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11

ENTER THE FREAK

Unsuspecting guard Steve Fawkner unwittingly makes a major contribution to the blaze and is almost killed after an explosion threatens to burn down the prison.  Lizzie's idea for the illicit stills works so well there is soon a storage problem.  So the inmates fill the nearest fire-extinguishers with the brew, giving easy access on those many cold, lonely nights.

When the screws do a sudden search for a secret letter, Doreen Anderson sets fire to a mattress as a diversion.  Fawkner arrives to fight the cell fire with a blanket, but has to resort to the nearest extinguisher.  He is unaware it is full of pure alcohol.  The subsequent explosion hurls him across the room, badly burning his legs.  Other staff and firemen put out the blaze.

When Grundy's were told Patsy King was thinking of leaving the show some major recruiting got underway - and the biggest impact on the show since Franky Doyle, Bea Smith and Lizzie Birdsworth was about to happen.

Enter the Freak!  Warder Joan Ferguson, a malevolent force of terrifying moods and evil desires.

Maggie Kirkpatrick, 40, was perfect as Ferguson.  A well-established theatre actress with a solid sprinkling of TV and movie credits ('The John Denver Special', 'Jonah', 'The Oracle', 'Spring and Fall'; and on the big screen F. J. Holden, The Getting of Wisdom, The Night of the Prowler and The Pirate Movie) she was born in Albury, the New South Wales border town.

In lean times before 'Prisoner', Maggie often worked part time pulling beers at the Strand Hotel in William Street, Sydney, a well-known hangout for the acting fraternity.  But all that changed in June of 1982 when Maggie donned the jail uniform of Warder Joan Ferguson, flexed her black-gloved hands and strode the corridors of Wentworth.  She was a stand-out from her very first entrance.

If Franky Doyle had electrified 'Prisoner' fans, Lizzie Birdsworth endeared herself to all and Bea Smith tugged at their heart-strings, Ferguson would rip them apart.  Her arrival as a sensational new character was said by many industry insiders to have saved 'Prisoner', or at least given it a new lease of life.

This jailer knew all the tricks, had conquered the toughest inmates in other prisons, and usually knew in advance just what the prisoners were planning.  Here was someone

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in uniform just as corrupt or cruel as the worst of the inmates, but she was on the other si 'de of the bars, legally administering her own very special kind of justice.  Wentworth inmates quickly learned to avoid the wrath of the Freak.  She was in her own adult Disneyland, a world of bizarre and sadistic rituals.

The durable Chrissie Latham (Amanda Muggleton) was back in Wentworth about the time Ferguson signed on - and Chrissie knew from her outside sources the Freak's dark secret of an affair with another female guardian in a Queensland jail.  Ferguson had quit her previous post rather than endure the torture of her ex-lover's indifference or risk subjection to an official investigation.  Latham moves in on Ferguson to take advantage of the warder's offbeat sexual preferences.  Latham lets it be known she will seduce the Freak.  But her plan backfires and life behind bars becomes tougher for Chrissie instead of more tender.

And the first of the momentous Freak v. Bea Smith duels begins.  'I often wondered if I had gone in too fast and too heavy with Ferguson,' said Maggie Kirkpatrick after a fortnight in the demanding role.  'It's hard to stand back and evaluate your own work when you're in so many scenes.  You just wander home after taping and collapse into bed each night, check lines for the next day, then sleep, get up and do it all again.  Ferguson is a tough role.  So much of her is based on the physical side.  But what a role!  Any actress would kill to play Fergie!'

Later that year, Sue Masters arrived to produce 'Prisoner'.  Her wish in San Francisco to one day work on the cult show had come true for the Australian globe-trotter.  'Now that Bea has left we'll be trying to get a more interesting mix of prisoners.  The violence will be toned down, and there'll be more lightness,' said Sue.

That didn't apply to Joan Ferguson.  She got tougher and more dangerous.  The
 
 

PRISONER FILE  Name: Hannah Geldschmidt  Actress: Agniezka Perpeczko

Hannah is a German Jew, haunted by the spectre of a Nazi concentration camp where she lived as a baby.  She finds herself in jail when she assaults a man who resembles the SS officer of her nightmares.  Later, they discover she is an illegal immigrant so she faces deportation and persecution back home.  A real-life drama was played out behind the scenes when Polish actress Agnieszka Perpeczko, 40, came to visit her brother in 1981. She had stayed on but her husband was still in Poland. 'I saw what a beautiful country it was and decided I wanted to stay.' Her husband of 19 years, Marek, did eventually get a passport and flew out to meet her.

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<Picture> Rita Connors (Glenda Linscott) knows of some 'heavy evidence' against Officer Joan Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick) and isn't against letting the officer know what the career consequences would be ... and for the time being The Freak must comply

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fans loved it.  Maggie Kirkpatrick couldn't believe the avalanche of mail.  'I should have joined the show earlier,' she quipped.  Among the glowing fanmail letters was one from entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. He was a 'Prisoner' addict.  'I love the show, watch it all the time,' he told Maggie when they finally met when he was doing a concert in Melbourne in late 1983.  'I've watched it for years in L.A. Now I've seen you work here.  You're a great actress. I love your character Ferguson.  And I want to be in the show with you.  Somehow they'll have to get this little black dude into the story - they can work that out.'

Sammy was serious about wanting to work in 'Prisoner', but it soon became obvious his American and international commitments and bookings stretched forward for fourteen months and he wasn't due in Australia again for at least three years.  Taping 'Prisoner' was out of the question.

Maggie Kirkpatrick said she hadn't visited a prison before starting the show, 'and I'm not about to. I didn't want to colour the role, so I just put on my uniform and have my hair pulled back. I am an actress and not a prison officer. I think that is a line you can draw. I spoke to Sandra Willson, who had done eighteen years, and she said I was spot
 

<Picture> Black-gloved joan Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick) gets the better of towering renegade inmate Rita Connors (Glenda Linscott) as she metes out her own brand of discipline

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<Picture of Maggie Kirkpatrick in costume standing next to Sammy Davis Jr.>Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to be in 'Prisoner', and asked the producers to give him scenes with his favourite actress Maggie Kirkpatrick.  Conflicting dates stopped the deal going through.

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on, but told me Joan Ferguson must have other sides. I think I got that through to the scriptwriters.'

She certainly did.  The Freak had become part of Oz soap folklore.  But it was a carefully etched role.  She did deal with the baddies, undermined the Governor, arranged escapes, had compassion for a neglected street waif and loyalty to her troubled dad.  And Maggie liked the character the better for it.

What she didn't like were the growing number of false reports about her on-screen lesbian relationship with warder Terri Malone (Margot Knight), which was being developed over the middle months of the year.  Maggie was furious over media reports which had said there would be explicit lesbian scenes.  'Some reports which came out even before we wrote or filmed the scenes have been garbage,' said Maggie.  'I was adamant from the outset that the affair was treated with dignity and gentleness.  There is nothing sensational about it.  It goes on out there in the world.

'There must come a time in any lonely person's life when they want people in their lives, whether it be a lesbian or heterosexual relationship. I have insisted the story be treated simply as a lonely person finding someone to communicate with.'

Daily Telegraph (Sydney) entertainment writer Candace Sutton asked Maggie Kirkpatrick why the series 'in its quest for realism and honesty' had not populated Wentworth jail with an accurate representation of Aborigines and drug dealers: 'Good question,' answered Maggie.  'We know most guests of Her Majesty are there for drug-related offences.  You're right - where are the drug-runners and black people? I asked for the brilliant Aboriginal actress Justine Sanders [considered by keen judges as the best black actress in Australia over the last two decades] and although it's been bandied around, the powers that be still resist it.'

In fact, Maggie's requests did bear fruit and Justine arrives at Wentworth as learned Pamela Madigan for a special private and personal reunion with returning Governor Anne Reynolds (Gerda Nicholson).  It's appropriate timing as Anne has just been jilted by clergyman Dan Moulton (Sean Scully) and needs a friendly shoulder to lean on.  Pamela and Anne were great friends at college and radical students of the Sixties.

Maggie Kirkpatrick's main concern, however, was the idolisation of the Freak by youngsters.  There were outbreaks of violence amongst Australian kids who proclaimed the warder their heroine.  She told Noel Risby (TV Soap): 'I'm terribly worried about the repercussions which could arise if youngsters go on taking the Freak so seriously.  I'd really hate to think this cult following could spread and get out of control.  It scares the hell out of me and I'd like those connected with it to know how concerned I am abouttheir actions.'

Sydney psychiatrist John Fogarty said the reason teenagers look to Joan Ferguson as a cult figure is because they need to identify with persons of superiority.  'People from a lower socioeconomic group who have not experienced power in their own right are more likely to associate themselves with a figure who displays it openly.'

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<Picture> An exhausted Joan Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick) scales a cliff-face seeking help when a work release boat founders at sea.  Her prisoners think she's left them to their own fate
 

Grant Thorburn, of the Australian Psychological Society agreed - but also believed the Joan Ferguson cult amounted to nothing more than adolescent disillusion.  'I think it's because kids have a lack of models to mould themselves on these days.  They need a means of escape, but sometimes it's difficult for teenagers to find an adult to respect.  It's not a very unusual phenomenon after all.  Very young children like to copy Superman or Batman.'

Maggie, though, wanted to nip her cult following in the bud.  'Children wanting to bring the Freak and her values to school as a way of life - that's very much against my wishes.  It's something I cannot stress enough.'

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PUNISHMENT: PRISONER WITHOUT PETTICOATS

'Prisoner' went off the air in Australia ahead of the usual Christmas-New Year break in 1981 to allow another Grundy series 'Punishment', a male version of 'Prisoner' to go on. It was a programming decision that which would seriously harm 'Prisoner's rating early in 1982 and cause Grundy's untold worries.  Bruce Best, an ABC-TV director with BBC training, was brought in to produce 'Punishment'. Later he would become a top-notch producer-director with 'A Country Practice' and 'E-Street'. Despite the input of the mercurial Reg Watson and the best talent Grundy's could muster for the blatant copycat excursion, 'Punishment' laboured through 39 one-hour episodes of banality and lack-lustre story-telling.  They couldn't blame the actors. They were some of the best in the country, and even Mel Gibson, about to soar to meteoric heights as one of the world's biggest box office stars, was lured into Longridge Jail. But it was tame stuff, unable to hit the raw nerve the girls at Wentworth had perfected. Most of the characterisation, including the wives and girlfriends at home, was heavy handed and unsympathetic.  Barry Crocker, who would later sing the 'Neighbours' theme song, starred in 'Punishment' as Superintendent Alan Smith, and Brian Wenzel, now the resilient Frank Gilroy in 'A Country Practice', was Longridge's Officer Wally Webber. Veteran Ken Wayne played rough-and-ready Chief Officer Jack Hudson, who liked to put the boot in whenever possible; Ralph Cotterill was a more likeable warder, Russell Charles Davis; American Arthur Sherman was senior inmate Andy 'Pop' Epstein; and Brian Harrison played Sam Wells, in for twelve years for narcotic trafficking.  Cornelia Frances (a top-flight performer from long-running roles as Sister Scott in 'The Young Doctors', Barbara Hamilton, 'Sons and Daughters'; and later in 'Home and Away', as barrister Morag Bellingham was 'Punishment's' main female interest as the sister of inmate Sam Wells. (Ann Haddy, Doreen Anderson's leukaemia-striken mum in 'Prisoner', and later to become the Ramsay Street matriarch Helen Robinson in 'Neighbours', played Wells' wife, Alice.) 'Prisoner' buffs will recall Cornelia Frances played solicitor Carmel Saunders during the period troubled housewife Pat O'Connell (Monica Maughan) was tried and held on shoplifting charges.  Some pundits said 'Punishment' got off on the wrong foot when Grundy's proudly announced the author of two episodes of the new show was a former prisoner who is now one of Australia's top scriptwriters. It was left to journalist Don Groves to sum up succinctly: '"Punishment" was a lame-duck exercise to try to make "Prisoner" without petticoats.'  All was well on the set of 'Prisoner' as 1982 shooting began at Ten's Melbourne studios. Meg Morris was back in the thick of things having survived that brush with death in the 1981 cliff-hanger - much to the delight of viewers who had waited nearly three months for the return of their favourite show. But the ratings were down and it was apparent that not only had 'Punishment' sunk like a lead balloon, it had also scared away hordes of other 'Prisoner' fans who had found other programmes to escape its obvious blandness.  <Picture> Pre-'Neighbours' theme-song days for entertainer Barry Crocker as Longridge Prison Superintendent Alan Smith, trying to talk rioting prisoners back to their cells. Armed Prison Officer Jack Hudson (Ken Wayne) stands by. 'Punishment' lasted a mere 39 taped hours