Patricia Dunne was, as 'Woman's Day' discovered, "without a doubt, the most talked-about character on Australian TV during 1982." Produced by Grundys for the Seven network, 'Sons and Daughters' was billed as Australia's answer to 'Dallas' and turned out to be a "runaway success". When one of Australia's most popular actresses, Rowena Wallace, was approached to play her most famous role
in late 1981, Rowena told 'Woman's Day' she had a premonition Patricia would one day become the J.R. of Australian television.
Like 'Dallas', Rowena also believed that 'Sons and Daughters' was meant to be. 'TV Week' observed, "In the tradition of U.S. shows like 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty', bombshell after bombshell will be dropped on viewers - right from the start." Pat McDonald played a pivotal role as Aunt Fiona Thompson who held the family secrets. She also had quite a few of her own.
'Sons and Daughters' opened in the year 1962. Patricia, then 17, was a girl from an ordinary lower-middle-class family, who was pregnant with twins from a teenage romance with a 22-year-old married air force officer, Martin Healy. For 21 years, David Palmer, an interstate truck driver who knew Patricia from school, thought he was the father of her twins. When Patricia told David in the final episode of the first season he wasn't the father of John and Angela, the revelation was said to be one of the biggest shocks on Australian TV in 1982.
Patricia was noted for being "always in the right place at the wrong time for her victims." Speaking to 'TV Week' in 1988, Rowena, then 40, recounted, "I remember as a teenager not thinking the time was that unusual, but it must have been quite terrifying for my parents. I grew up in Queensland and later in Sydney. When you are a kid you don't think about the time you are living in. It's only as you grow older you begin to make comparisons - that's why it's been so interesting to look back on those events.
"I now (in 1988) have opinions about it all that were unformed then. I didn't think of the Beatles as an amazing group that was going to change the face of music. I didn't think I was participating in an era that was going to go down in history as one of the most extraordinary times." As a teenager, "I was such a good girl … I had a very sheltered childhood. I am an only child and I wasn't really mixing with a peer group.
"I spent most of my teenage years on my own until I joined a theater group and discovered there were people as weird as I was out there. My folks never interfered. Once I joined the theater group I think they knew they may as well give up. They always tried to allow me individual freedom - they realized attitudes were changing and always took that into account."
Centered around the wealthy Hamiltons of Sydney and the middle-class Palmers of Melbourne, Reg Watson, who created 'Sons and Daughters', made the point, "I suppose subconsciously we're trying to prove that deep down we're all the same no matter where we live." In 'Sons and Daughters', both families were extricably connected. A complex series of events eventually drawn them all together, "prising the lid from a Pandora's box of family secrets."
In creating one of television's legendary characters, TV Week Gold Logie winner Rowena Wallace acknowledged, "I’m often described as a strong lady but I never used to be. The last few years (before 1983) haven't been easy for me personally – I've gone through a lot of ups and downs. I think working through that and then having this character to play has brought out elements in me that were previously dormant.
"I have noticed the changes in myself. I was always rather shy and retiring but we don't know our own strengths until they're put to the test. I've taken courage from Patricia – she borrows from me and I think I've probably borrowed from her. What's happened I guess is that the success of the character has made me much more confident as an actor and as a person."
'TV Week' reported in 1984, "Through Patricia, Rowena Wallace has given a lift to any number of Australian housewives with her fear-of-no-man attitude and her iron-fisted roost-ruling." However Rowena rejected Patricia being a rich, domineering and arrogant social climber who married for money. In her softly-spoken voice, Rowena described her alter ego, "She's basically a very caring mother, although at times it doesn't seem like that. But she is a mother with a mission. She came from what she believes to be a fairly humble background and she wants to gain as much as she can for her daughter.
"All the things she's striven for she doesn't want to see go to waste. She has her daughter's interests at heart but of course, they're really her own interests. I think she thinks she is doing the right thing. But it's the old story, isn't it? We sort of react from the point of view of what we want for somebody, not what they want. (In playing matchmaker, Patricia set Angela up to marry the grandson of high-climbing businesswoman and socialite, Dee Morrell. In the end both called off the wedding because Angela was not really in love with Simon Armstrong.)
"It's a mixture of both. I think she thinks that the things that she does and the things that she wants are the best for Angela, but basically, they're the best things for Patricia. I can't imagine what she is going to do next. I get really upset when I think of the things I have to do as Patricia. I have to say to myself, 'You're an actress Rowena, and it's just entertainment.'"
Under that "stalactite, looks-that-could-kill veneer" which was Patricia the Terrible, Rowena Wallace confessed, "I'd be mad if I wasn't happy … I'd defy anyone to do one of those shows without a sense of humor. You've got to laugh. And the minute you start to take yourself so seriously that you can't laugh at yourself, it's time to have a really good think about it. I've tried to make her appear as a person who sees the humor of life, otherwise she would have been so depressing ... I couldn't cope with being a woman like her - it would be exhausting and very sad. It's like sometimes I get the feeling that she knows what she's doing, too, and is having a bit of a giggle about it."
In playing Patricia, Rowena remarked, "There are, however, certain elements in my personality which I use for the character. Patricia is a great character for an actor to play. She has me down at times when she's so bad and unpleasant to people. But it is up to me as the actress to justify those things - and I try to but she often wears me out because of her neurotic, emotional tangents. There was a lot of crying for a while. The tears were real; it positively drained me. I feel the tears are important in a crying scene but it takes a great deal of effort and concentration to conjure them up."
On reflection, Rowena told 'Woman's Day', "If one actually lived as Patricia does – constantly ranting, raving, screaming, conniving, crying or getting hysterical you'd just be an emotional wreck. I think there are opportunities to show that she's as vulnerable as the next person but she handles things in a different way. I don't think she's totally nasty. She's fairly neurotic in her behavior, misunderstood a lot of the time and she's a volatile human being.
"I get the feeling that viewers are very fond of this horrible character, even though she drives them to distraction. They really want her to get her comeuppance but I reckon they would be disappointed if she did because they'd have nothing to look forward to. She's certainly the most overtly unpleasant character I've ever played, the most largely drawn if you like and certainly for the convention of a continuing serial the character's working very well. The reason viewers like the show so much is that they identify with the characters. It's about people, their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses, whatever it is makes up a human being and these things are easily recognizable to the audience. There is no communication problem."
Rowena played Pat for over three years. She taped her last scenes for the show in 1984. After 'Sons and Daughters', Rowena reportedly received many work offers including playing a woman doing her best to raise her family during the turbulent early '60s era. On the Nine network series, 'All The Way' (1988), Rowena played a woman divided by her loyalties to her conservative politician husband and her love for a union boss.
"I play the wife of a politician - whom she leaves with a couple of children," Rowena explained at the time. "She married a solicitor who went into politics, provides her with a lovely life and lovely clothes and she doesn't really think much about anything of it until she falls in love with a leader of the transport union." In the Grundy's 1984 TV movie 'Relatives' Rowena told 'TV Soap' she played "just an ordinary housewife. There aren't any really nasty characters in it. Certainly I don't play one this time. I'm a housewife, struggling to keep the kids fed, pay the bills and doing the best I can to make something of myself. I'm really looking forward to that role."
Like 'Dallas', Rowena also believed that 'Sons and Daughters' was meant to be. 'TV Week' observed, "In the tradition of U.S. shows like 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty', bombshell after bombshell will be dropped on viewers - right from the start." Pat McDonald played a pivotal role as Aunt Fiona Thompson who held the family secrets. She also had quite a few of her own.
'Sons and Daughters' opened in the year 1962. Patricia, then 17, was a girl from an ordinary lower-middle-class family, who was pregnant with twins from a teenage romance with a 22-year-old married air force officer, Martin Healy. For 21 years, David Palmer, an interstate truck driver who knew Patricia from school, thought he was the father of her twins. When Patricia told David in the final episode of the first season he wasn't the father of John and Angela, the revelation was said to be one of the biggest shocks on Australian TV in 1982.
Patricia was noted for being "always in the right place at the wrong time for her victims." Speaking to 'TV Week' in 1988, Rowena, then 40, recounted, "I remember as a teenager not thinking the time was that unusual, but it must have been quite terrifying for my parents. I grew up in Queensland and later in Sydney. When you are a kid you don't think about the time you are living in. It's only as you grow older you begin to make comparisons - that's why it's been so interesting to look back on those events.
"I now (in 1988) have opinions about it all that were unformed then. I didn't think of the Beatles as an amazing group that was going to change the face of music. I didn't think I was participating in an era that was going to go down in history as one of the most extraordinary times." As a teenager, "I was such a good girl … I had a very sheltered childhood. I am an only child and I wasn't really mixing with a peer group.
"I spent most of my teenage years on my own until I joined a theater group and discovered there were people as weird as I was out there. My folks never interfered. Once I joined the theater group I think they knew they may as well give up. They always tried to allow me individual freedom - they realized attitudes were changing and always took that into account."
Centered around the wealthy Hamiltons of Sydney and the middle-class Palmers of Melbourne, Reg Watson, who created 'Sons and Daughters', made the point, "I suppose subconsciously we're trying to prove that deep down we're all the same no matter where we live." In 'Sons and Daughters', both families were extricably connected. A complex series of events eventually drawn them all together, "prising the lid from a Pandora's box of family secrets."
In creating one of television's legendary characters, TV Week Gold Logie winner Rowena Wallace acknowledged, "I’m often described as a strong lady but I never used to be. The last few years (before 1983) haven't been easy for me personally – I've gone through a lot of ups and downs. I think working through that and then having this character to play has brought out elements in me that were previously dormant.
"I have noticed the changes in myself. I was always rather shy and retiring but we don't know our own strengths until they're put to the test. I've taken courage from Patricia – she borrows from me and I think I've probably borrowed from her. What's happened I guess is that the success of the character has made me much more confident as an actor and as a person."
'TV Week' reported in 1984, "Through Patricia, Rowena Wallace has given a lift to any number of Australian housewives with her fear-of-no-man attitude and her iron-fisted roost-ruling." However Rowena rejected Patricia being a rich, domineering and arrogant social climber who married for money. In her softly-spoken voice, Rowena described her alter ego, "She's basically a very caring mother, although at times it doesn't seem like that. But she is a mother with a mission. She came from what she believes to be a fairly humble background and she wants to gain as much as she can for her daughter.
"All the things she's striven for she doesn't want to see go to waste. She has her daughter's interests at heart but of course, they're really her own interests. I think she thinks she is doing the right thing. But it's the old story, isn't it? We sort of react from the point of view of what we want for somebody, not what they want. (In playing matchmaker, Patricia set Angela up to marry the grandson of high-climbing businesswoman and socialite, Dee Morrell. In the end both called off the wedding because Angela was not really in love with Simon Armstrong.)
"It's a mixture of both. I think she thinks that the things that she does and the things that she wants are the best for Angela, but basically, they're the best things for Patricia. I can't imagine what she is going to do next. I get really upset when I think of the things I have to do as Patricia. I have to say to myself, 'You're an actress Rowena, and it's just entertainment.'"
Under that "stalactite, looks-that-could-kill veneer" which was Patricia the Terrible, Rowena Wallace confessed, "I'd be mad if I wasn't happy … I'd defy anyone to do one of those shows without a sense of humor. You've got to laugh. And the minute you start to take yourself so seriously that you can't laugh at yourself, it's time to have a really good think about it. I've tried to make her appear as a person who sees the humor of life, otherwise she would have been so depressing ... I couldn't cope with being a woman like her - it would be exhausting and very sad. It's like sometimes I get the feeling that she knows what she's doing, too, and is having a bit of a giggle about it."
In playing Patricia, Rowena remarked, "There are, however, certain elements in my personality which I use for the character. Patricia is a great character for an actor to play. She has me down at times when she's so bad and unpleasant to people. But it is up to me as the actress to justify those things - and I try to but she often wears me out because of her neurotic, emotional tangents. There was a lot of crying for a while. The tears were real; it positively drained me. I feel the tears are important in a crying scene but it takes a great deal of effort and concentration to conjure them up."
On reflection, Rowena told 'Woman's Day', "If one actually lived as Patricia does – constantly ranting, raving, screaming, conniving, crying or getting hysterical you'd just be an emotional wreck. I think there are opportunities to show that she's as vulnerable as the next person but she handles things in a different way. I don't think she's totally nasty. She's fairly neurotic in her behavior, misunderstood a lot of the time and she's a volatile human being.
"I get the feeling that viewers are very fond of this horrible character, even though she drives them to distraction. They really want her to get her comeuppance but I reckon they would be disappointed if she did because they'd have nothing to look forward to. She's certainly the most overtly unpleasant character I've ever played, the most largely drawn if you like and certainly for the convention of a continuing serial the character's working very well. The reason viewers like the show so much is that they identify with the characters. It's about people, their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses, whatever it is makes up a human being and these things are easily recognizable to the audience. There is no communication problem."
Rowena played Pat for over three years. She taped her last scenes for the show in 1984. After 'Sons and Daughters', Rowena reportedly received many work offers including playing a woman doing her best to raise her family during the turbulent early '60s era. On the Nine network series, 'All The Way' (1988), Rowena played a woman divided by her loyalties to her conservative politician husband and her love for a union boss.
"I play the wife of a politician - whom she leaves with a couple of children," Rowena explained at the time. "She married a solicitor who went into politics, provides her with a lovely life and lovely clothes and she doesn't really think much about anything of it until she falls in love with a leader of the transport union." In the Grundy's 1984 TV movie 'Relatives' Rowena told 'TV Soap' she played "just an ordinary housewife. There aren't any really nasty characters in it. Certainly I don't play one this time. I'm a housewife, struggling to keep the kids fed, pay the bills and doing the best I can to make something of myself. I'm really looking forward to that role."
