Top 10 Aussie stars who made their name on Home and Away
Home and Away marks its 6000th episode tonight, and to celebrate, we take a look at the top 10 biggest Aussie exports who made their names in Summer Bay.
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From Naomi Watts to Isla Fisher, some big names have come out of Home and Away.
Filmed at the picturesque North Palm Beach, the show has stood the test of time to clock up its 6000th episode tonight at 7pm Channel 7).
To celebrate, here are the 10 biggest stars to come out of the show:
Guy Pearce may be one of Australia’s biggest stars, who’s been in everything from The Hurt Locker to Memento, but he was killed off after six weeks on Home and Away.
He played David Croft — A failed investor who arrived in Summer Bay in 1991 to patch things up with his sister, but ended up getting a crush on a younger woman.
While listening to a mix tape from his new love interest, he is hit by a car and is killed instantly. The distraught object of his affections then realises she’s carrying his baby.
Pearce’s impressive CV includes roles in Academy Award winning The Hurt Locker, Iron Man 3 and Prometheus.
Teenage runaway Angel Brooks may be remembered for her strong eyebrows, but if you browse the character’s history, you’ll see the plucky character played by Melissa George was no lightweight.
She became temporarily paralysed after a car crash, survived a seaplane crash, supported her baby as he was diagnosed with leukaemia, loses her husband to septicaemia and gave birth to her second child in a storm that cuts off all roads to the hospital.
It’s eyebrow-raising stuff to say the least.
George has gone on to appear in several US TV series including Alias, as well as the acclaimed Australian drama The Slap, and films ranging from Mulholland Drive to The Amityville Horror remake.
Before Australian acting great Heath Ledger played Batman bad boy The Joker, he was the resident rebel in Summer Bay.
Not only did he score a night in the back of a van with Sally Fletcher, he then tried to set her up for stealing the headmaster’s favourite record.
The prank, however was the beginning of the end as he was expelled from the school, and the series, soon after.
Ledger went on to deliver criticially acclaimed performances in Aussie films Two Hands and Candy and international blockbusters from Brokeback Mountain to The Dark Knight.
He tragically passed away in 2008, aged 28.
The fiery redhead arrives in Summer Bay as a foster child in 1994 along with her brother Curtis, but she is soon caught kissing him and it is revealed they’re not blood relatives.
After dating a drug dealer, she moves on to Angel’s husband, making a move on him while she’s supposed to be babysitting their child.
She then has a lesbian flirtation with an author that she scares away by writing a romantic short story about the two of them, however they reunite later and leave for Paris as a duo.
Post Summer Bay, Fisher has carved a niche in quirky comic film roles from The Wedding Crashers to Confessions of a Shopaholic, although recently proved she can still take a dramatic turn in The Great Gatsby. She is married to actor comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Long before Thor, Chris Hemsworth played the headmaster’s son Kim Hyde.
In his stint on the show from 2004 to 2007, he spent a fair amount of screen time with his shirt off — rescuing friends from the surf, joining swim squads, working out at the gym and having romantic trysts with girlfriends — including one steamy scene that followed a helicopter crash.
He also overdosed on ecstasy, was accused of sexual assault and ended up in a love triangle that saw him leaving his wife to be with his ex girlfriend.
Where is he now? Cutting a swathe through Hollywood in a string of leading man roles from Snow White and the Huntsman to The Avengers and of course, Thor.
As a wheelchair-bound love interest Julie Gibson, Naomi Watts had a short stint on Home and Away.
In one month, she had a romance thwarted by her overbearing brother Revhead, lost her father to a heart attack and left the Bay to study at university.
Now one of Hollywood’s leading dramatic actresses, Watts has starred everything from Tank Girl to King Kong and The Impossible.
The Americans know him as the sexy-but-stupid vampire hater on True Blood but for us Aussies, Ryan Kwanten will always be Vinnie Patterson.
The character arrived in Summer Bay on a jet ski in 1997 and broke a fair few hearts during his five-year stint including long-time character Sally Fletcher. He was a burger flipper by day and a stripper by night, but he got fired from his day job after wearing his burger apron to a stripping job.
After getting a full-body sunburn at a nudist beach, Sally applies lotion on his sensitive areas and discovers a lump. It turns out to be testicular cancer and he has surgery to have it removed.
He ends up in prison on fraud charges, and while Summer Bay things he died in a prison fire, he actually survived and was living in witness protection, where he dies, for real, in a farming accident.
While Kwanten has a huge fan base internationally thanks to True Blood, he has also starred in several films including Red Hill.
She may have played a super-attractive alien robot in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen but her Home and Away role was as a shy wildling.
Her character Tasha Andrews appears on the beach in 2003 confused and disoriented, speaking only Latin. It is revealed she was raised by wacky survivalists and is reintegrated into society by way of the good folk at Summer Bay.
She finds love, gets married joins a cult and eventually, moves to Boston.
While most Australians choose a soapie, the Minogues most probably have VCRs of Home and Away and Neighbours. While Kylie was strutting around on Ramsay St, Dannii was living it up in Summer Bay.
Minogue played tomboy Emma Jackson, who was always getting into trouble sneaking alcohol, slamming doors and being an all-round spunky punk.
But the bad girl has a tragic back story of abuse at her stepfather’s hands after her father died, but grows up to reconcile with her mother. She leaves after about a year to become an air hostess on the Gold Coast.
Minogue’s post-soapie story has included stints as a pop star, TV presenter and judge on programs from Uk and Ireland’s Top Model to The X Factor.
Hollywood success story Simon Baker may be at ease cast alongside the likes of Anne Hathaway and Kevin Spacey but on Home and Away, he played a bit part.
In 1993 to 1994, Baker played James Healey but he’s also had roles on Heartbreak High and E Street.
Baker is now best known for his role as the star of US Tv series The Mentalist.
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