BruceAllpress

While growing up in Dunedin, Bruce Allpress was taken to see some amateur theatre by his mother, and told himself he could do better.

Allpress looks to have made his television debut in 1965, as one of the performers on Ossie Cheesman's music show The Cheesman Singer Series. Later — after appearing in hit 1976 show Hunter's Gold, as the gold prospector sought out by the young hero — he got the chance to hone his acting skills over a couple of years of Close to Home. This time he played a demolition expert. Working on a twice-weekly soap was "a pretty good way of keeping on your toes — you learn scripts very rapidly, and you don't miss your marks too often."