by Alison Mau
‘Oh really? Who’s that?’ I asked, not imagining for a moment she was referring to me.
At that moment there was a break and the floor manager called out, ‘Liz, would you come down please?’
The woman went white. I assume she must have thought I’d look like her worst fears from K Road. That kind of thing happened more times than I can count.
Some of the onscreen people, the so-called stars, were lovely. Relda Familton, Marama Martin, Judy Callaghan were all good sorts, but there were always exceptions. A notable example: before the midday news bulletin one day, the director called me in to powder a newsreader.
‘No, not you darling, I’ll have eyes like piss-holes in the snow if you touch me,’ she said.
You bitch, I thought, how would you know? I’ve never done your make-up before!
I didn’t know then that anything said on the studio floor could be heard in every control room up and down the country. I looked her straight in the eye.
‘I tell you what sweetheart, if you’ve got a few minutes pop down to the make-up room, we’ll stick a bit of holly in your hair and you can have a go at doing the fucking Christmas pudding ad for Ernest Adams.’
She burst into tears, and for a long time after that the only words passed between us were insults. Strangely, eventually we became quite friendly.
Between Christchurch and Wellington over the course of some years I worked not just on the news, but on a number of shows. One of the most enjoyable jobs was the music show Pop Co. There were some mammoth tasks as well. NZBC at the time made big, live theatre-style shows — I particularly recall a ballet production of Pania Of The Reef, for which I made all the costumes as well as doing the make-up. The principal male dancer, John Trimmer (later Sir John) needed the cheeks of his backside ‘tattooed’ for every performance. Quite the job.
I groomed twenty-seven beauty queens for the televised final of the Miss New Zealand contest, which drew a huge television audience at that time. It was a truly gruelling day for all concerned, and Relda Familton, doing the voice-overs from the side of the stage, kept a few nips of brandy with her to get through it. Although I didn’t often drink I threw caution to the wind and joined her — the last thing I remember that night was tap dancing with Relda along a table in the Hutt Town Hall, before leaving with a pot plant and a silver platter of food. We got into Relda’s car, she planted her foot on the accelerator and drove straight through the circular ornamental garden in the forecourt, only to be stopped down the road a bit by a traffic cop.
‘I’m Relda Familton and we’re just off home,’ she said. The policeman stepped back respectfully, and off we roared. The next morning we were both summonsed to the manager Ernie Black’s office.
‘Well, ladies. Great job with the show, shame about the tap dancing. Just return the pot plant and the silver dish please. I sorted out the traffic issue. Enjoy your day, ladies.’
He’d been in the audience of course and was last to leave, so he’d seen our high jinks first hand, but the gentle humour he showed that day was just typical of Ernie. He was a terrific person, and always so kind to me.
Most of the time I was working alone, and sometimes on shows airing back to back, and the workload was really too much. Eventually I begged them to get someone in to help. They said they had just the person, and she was a doctor’s wife! As if that was a fabulous recommendation for the job. I got her in to do a demonstration, and afterwards I told her that it wasn’t my decision to make but someone would be in touch. Then I went to the boss and asked why he hadn’t told me she was an alcoholic. She’d been bombed when she came in for the demo; I could smell it on her. She never came back.
After that they moved a lady called Joan over from another department, but she would only ever make up one side of a performer’s face. She’d pat down one side and then forget about the rest and the director would say, ‘Liz, come and look at the screen, there’s something not quite right here.’ Eventually they let her go, too.
The make-up department fell under the auspices of the Technical Director, so my boss for a time was a man called David Kaye. Balding and rotund, he looked just like Captain Stubing from that American series, The Love Boat. He was always dressed in white polyester shorts, socks up to his knees, and some funny sort of shoes; white shirt, red tie. Everything drip dry. For some strange reason, he developed a bit of an obsession with me, and I don’t mean in a flattering way. The experts today would probably call it passive/aggressive. He called me late one night at home, demanding: ‘How many red lipsticks are there in the make-up room?’ I had no idea and told him as much.
‘Well, you’d better go and find out. I need to know.’
It was Sunday night, almost midnight by the time I reached the studios, but bizarre as the request was I just did what I was told. It escalated slowly but surely; he would come down and stand over me as I applied some poor performer’s make-up.
‘What are you doing?’ he would ask, and stare at the astonished faces of both the performer and me. Wasn’t it obvious? What was I missing?
The fascination wasn’t restricted to him; I was the source of gossip all through the company. In meetings people would perch on the desk near me rather than taking a chair, trying to have a good look down my cleavage. I was a freak to them, treated like an outcast, and even I worked it out eventually.
I suppose it was the money that kept me there for so long; $40 was quite a lot of money for a half day’s work, along with the fact that I had no idea how to extract myself from the situation. There was certainly no way to make a complaint, as these were the days long before human resources departments and harassment cases. But I found it very stressful. Along with the make-up I would fix the costumes and do the flowers on set. These days they’d call it multi-tasking.
Not having a clue how to stand up for myself in that environment meant I missed out on some wonderful opportunities. I met some fabulous performers as they came through New Zealand: Bruce Forsyth, Des O’Connor, Dick Emery, Harry Secombe, Roger Whittaker, and was asked to tour with them from time to time. Once, when the lovely Trinidadian pianist Winifred Atwell begged me to tour with her, I plucked up the courage to ask my boss whether I might go. He said no, you can’t. By rights they couldn’t have stopped me as I was always working only on contract and per programme, but I didn’t get legal advice and was none the wiser.
Colonel Sanders was a interesting one; he looked like Santa Claus and behaved like a pompous old sod. I remember the journalist Fay Thompson upsetting him with a sly quip about being ‘finger lickin’ good’.
Dick Emery was being interviewed on a show called TST Tonight and said to the interviewer, ‘You should see the make-up artist,’ holding his hands at his chest and jiggling them up and down. Blow me down, a week later Frankie Howard walked into the studio after I made him up, saying the same thing, ‘Wow, that make-up artist.’ I wasn’t falling out of my clothes, in fact I liked to dress quite conservatively, but I was quite chatty with the guests as I worked. I’m guessing that’s the way men like to talk about boobs. There was trouble over that, but when I told my boss David I wanted to leave, he refused to let me go. The situation was building towards a showdown, and it wouldn’t be long coming.
The change from monochrome to colour television was taking place at the time and the Commonwealth Games were to be the first broadcast in colour; a daunting thought for me, but not a time to be fainthearted. All the stock the make-up room really had was a small number of very old Max Factor pancake sticks, some black eye pencils and a few garish lipsticks. I’d been there about eight months and, conscious that we’d need to change the way we did our work, had started writing to all the cosmetics companies to source new stock. After a few weeks the make-up room looked like a cosmetic warehouse, with the cosmetic houses sending me entire collections of their make-up products to trial in front of a colour camera and monitor screen which had been set up
in the green room. Revlon was particularly good, and we ended up using their products for quite a long time. There were crates of the stuff, and I really wouldn’t have known after a while what was there and what wasn’t. But David wanted to know where was this, and where had that gone, and why did you use that? I told him, I’m just trying to create a system that works at all studios across the country, but he wasn’t happy. Eventually I snapped completely.
‘You arsehole. You have pushed me right to my limit. You’re more interested in my anatomy than my work. I try to keep out of sight, I don’t go around flaunting myself, but you make it so obvious that here I am, and you’re not comfortable with it.
‘That’s it David, I’m gone.’ And I walked out, in the middle of a production. As I was working on a project-to-project contract basis, there was nothing he could really do.
Then along came the Commonwealth Games, and the little weasel was on the phone, begging me to do the make-up for the Games coverage.
‘Not in a hundred years!’ was my response, but he just passed the buck to someone else, they called me and asked again, and eventually I agreed.
When I got to the studio on the first day of the job, the woman at reception dashed out from behind the desk and stopped me dead. The foyer of the building was full of international media preparing for the opening ceremony, but she didn’t turn a hair.
‘Miss Roberts! You cannot come in here, you are banned from this building!’
I was confused. ‘I’m here to do the make-up for the Games.’
‘No, I have instructions that you are not to be allowed in. Security, escort her out!’
I was so shocked, I turned around and came straight home. At twenty to one in the afternoon they called: ‘Aren’t you coming to work?’
‘No, I’ve been banned from the building.’
Gerben Cath was the art director in those days, a lovely man; in some ways he was my saving grace throughout my time in broadcasting. No matter what had happened, he would have some soothing words for me. He was put on the phone and asked for an explanation; I described the humiliating scene the receptionist had made in front of all the international guests, and said I was not coming back.
Well, it was panic stations. Just hours from the broadcast and they had no make-up artist. I pointed out that I didn’t even have a contract, so how could they insist I do it? Within twenty minutes there was a contract at my door. I phoned the station.
‘After what happened this afternoon, you can’t afford me.’
‘How much do you want?’
‘Five hundred dollars a week.’
‘You’re joking.’ It was a huge mount of money at the time, but they agreed. I packed up my brushes and went back to work. During the week of the Games I got a call in the make-up room from David Flint, at the NZBC studios in Wellington.
‘How are you coping?’
I had no reason to hold back: ‘I’m sick of it all, I just can’t stand it.’
‘Why not come and work in Wellington then?’
Reference from Elaine Ferguson, Graphic Designer, TVNZ (undated)
To whom it may concern,
It is with great pleasure that I sit down to write this reference for Elizabeth Roberts. I have known and worked with Ms Roberts on and off over a period of fifteen years, both in the theatre and in television. She has an incredible range of creative ideas and no matter the budget always came up with something that was spectacular, new and exciting.
She first came to work in television in the mid seventies to lend her expertise in make-up and hair design to the changeover from monochrome to colour broadcasting.
She went on to work with many large-scale productions, the first of which was the Commonwealth Games where she was responsible for make-up, hair and clothing. She went on to design and execute costumes and make-up for many more television programmes including dramas, ballets, light entertainment and operas. She turned her hand to these various styles of productions with professionalism and enthusiasm.
More recently Ms Roberts worked with me on an award winning children’s television series. Once again it was a pleasure to work with her and I always looked forward to arriving at her workroom to see the wonderful, exciting and magical creations that she always came up with. Always within budget and on time I was able to know with confidence that I could rely on her to give a production that extra something.
It is with great pleasure that I recommend Ms Roberts as a truly talented and professional designer.
* * *
Long before the new television building at Avalon, the Wellington make-up department was part of the original studios in Waring Taylor Street in the CBD. Their make-up artist was a man named Derek who’d been a set shifter before his move to the make-up department, and he’d apparently had no training other than a stint as a men’s barber. I learned later the woman who had run the room had passed away, and Derek was asked to step in. He did not cope well with the arrival of another worker to share the space, which was only big enough for two barber’s chairs and a little sink for washing hair, opposite the door.
As WNTV1 broadcast most of the live news programmes, we were lucky enough to have more technical help as we tried to put together an entirely new way of working. The look we needed was much softer than that which was used for black and white transmission, and it took a long time to convince the presenters that they no longer needed the ‘stage’ look of a full Max Factor mask.
I would take the make-up kit home on my days off to continue practising with the new products, storing them in a cabinet on the kitchen wall. Early one morning there was a hammering at the front door, and there stood a couple of the Wellington Constabulary. I let them in and watched them go straight to the cabinet. I’d been shopped to the boss by a co-worker I’d thought was a friend, and was arrested for theft on the spot.
In court a few days later to face the charges, I saw the ‘friend’, in full drag, standing beside Derek. There to gloat at my downfall I suspect. When Derek took the stand, he appeared to be choking back tears.
‘Your Honour, she came to Wellington and just took over my area!’
I’d been unaware until then that the station manager Ernie Black and other heads of department were all seated at the back of the court. The magistrate called on them.
‘Who is in charge of the area in question?’
Ernie Black stood up.
‘Miss Roberts is in charge. I am aware she spends many hours of her spare time in training, and it was with my permission that she took the sample products home.
The gavel came down: ‘Case dismissed.’
Ernie Black to the rescue again. There were a few people like Ernie, and Relda, who treated me so well when others shrank from my presence, and I’m still grateful and humbled by their support. Particularly as that period, looking back, was one of the darkest of my life.
Many people saw working in television as a mark of great prestige. I know from the contacts I have in the media that even now the industry has a kind of undeserved mystique. Friends would say, oh Liz is working in television.
My response was always: ‘So fucking what!’
A bit of local advertising upon my return to Christchurch in 1968.
Liz Roberts Collection
Marrying Tim — Sydney, 1969.
Liz Roberts Collection
Tim and I with his grandmother and father outside the Catholic Basilica in Christchurch at our blessing in 1971.
Liz Roberts Collection
Professor Graham Liggins.
NZ Herald
Flower girl outfit, 1988.
Liz Roberts Collection
Racewear for fashion icon Dame Pieter Stewart.
Liz Roberts Coll
ection
Me with my dear friends Virginia (left) and Denise (right) at the Riccarton races in 1997.
Liz Roberts Collection
Posing for an Ansett Airlines promotion in 1998.
Liz Roberts Collection
Surgeon Peter Walker.
Fairfax Media
Craig and I cutting the cake at our wedding . . . the breakfast lasted longer than the marriage.
Liz Roberts Collection
14
SURGERY, 1969: THE OPERATION
Letter from Christchurch GP Dr Brian Jones to Psychiatrist Dr John Dobson, 25 March 1969
WALTHAM SURGERY
83 Waltham Road
Christchurch, 2
Telephone 60-059
Dear John,
Herewith Mrs Elizabeth Trask (Mr Garry Roberts) who is transvestite, and wishes to undergo sex transformation.
He has had treatment in England with Stilboestrol 50mg nocte, and Primolut Depot 250mg 2x weekly and [unreadable] daily.
He expresses no interest in sexuality towards females but does have feelings of love towards a man friend. He says this lack of sexual feeling precedes his treatment.
He has seen Eric Espiner on one occasion, and Eric commented that there seemed no endocrine disturbance: a buccal smear was Chromatin -ve.
His purpose in seeing you is to persuade you that an operation should be performed in that he may officially be declared a woman — at present he does seem to have quite serious problems of a practical nature e.g. visiting the lavatory in town, and he has some difficulties with the police. He has an ongoing homosexual relationship with this man friend.