Belinda Giblin’s celebrated career comes full circle with a return to TV for Home and Away

Belinda Giblin walked away from Aussie TV in the 1980s as one of its biggest stars, but she has finally been lured back to play small screen stalwart Alf’s long lost wife in Home and Away.

I know that face. That was the reaction of Aussie TV viewers when Alf Stewart’s (Ray Meagher) Martha appeared on Home and Away mid last year.

Belinda Giblin was one of the industry’s biggest stars in the 1970s and 80s. She played Kay Webster alongside George Mallaby, Ken James and Judy Nunn in saucy adult soapie The Box.

Giblin, 69, went on to star as Sister Sue Marriott for two seasons of The Sullivans and Alison Carr in Sons and Daughters. She also appeared in Matlock Police, Division 4, Carson’s Law, Bluey, Homicide, Cop Shop, A Country Practice and Skyways. In the 1990s she starred in Heartbreak High.

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Ray Meagher (Alf) and Belinda Giblin (Martha) in a scene from Home and Away.

Then Giblin pretty much quit television — tired of being constantly portraying glamorous, sexy women — to concentrate on theatre.

Now Giblin has returned to Home and Away for another stint as Martha who must also work to reconnect with daughter Roo (Georgie Parker).

I gather you’ve played three different characters on Home and Away over the years.

I did the reads for the original auditions for the show 31 years ago. I was pregnant at the time. I was reading opposite all these hopefuls for the roles. I remember first playing a mother and then, if my memory is correct a blind woman who saves Alf from a caravan fire. Then last year I came back as Alf’s first wife, Martha.

Tell me about Martha.

She suddenly reappears from the brine. She supposedly drowned in an accident prior to the show starting when Roo was only 13 years old. She is obviously a very good swimmer because three decades later she is back to say “hello, I’m your wife”.

The reason she staged the drowning was because of a borderline personality disorder which wasn’t diagnosed at the time — anxiety, paranoia, fear of abandonment.

Alf didn’t want to have anything to do with Martha because he was so angry. She had been living down the South Coast all those years without contacting him.

But now Alf seems to want Martha back in his life.

Her personality disorder seems to be under control with medication. She comes back because he wants her to.

It is a really lovely storyline. I so enjoyed myself. She is happy. She is not constantly burdened with depression.

There is humour and it is romantic in an Alf-way. You can see that they have had a past. She understands him really well — better than anybody.

That feels like a storyline that a lot of couples could relate to.

Home and Away is a young people’s show but I think this is a storyline for the grey nomads. They will love this storyline because it is recognisable.

Giblin as the nun in the play Doubt: A Parable. Picture: John Marmaras

Do you have any history with Ray?

Ray and I have known each other since we were in our early twenties. We did our first television show together. It was a Matlock Police (1973) in black and white and he tries to kill me. He played a baddie.

I had met him before that when I was doing a play up in Queensland. He wasn’t acting at that point. He turned up in the foyer of the theatre in a pair of moleskins and riding boots — so nothing much has changed — and said ‘G’day Belinda, do you want to go to the bachelor and spinsters ball’.

He is such a darling man — a really generous and lovely man. It is easy to work with him. And I’ve known Georgie for years too.

Obviously mother-daughter dynamic with Roo is the other piece of this puzzle.

You can imagine when Martha came back under those circumstances. There was a lot of anger and resentment. How could you have done it?

This time around we have been through that and we start to rebuild the relationship. That’s not easy. It is now a bit of a triangle. She has had her dad to herself and suddenly I come back into their lives and there needs to be some adjustment. They have to get to know each other all over again and that has its complications.

Giblin (centre) with The Box co-stars Helen Hemingway and Vanessa Leigh was one of the biggest Aussie TV stars of the ‘70s.

Has it been strange coming back to television after such a long break?

I did so many years of television back-to-back. I was in the Crawford Productions stable and popped from one show to the next. I wasn’t out of work for 12 years. But then I got so sick of it. I wanted to break out (of the routine).

I had not done television for a long time and to be perfectly honest I was a little bit scared. On stage I like roles where I can lose myself in accents and wigs and other people so going back to television felt very vulnerable and exposing.

Also don’t forget I have aged since Sons and Daughters and I haven’t had any cosmetic work done so I’m going to look my age — which in a funny way I’m really pleased about. There is a lot of facial work going on among my contemporaries (actors) but I’m not one of them. I think ‘bugger this, I want to be representative of the viewers who are watching this who are my age’. Having said that, when I watch myself I want to kill myself. I think ‘seriously, am I that old’?

When you think back to the 1970s and 80s and your TV success do you feel blessed?

Yes — very much. When you are part of the Hector Crawford stable you feel like family. He really looked after us.

Now that you are back, do you think you will be a regular presence on Home and Away?

I did seven weeks (for episodes currently screening) and then I leave again but I’m about to go back in again now (to start more filming). Martha is a character that will come and go.

WATCH HOME AND AWAY ON CHANNEL 7, MON - THURS AT 7PM