Whatever happened to E Street’s Bruce Samazan?
His role as Max Simmons on E Street made Bruce Samazan one of the most popular actors of the early 1990s. Now aged 49 and working in real estate, the former heartthrob is about to make a television comeback.
Stellar
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Like many award-winning entertainers, Bruce Samazan has found various uses for his Silver Logie.
It has acted as a paperweight, ornament, talking point, and everything in-between. But while it is currently occupying a rather unremarkable place in his media room, the actor acknowledges that the Most Popular Actor award, which he won in 1992 for the primetime Network 10 soap opera E Street, has a place close to his heart.
“It’s been very versatile. But it is treasured,” the 49-year-old tells Stellar as he flashes his trademark smile.
Samazan might say the same of the career he led in the ’90s, which was the result of a childhood interest in acting. After graduating from drama school, Samazan made the rounds, doing bit parts as an extra before eventually gaining the notice of the producers behind E Street.
He was actually in attendance at a casting audition to support his girlfriend, but they asked him to try out, too. He didn’t land a part, but impressed them enough that he was invited to attend an intensive six-week acting course.
“For reasons I don’t know, they saw something in me and my persona,” recalls Samazan. “I did the course and went back and did the audition again... and two years later, I’m standing onstage with a Silver Logie, thanking my mother.”
The E Street role he did land, that of police officer Max Simmons, made Samazan a TV star as well as an instant pin-up. But the face that once adorned many teenagers’ walls turns a particular shade of crimson when he is asked about his years as a heartthrob.
“I took all of that with a grain of salt, but I really appreciated the fans’ attention,” he says. “I mean that legitimately in the sense that I invested a lot of my time on my fans and I think this has to do a lot with my popularity then and potentially with me being nominated for and winning a Logie.”
After E Street ended in 1993, Samazan went on to star in another Network 10 staple, Neighbours, before appearing on the Seven Network’s Home And Away.
It makes him the only male actor who has had a regular role on the three big Australian soaps. But by the late 1990s, the roles started drying up, and he found himself at a crossroads.
“I got to a point where I was touching 30. I’d met my wife and we were talking about kids and buying things,” he explains.
“I had to make a big decision and that was, ‘As much as I love it, is acting going to provide that for me? For us?’ It was what I wanted to do, but I had to [be] realistic. I decided to search around for a normal job and became a real estate agent.”
Today he works with a company that focuses on downsizing, particularly for retirement villages and resorts, and lives in the holiday town of Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – “I’m in paradise” – with his wife Nanette and daughters Leala, 13, and Zoe, 10, each of whom have inherited their father’s knack for performance.
“Leala plays piano and she’s kind of interested in drama,” he says. “Zoe loves singing. Both of them are clowns. They haven’t really had a lot of experience with what I used to do; they’ve seen little bits on YouTube, but they don’t understand exactly how popular Dad was. For them it’s like, ‘Dad’s been on TV... once or twice.’”
That should change next month, when he is once again onscreen in Neighbours during the show’s week-long 35th anniversary celebration. He’ll be joined by one-time co-star Melissa Bell, who played his romantic interest on both that show and E Street.
“It’s a real buzz to work with Melissa again. We’ve always had a really great onscreen chemistry,” he says. “My character, Mark, bumps into Melissa’s character, Lucy, and there’s some flirt that goes on, which is a lot of fun. And eventually what happens is, in keeping with the big event that’s happening in Erinsborough, I propose and there’s a marriage. Actually, I think there’s a couple of marriages.”
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Five weddings and three deaths, to be exact. Samazan isn’t giving away much more about what transpires in the anniversary episodes, but is only too eager to tell Stellar what a blast he had reliving the past.
“The moment I came around the corner [of the Neighbours location in Nunawading, Melbourne] and saw the tower, I had a flashback of so many memories. This was my whole life for just under four years. I had the most wonderful time [being back].”
So much so that he would be open to returning to acting full-time – but as for the other career he left behind, don’t expect a similar revival.
In 1993, he released a rap single under the pseudonym B-Man Samazan. It peaked at number 80 on the ARIA charts. “The song was called ‘One Of A Kind’, and that’s exactly what it’s going to be,” he quips.
In any case, Samazan has no unrealistic expectations and is making no assumptions about what could develop. He’s just pleased it happened at all.
“The shine on my little star isn’t as bright as what it was, so it’ll be interesting to see how the general public react to me popping my head out of the shadows,” he says.
“I’ve gotten a little older, a little greyer and a little rounder, but potentially that could lead to new roles. Who knows? But the really good and exciting thing about this is that I’m doing this not because I need to, but because I want to – and there’s a big, big difference.”
Neighbours’ 35th anniversary week begins 6.30pm, Monday March 16, on 10 Peach.