Natalie

Soap star out to clean up
Alex Murdoch
4th April 2006

NEIGHBOURS actress Natalie Bassingthwaighte has gone from one of the most hated characters on television to one of the most loved.

But will it be enough for the actress-turned-singer to snatch a Gold Logie from three-time winner Rove McManus, or beat the sentimental vote for Blue Heelers' John Wood?

Bassingthwaighte, who plays the controversial Izzy on Neighbours, is in the race for a Gold Logie and has also scored a silver nomination for most popular actress.

She was one of a record eight personalities named as Gold Logie nominees at a celebrity breakfast in Sydney yesterday .

"I've been on air three years, so I don't think they (the public) liked me at first – well obviously, because this is the first time I've been nominated for any award, let alone a Gold Logie," the actress-singer said at the Logies breakfast.

"I think what has happened is maybe the viewers have finally been able to separate myself from my character."

Last year Bassingthwaighte performed in Carols By Candlelight and Grease (the musical), while her band Rogue Traders became a household name.

"Hopefully that has allowed people to see that I'm more than just a nasty pest," she said.

But Bassingthwaighte faces a challenge to win the Gold Logie as she is going head to head with some of Australian television's best-loved names for the Gold Logie, with Bridie Carter, Bec Hewitt, three-time winner Rove McManus, Ada Nicodemou, Kate Ritchie, Bert Newton and John Wood also contenders. Centrebet has named perennial Gold Logie bridesmaid Wood as the favourite with his show in its final season on Seven.

"It's a standing joke that Wood has not won a Gold Logie and I can see him benefiting from a sympathy vote, particularly as Blue Heelers is on its way out," says Centrebet's Gerard Daffy.

For the first time Logies voting has been opened up to the general public, rather than just TV Week readers, with the awards to be held on May 7 and televised on Channel Nine.
For television icon Newton, who switched to Nine to host Bert's Family Feud after ruling morning television on Network Ten, it's his first Gold Logie nomination for 22 years. The 67-year-old star won the first of his four gold Logies in 1979.

"Be kind," Newton told the breakfast crowd. " I might not be here next year."

Newton said people always believed the next step from morning television was death, so he was here to prove them wrong. Wood, who scored his 10th Gold nomination in a row, echoed Newton when he said: "This has to be the year, I might not be around next year."

Triple Gold Logie winner Rove McManus rated his odds at a mere one in eight – citing Newton and Wood as favourites.

"If I score four in a row that should put me in the running for a Coles add, just like Lisa McCune, " he said.

Pay TV did well out of the nominations - it received nominations in the Outstanding categories, voted for by industry representatives.

Drama series Love My Way led the way with five nominations including Silver Logie nominations for Claudia Karvan and her co-star Asher Keddie.

Brendan Cowell and Dan Wyllie were also nominated.