Occupation Actress Name Ilona Rodgers | Years active 1962 - present Role Actress | |
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Awards Logie Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries/Telemovie Movies and TV shows Similar People James Napier Robertson, Rod Hardy, Geoff Murphy, Richard Donner, George T Miller | ||
"CHRONIC" Starring Lisa Chappell and Ilona Rodgers - TRAILER
Ilona Rodgers (born 28 April 1942) is a British-born actress who has been based in New Zealand since the mid-1980s and later then in Australia.
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Career
Rodgers breakthrough roles in British television included an adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit and Carol in The Sensorites, a six-episode adventure from BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. She also made guest appearances in The Saint and The Avengers.
Rodgers first lived in New Zealand from 1973, appearing in soap opera Close to Home and successful goldmining drama Hunter's Gold (retitled Scott Hunter in some territories).
Between 1978 and the mid-1980s she lived in Australia. There she appeared in television programmes The Sullivans, Sons and Daughters (as Patricia Hamilton's sister, Margaret Dunne) and the 1985 Australian miniseries Anzacs (as Lady Thea Barrington), as well as nine episodes of long-running prison drama Prisoner (in 1983). Her Prisoner character, Zara Moonbeam, a medium who claimed to have clairvoyant powers, was forced by Nola McKenzie (Carole Skinner) into impersonating Bea Smith's (Val Lehman) deceased daughter Debbie. Hopes that Bea would thus commit suicide, thinking she had witnessed her daughter's ghost, did not go to plan, but Rodgers' character made it out of prison alive.
After relocating back to New Zealand, her work included medical soap Shortland Street and presenting duties on a light entertainment and advertorial program called Good Morning.
Rodger's best-known role in New Zealand is probably TV series Gloss. She starred in Gloss for three seasons, from 1987 to 1990, playing bossy magazine editor Maxine Redfern. The series was about a fictional publishing empire run by the Redfern family
Later Rodgers played Australian wife to New Zealand comedy legend Billy T James on the final, sitcom version of "The Billy T James Show" (1990).
Her stage work has included one-woman play Shirley Valentine, By Degrees written by Roger Hall and Three Tall Women by Edward Albee.