Carol Smith
Since graduating from Toi Whakaari in 1989, Carol Smith has acted on stage, radio and screen, winning a Chapman Tripp award for play The Country along the way. Her CV includes short films, sketch show Away Laughing, and playing Margaret Pope on David Lange docudrama Fallout. In 1995 Fiona Samuel picked Smith for an extended solo turn as a conflicted hippie, in Samuel's directorial debut Face Value - A Real Dog.
Carol Hirschfeld
Carol Hirschfeld spent 12 years at TVNZ in news and current affairs, and also co-hosted Crimewatch. In 1997 she was hired to read TV3's 6pm news, the start of an extended association with John Campbell. They presented 3 News for seven years, then she began producing Campbell Live in 2004. Since 2009 Hirschfeld has done time as Head of Programming at Māori Television, and Head of Content at RNZ.
John Campbell
English literature graduate and former share trader John Campbell joined TV3 as a reporter in 1989. In 1997 he began fronting his own current affairs segment on 3 News. John Hawkesby's resignation in 1998 saw Campbell drafted in to read the 6pm news with Carol Hirschfeld. In 2005 he moved to 7pm for Campbell Live, and hosted it for a decade. After returning to Radio New Zealand, he joined TVNZ in 2018.
Ronald Sinclair
Ronald Sinclair began his movie career at age 11 as Ra Hould, when he appeared in Down on the Farm (1935), a contender for New Zealand’s first feature-length drama made with sound. The following year he went to Hollywood, where MGM changed his name to Ronald Sinclair for movie Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry. After war service with the US Army he worked for more than two decades as a film editor.
Danielle Cormack
Danielle Cormack has showcased her naturalistic, seemingly effortless acting style on both sides of the Tasman. After roles in TV soaps Gloss and Shortland Street, she began a run of big screen starring roles — Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, The Price of Milk and Via Satellite (playing twins). On Australian TV, Cormack has starred as a prisoner (Wentworth), crime lord (Underbelly: Razor) and barrister (Rake).
David Pumphrey
Television experience with the BBC helped David Pumphrey win a job in Kiwi television, soon after he returned to New Zealand in 1959. He went on to produce children's shows, live broadcasts, and Montage — forerunner to magazine show Town and Around. Pumphrey also worked on the first TV broadcasts by celebrity cook Graham Kerr, and directed for high profile current affairs shows Compass and Gallery.
Dick Weir
The distinctive deep voice of veteran broadcaster Dick Weir, QSM, is known to generations of Kiwi kids as a longtime Radio New Zealand National presenter (The Dick Weir Sunday Show, Ears). On screen he has narrated everything from election campaigns to Erebus docudramas to Wild South. Weir was also the inaugural presenter of 80s after-school news programme The Video Dispatch.
Fred O'Neill
Dunedin businessman and artist, Fred O’Neill, whose hobby of making quirky animated films brought him international recognition, sent his Plasticine hero to Venus thirty years before Nick Park got Wallace and Gromit to the Moon. O’Neill’s films encouraged children not to take up smoking, brought Māori legends to the screen in a novel way, and entertained young viewers in the early years of New Zealand television. Image credit: Stills Collection, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. Courtesy of the Fred O'Neill collection.
Alison Parr
Alison Parr has documented key moments in New Zealand’s cultural and social history during an award-winning career as a journalist, oral historian and broadcaster. Her credits include iconic programmes of the 1980s and 90s like Close Up and Kaleidoscope. In 2003 she joined the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, where she has spent more than a decade as an Oral Historian, recording the memories of war veterans.
Ian Wishart
Ian Wishart has been described by The Listener as “the country’s most influential journalist”. The outspoken editor of Investigate magazine has written several bestsellers examining Kiwi crime cases. Wishart gained renown as the reporter who led the investigation into The Winebox Affair, fronting a Frontline documentary on corporate fraud. He also presented 1997 found footage show Real TV.