Ilona Rodgers

Actor Ilona Rodgers has battled hairy monsters on Doctor Who, mastered the bitchy putdown on Gloss, and appeared on longrunning Kiwi soaps Shortland Street and Close to Home. Her career has also seen her acting opposite Kiwi legends Bruno Lawrence and Billy T James.

Born in North Yorkshire, Rodgers trained at Elmhurst Ballet School in Surrey, and at Bristol's highly-competitive Old Vic Drama School. She began her acting career on the stage, before two roles in 1964 helped her break into television: one in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit, the other in the longrunning Doctor Who (in ‘The Sensorites', opposite William Hartnell).

The sixties saw Rodgers making fleeting television appearances in The Avengers, The Saint, and playing Scottish romantic interest to Jethro Bodine on American show Beverly Hillbillies. In 1968 she won a larger role in Sammy Davis Jr movie comedy Salt and Pepper.

Following a stint in New Caledonia, Rodgers moved to New Zealand in 1973 with her family. She alternated stints at Auckland's Mercury Theatre with roles in longrunning television soap Close to Home, and 1800s goldrush drama Hunter's Gold.

In 1976 Rodgers won the Feltex Award for Best Actress, for a half-hour adaptation of the Katherine Mansfield short story Woman at the Store (the film was an early collaboration by filmmakers Roger Donaldson and Ian Mune.)

Two years later Rodgers relocated to Australia. Over the next seven years she appeared in a run of Australian TV soap operas and mini-series, including Anzacs (co-written by John Clarke), The Sullivans, and more than 200 episodes of Sons and Daughters. In the longrunning Prisoner, Rodgers role was that of pseudo-clairvoyant Zara Moonbeam, who agrees to impersonate the ghost of another characters' daughter.

Rodgers returned to New Zealand in 1985 (though she appears in the 1983 Kiwi Western Utu, as unfortunate wife of a shotgun-toting Bruno Lawrence). In 1989 Rodgers played Australian wife to comic legend Billy T, on the final sitcom reincarnation of The Billy T James Show.

But it is for her role as doyenne Maxine Redfern on Gloss that Rodgers is best known. The iconic eighties soap followed a glamorous Auckland family and the employees of their high fashion magazine. The character of conniving magazine editor Maxine Redfern was created by Rosemary McLeod, who had written extensively for The Listener. Gloss ran for three series, and garnered Rodgers two consecutive best actor awards.

In 1992 Rodgers reteamed with Gloss actor Andy Anderson and producer Janice Finn to work on the longrunning Marlin Bay, set in a luxury coastal resort. Rodgers played Charlotte Kincaid, the manager of a private casino which is part of the resort (New Zealand's first casino opened during the show's final season.) Marlin Bay's mixture of visiting tourists and Kiwi scenery made it an impressive seller overseas. At home, the series performed solidly in the face of a number of changes in scheduling and cast, from series to series.

Rodgers' television resume also includes appearances in the fantasies Hercules and Maddigan's Quest, soap opera satire Spin Doctors, and a stint hosting magazine show Good Morning. In 1991 she joined Andy Anderson in Gold: The World's a Play, one of a series of television movies set in eighteenth century goldmining New Zealand.

Throughout the 1990s, Rodgers continued to act on stage and small screen. She also trained in television directing. As an active member of the Bahá'í faith, Rodgers has shared her drama skills at Bahá'í summer schools, and acted as a spokesperson for the Bahá'í community.