and Tammin Sursok.

    “We make two films every week, in screen time, to give you some idea of the pressure.”

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/7...93bf?width=650 (Celebrating his 70th and the show's 6000th episode on set in 2014)

    He’s the only original actor still on the show and longest continuing performer in a role on Australian television, but Meagher doesn’t keep close track of the industry these days, despite being grateful for his role in it.

    “When you’re doing a long running series, you’ve got your head down and your backside up, and you’re mainly concerned with what you’re doing tomorrow.”

    “But for every job, and for every happy actor, there’s probably another 100 who didn’t get it who would have done just as good a job. Winning the audition is a lot harder than anything else.”

    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/7...a0e8?width=650 (enjoying a coffee at his favourite Milson's Point café)

    Most days, shooting schedule permitting, Meagher spends an hour on a morning walk around his neighbourhood, then he gets dressed for work in his signature a striped shirt, jeans and RM Williams boots.

    Once on set, he gets dressed again, in Alf Stewart’s clothing, and becomes Australian television’s longest lived character.

    Of an evening, you’ll find Meagher at his much-loved local seafood restaurant Garfish, or perhaps at home watching 800 Words, or Doctor, Doctor, his two favourite shows.

    “When you’re doing two and a half hours of television a week, and you’ve got a big week, the last thing you want to do when you get home is go somewhere. You want to go home and have a glass of something nice, or watch a bit of telly.”



    ...and the Daily Mail article:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...Home-Away.html

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  3. #42
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    I found this nowtolove.com.au post rather funny! Apparently Ray Meagher is a 'Rap God'!! (hopefully you can open the little video)


    Flamin’ heck! Home And Away's Ray Meagher just did a rap battle with Fitzy and Wippa

    Alf Stewart would be proud.

    Actor Ray Meagher is a man of many talents.
    He’s played one of Summer Bay’s most beloved characters Alf Stewart on Home And Away for nearly 30 years, he won a TV WEEK Gold Logie in 2010, and apparently, he’s also a Rap God...

    https://www.nowtolove.com.au/celebri...nd-wippa-41830

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  5. #43
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    Brilliant!!!!

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    The Summer Bay sinkhole drama creates some unmissable scenes for original character Alf Stewart as he finds himself trapped inside alongside his daughter Roo.

    With the damage hidden from the rest of the community, Roo ends up injured and helpless alongside Alf (Ray Meagher) – who's trapped and unconscious under rubble.

    When Alf does come round again, he feels he has no hope for his future and musters his last strength to utter a final message to Roo (Georgie Parker) – believing them to be his dying words.


    Roo and Alf Stewart get trapped down a sinkhole in Home and Away
    © CHANNEL 5

    Roo's world is turned upside-down as Alf explains that her mother Martha didn't drown in 1985 after all – instead, she's still out there somewhere and is very much alive.

    Alf has known the truth for many years, but has always let Roo think that Martha is dead. Can Roo ever forgive her father for such a devastating betrayal?


    Roo and Alf Stewart get trapped down a sinkhole in Home and Away
    © CHANNEL 5

    Roo and Alf Stewart get trapped down a sinkhole in Home and Away
    © CHANNEL 5


    Home and Away airs these scenes on Tuesday, March 27 and Wednesday, March 28 at 1.15pm and 6pm on Channel 5.

    Digital Spy

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    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entert...-the-show.html

    H&A would not be the same without him if true ...

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  13. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Perdita View Post
    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entert...-the-show.html

    H&A would not be the same without him if true ...
    the show would dead in the water without mr. stewart so hope this is not true

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    Quote Originally Posted by lizann View Post
    the show would dead in the water without mr. stewart so hope this is not true
    Agreed, lizann. I think Ray has said these types of things (& he has been asked these types of questions) in the past whenever his contract is up for renewal. Let's hope it isn't true, but with Ray not getting any younger, one day....Maybe with this type of interview he is/they are trying to guage the latest public reaction to him ever leaving? If/when the time comes for him to go, it will be on his terms i.e. they won't just not renew his contract (imagine the backlash if it got out that they had done that!). As Ray says in the interview, he wouldn't know what to do with himself if he just stopped - for mine, it would seem more likely that he would just downgrade his role bit by bit, with less onscreen time etc until....(would they ever kill him off?). And now with the Martha storyline, they maybe have a ready made future exit for Alf (& even for Roo for that matter), with them reconciling & he goes to live with her in Merimbula??

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    Ray Meagher missed out on a number of movies roles but there’s no regrets

    Article in the Daily Telegraph today:


    Home and Away’s Ray Meagher missed out on a number of huge movies roles but there’s no regrets


    For 30 years, Ray Meagher has been Alf Stewart on the small screen, but despite being one of our most beloved and unique actors there’s a reason he hasn’t been seen on the big screen since 1989.

    “The last film I did was Luigi’s Ladies,” he told Confidential.

    “In the 30 odd years I’ve been doing Home and Away I reckon I can genuinely count the number of jobs I’ve been definitely offered that I would have liked to have done on one hand.”

    Meagher was wanted for the role played by Bill Hunter in Muriel’s Wedding.

    “They didn’t have the money in place at the time, *because I need to give Home and Away 14 weeks’ notice to get out to do anything, and by the time they did I couldn’t do it,” Meagher says.

    Another was to play Jack Rennie in the Lionel Rose telemovie. (The role went to Tony Barry).

    “I would have loved to have done that because Lionel Rose was such an icon and I remember watching that fight as a kid and he was amazing, he was one of our indigenous superstars,” Meagher says.

    He might have missed out on those, but neither has affected his career.

    Meagher even landed a role in the London cast of the stage musical Priscilla: Queen of The Desert in 2010 and 2011.

    “A bloke from the Queensland bush who can’t sing or dance doing a musical in the West End? C’mon,” he says.

    He’ll be attending the *Logies on the Gold Coast this weekend where he is nominated for Most Popular Actor — but his wife Gilly won’t be accompanying him.

    “Gilly would rather swallow a tonne of bricks than go to the Logies,” he says.

    “She says ‘that’s your work’, we go to things with mates.

    “She says ‘you go and then you don’t have to worry about me being there and not knowing a whole heap of people’ so she’s very comfortable with that.”

    Meagher’s latest role has seen him transform into Ray Coptus, a mall cop who takes it upon himself to make sure Aussies are getting the best deal on their prepaid mobile plans in a series of spoof ads for Optus.

    With the clip racking up almost 600,000 views on Facebook and YouTube already, Meagher has officially gone viral — something he’s already worried about.

    “Do I have to see a doctor about that?” he quipped.

    Ray Meagher is Ray Coptus
    https://youtu.be/WuAVnwlBReA

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  19. #50
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    Congratulations on Ray winning the Logie Award for Most Popular Actor


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