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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Drama
    Drama TV Shows - 1970s 7 Mins Read

    Number 96

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    1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 7 (Australia)
    1218 x 30 minute episodes episodes

    Number 96 debuted on Monday 13 March 1972 with the proclamation, “Tonight at 8.30 pm, television loses its virginity” and became the most popular programme on Australian TV within one year, screening every weeknight in all capital cities and on almost every regional station.

    The sex and sin soapie created a sensation – and became a ratings juggernaut – because it dealt graphically with homosexuality, adultery, drug and alcohol addiction, promiscuity, domestic violence, prostitution, insanity, rape, and lots and lots and LOTS of sex – hence why it was shown in an “adult” time slot (five nights a week at 8:30 pm).

    The series told the story of a group of neighbours living in a (fictional) block of apartments at 96 Lindsay Street in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Paddington, with two shops downstairs – a delicatessen and a wine bar (formerly a chemist shop). All actual external shots were filmed outside an apartment block at 83 Moncur Street, in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra. All internal scenes were filmed in a studio.

    Best of all were the storylines relating to the “knicker-snipper”¹ (who terrorised female inhabitants of the block of flats by snipping pieces from their underwear with a pair of scissors) and the “pantyhose strangler”². Both scenarios kept viewers tuned in for months – as did the “hooded rapist”³ storyline.

    Abigail (pictured at right with Joe Hasham) – as the pouting and virginal Bev Houghton – became a household name overnight as the shows premier sex symbol, while Elaine Lee as Vera Collins was destined to be unlucky with a long string of sexual partners.

    Lee also created controversy when she featured in a scene depicting a black mass ceremony (also featuring the former darling of Melbourne television, Toni Lamond). Australian viewing audiences were unaccustomed to seeing such strange rituals!

    Number 96 featured Australian TV’s first full-frontal nude – by Miss Hemingway (Deborah Gray) – and made history by introducing the first images of gay males on Australian screens (at a time when homosexuality was illegal across the country) via the relationship between young solicitor Don Finlayson (Joe Hasham) and his flatmate, old movie fan Dudley “Duddles” Butterfield (Chard Hayward).

    The show was careful to paint Don in a positive light and by depicting a likeable, relatable gay man (often dating and in love) at a time when the media demonised them as perverts, Number 96 helped change opinions and fuel conversations throughout Australia’s living rooms.

    Dudley was eventually revealed to be bisexual and embarked on relationships with women until he was shot dead in 1977 (after Hayward decided to leave the series).

    But there was much more to the series than just sex. In particular, there was a great deal of comedy, mostly centred around scatty concierge and “Why wasn’t I told?” queen of the malapropism, Dorrie Evans (Pat McDonald who won the 1974 Gold Logie for her portrayal).

    Other memorable characters at No. 96 were: Hungarian shopkeeper Aldo Godolfus  (played by English-born Johnny Lockwood) and his Russian wife Roma (Phillippa Baker); dorky Arnold Feather (Jeff Kevin) who eventually married nurse Patti Olsen (Pamela Garrick); Dorrie’s widowed lodger and best friend Flo Patterson (Bunney Brooke) and her budgie, Mr Perky; whingeing Lancashire migrant Alf Sutcliffe (James Elliott) and his long-suffering wife, Lucy (Liz Kirkby); wine bar proprietors Les and Norma Whittaker (Gordon McDougall and Sheila Kennelly); and the MacDonald family – prissy town clerk Reg (English-born actor Mike Dorsey) who was called “Daddy” by his wife Edie, (Wendy Blacklock), who he called “Mummy” and their adopted daughter, Marilyn (South African-born Frances Hargreaves).

    Number 96 became the #1 show on Australian TV but by 1975 the show had slipped to sixth position and the producers pulled out all stops to lure the viewers back. Having already exhausted most storylines (bigamy, rape, Nazi war criminals etc) it was decided to “get rid of them”.

    The writers decided to kill off six of the regular characters by having a bomb go off in the block of flats. The multi-viewpoint split-screen effects they used for the final moments before the explosion as Les Whittaker ran through the block vainly attempting to warn everyone were ground-breaking at the time although seem extremely crude in retrospect.

    As the season cliffhanger, it was left open-ended who had actually died and who survived, relying on viewers letters to decide the fate of the characters. The identities of the dead remained a mystery for weeks.

    Eventually, shopkeepers Roma and Aldo Godolfus and inventor Les Whittaker were found to have moved on to more heavenly accommodation, along with Miles Cooper (Scott Lambert).

    These were some of the favourite and longest-running characters (which was a brave move) and more deaths came later in the “Wine Bar Siege”

    Killing off Les Whittaker proved to be a mistake, so producers brought Gordon McDougall back from the dead as his own long-lost Scottish brother, Frank, and devised a romance between him and Les’ widow, Norma.

    Storylines became increasingly unrealistic: For example, in the space of just eight months, Don Finlayon’s ward Debbie Chester (Dina Mann) became a drug addict, attempted prostitution (unsuccessfully), found out she was illegitimate, saw both her parents taken by a man-eating shark, was taken hostage by gangsters, found a murder victim, survived a murder attempt, nearly burned to death and had her sister go insane . . .

    The melodrama continued until Number 96 finally shut the door on its groundbreaking run, with the final episode airing on 11 August 1977. The long-running series ended with “Mummy” Edie MacDonald beginning her latest novel. She sits at the table in her flat, puts a blank sheet of paper in her typewriter and begins typing:

    “Once upon a time, there was a building called Number 96 . . .”

    A 1974 feature film of Number 96 was memorable for (amongst other things) the rape of Vera Collins (again). This time by a bikie gang.

    In 1980 an American version of Number 96 was made, starring Ellen Travolta and Greg Mullavey. Produced as a comedy by NBC, it bore absolutely no resemblance to the original and was exceptionally weak.

    Dorrie Evans
    Pat McDonald
    Herb Evans
    Ron Shand
    Flo Patterson
    Bunney Brooke
    Weppo Smith
    Roger Ward
    Aldo Godolfus
    Johnny Lockwood
    Roma Godolfus (Lubinski)
    Phillippa Baker
    Rose Godolfus
    Vivienne Garrett
    Arnold Feather/Chook Feather
    Jeff Kevin
    Patti Feather (Olsen)
    Pamela Garrick
    Giovanni Lenzi 
    Harry Michaels
    Les/Frank Whittaker
    Gordon McDougall
    Norma Whittaker
    Sheila Kennelly
    Trixie O’Toole 
    Jan Adele
    Don Finlayson 
    Joe Hasham
    Dudley Butterfield 
    Chard Hayward
    Jaja Gibson 
    Anya Saleky
    Amanda Von Pappenburg 
    Carol Raye
    Maggie Cameron
    Bettina Welch
    Carol Finlayson
    Paula Duncan
    Vera Collins 
    Elaine Lee
    Harry Collins 
    Norman Yemm
    Jack Sellars 
    Tom Oliver
    Alf Sutcliffe 
    James Elliott
    Lucy Sutcliffe 
    Liz Kirkby
    Reg MacDonald (“Daddy”)
    Mike Dorsey
    Edie MacDonald (“Mummy”)
    Wendy Blacklock
    Marilyn MacDonald 
    Frances Hargreaves
    Bev Houghton 
    Abigail (1)
    Vicki Raymond (2)
    Miss Hemingway 
    Deborah Gray
    Lorelei
    Josephine Knur
    Warwick Thompson 
    Kit Taylor
    Simon Carr 
    John Orcsik
    Helen Eastwood 
    Briony Behets
    Mark Eastwood
    Martin Harris
    Chad Farrell 
    Ronne Arnold
    Muriel Thompson 
    Rowena Wallace
    Henri P Cobb/Hope Jackson
    Chelsea Brown
    Eileen Chester 
    Patti Crocker
    Debbie Chester 
    Dina Mann
    Jane Chester
    Suzanne Church
    Babs 
    Penny Ramsay
    Helen Sheridan 
    Carmen Duncan (1)
    Jill Forster (2)
    Jill Sheridan
    Candy Raymond
    Andy Marshall 
    Peter Adams
    Alan Cotterell
    Mark Hashfield
    Miles Cooper 
    Tony Allyn
    Vicki Dawson
    Kay Powell
    Dorothy Dunlop 
    Diana McLean
    Georgina Carter
    Susannah Piggott
    Opal Wilkinson
    Nat Nixon
    Cliff Stevens
    Vincent Gil
    Prim Primrose 
    Pamela Gibbons
    Rhonda Jackson
    Justine Saunders
    Tracy Wilson 
    Chantal Contouri
    Sue Marshall
    Anne Lambert
    Alex Lederer
    Harry Harris
    Dr Julian Myers
    Lew Luton
    Ros Halliday 
    Joanna Lockwood
    Theresa 
    Julianne Newbould
    Grant Chandler
    Michael Howard
    Diana Moore
    Rebecca Gilling
    Lenny Fisher
    Terry Peck
    Liz Chalmers
    Margaret Laurence
    Earl Goodman
    Richard Lupino
    Mick Milligan
    Peter Berg
    Joshua 
    Shane Porteous

    Video

    Footnotes (Contain SPOILERS)

    ¹ The knicker snipper turned out to be Janie Somers’ boyfriend, Alan Cotterell (played by Abigail‘s real-life fiancé at the time, Mark Hashfield).

    ² Nurse Tracy Wilson (Chantal Contouri) was eventually identified as the pantyhose strangler when she was discovered by Marilyn MacDonald (Frances Hargreaves) late one night in the local laundrette.

    ³ After a few residents are mistakenly believed to be the hooded rapist (including Dudley Butterfield and Giovanni Lenzi) it is ultimately revealed to be Lenny Fisher (Terry Peck), the weedy and nervous employee of Norma’s Bar.

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