THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A NEIGHBOURS ICON…
On the telly!
Stefan first performed aged 11 in a school production of Oliver!, but trained as a chef for five years before deciding to make entertainment business his career. His first television credit was in police drama Cop Shop and roles soon followed in classic Aussie shows including The Flying Doctors and The Sullivans.
Top of the flops!
With Kylie riding high in the charts, Stefan also found pop fame in 1989 as his single Don’t It Make You Feel Good reached No 14 in the UK charts. A follow-up flopped, but Stefan still has musical ambitions. “I’d love to dust off the vocal chords – Neighbours could do a Christmas album,” he suggests.
Soap Secret
When the Neighbours cast appeared in 1988’s Royal Variety Performance, Stefan was amused as the Queen Mum brushed past the cast of hit US sitcom The Golden Girls to get to the Ramsay Street stars!
Love life...
Stefan was 19 when he married his first wife Roz. “We were very young – I think I proposed because I didn’t want to lose her,” he recalls. Stefan and his now-wife Gail Easdale met doing panto in 1991, but only got together three years later as Stefan was dating his Neighbours wife, Gayle Blakeney (aka Christina).
Street life...
Stefan almost didn’t take the role of Paul as he was holding out for a film role he’d auditioned for. When Neighbours was then axed after seven months, before getting an unexpected reprieve, he almost didn’t return. “We were travelling in Germany when I got the call,” he recalls. “My first wife convinced me to go back.”
Stefan on…
HIS PAL GUY PEARCE “We all thought he was really up himself – he would sit in the Green Room and just read books. But once I figured out h
