It was a brief stroll down memory lane on tonight’s edition of Seven’s Australia’s Got Talent when actress, performer and former TV host Hazel Phillips entered the stage.
Phillips dates back to the earliest days of television, appearing in a TV talent quest before TV officially launched in Australia. She concedes she didn’t win the contest but the ones that did have not been heard of since!
She went on to appear in early variety programs including the Revue variety series and the original Beauty And The Beast, both from Sydney’s ATN7.
But it was as the host of the 0-10 Network’s daytime variety show Girl Talk that Phillips scored the TV Week Gold Logie for Most Popular Female Personality on Australian Television in 1967. In the same year she also won the Logie for Most Popular Female Personality in New South Wales.
Phillips also appeared in The Mavis Bramston Show and The Barry Crocker Show and dramas including Boney, Number 96, Ryan, Chopper Squad, Until Tomorrow, GP, Brides Of Christ and A Country Practice.
In 1989, Phillips appeared alongside fellow female Gold Logie winners Lorrae Desmond, Pat McDonald, Denise Drysdale, Jeanne Little and Rowena Wallace in the opening number of the TV Week Logie Awards:
Prior to the Australia’s Got Talent appearance, Today Tonight screened a preview of Phillips’ audition:
Her entrance onto the Australia’s Got Talent stage was met with warm affection and after her performance received a standing ovation. And for Phillips, it was as if her career had gone full circle – “I thought well as I started with a contest maybe I can go out with one!,” she quipped.
And good news is she passed her audition and now progresses to the next stage in the competition.
Australia’s Got Talent. Tuesday and Wednesday, 7.30pm. Seven/Prime7
Source: IMDB, Australia’s Got Talent
YouTube: scottphillips55, oztvheritage
