The Madonna of Television 

An "exclusive" interview by Ad Astra. London, from the New Zealand TV Weekly. February 27, 1967

Ngaire Dawn Porter, from Napier, who changed the spelling of her first name to Nyree and proceeded to cast a spell over British television audiences as a leading lady in many productions is now appearing before British viewers in what must be her greatest role to date-Irene Soames in the BBC's 26-episode serial of Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga.

David Attenborough who, as controller of BBC-2, has already seen several of the earlier episodes told me that he thought Nyree's performance in them is tremendous. I am a great admirer of her work, generally.

When I sat over lunch with a white fur-coated Nyree Dawn at the BBC Television Centre restaurant in White City recently, I asked the glamorous actress why she has been labelled by British writers, the Madonna of Television.

I don't know, but it's very nice of them don't you think? came the reply with a quizzical flick of eyebrows and long black eyelashes.

On screen Nyree has the same knack of turning most conversations back away from herself so that she can appear at times an enigmatic and formidable example of sophisticated womanhood.

Off screen she is just as eye-catching yet rather smaller in stature than I expected and self-effacing. Instead of the femme fatale out look which she has often played so well, she reveals her desire for a happy conjunction of domesticity with her professional career. Indeed one of her main ambitions is to have a baby and when she and her actor-husband Bryon O'Leary (formerly of Waipukurau) have a family they say they will definitely return home to New Zealand.

We both think that it is the only place in which to bring up children.

Possibly because she recollects her own New Zealand childhood with pleasure she feels that she will finally return home to the country where she was born and named Ngaire, meaning little white flower (changed to Nyree to ease pronunciation in Britain).

Today the attractive blonde film, stage and TV star never reveals her age. . . I think it is too restricting to give your age when you're an actress. In Judith Paris, the TV serial, -she played the leading role from 15 to 50; in The Forsyte Saga she is repeating the versatile age trick.-That's how old I am as an actress- from 15 to 50. '

She was educated at Napier Girls' High School. She began her career as a dancer making her first stage appearance at the age of three-a lady-bird in Noah's Ark. She was too small to have a partner. As all the other animals had to go in two-by-two, I was left with being the ladybird.

Eventually she had her own dancing academy, was awarded the solo seal and made Associate of the Royal Academy of Dancing (London). Then she went to drama school and joined the New Zealand Players group in 1956. She toured in Solid Gold Cadillac , The Merchant of Venice , The Mouse Trap , and in revues like Free and Easy and Romanoff and Juliet. She also broadcast for the NZBS Drama Section until she came to England in 1958.

It was in the New Zealand Players that Nyree met actor Bryon O'Leary, from Waipukurau (last seen in a West End musical, Robert and Elziabeth ) and the couple married.

Nyree won a free three-weeks' trip to Britain as part of a New Zealand cinema contest prize. Bryon followed her to Britain where they set up a flat near Portobello Road, one of the famous London street markets, specialising in antiques and second-hand goods.

The contest prize was supposed to include screen tests and other show business opportunities for Nyree but most of them were not properly arranged. She managed to get work in Britain as an actress with the repertory companies at Leatherhead and Wimbledon and her big break came with castings in West End revues, Look Who's Here, Ducks and Lovers and a part in Come Blow Your Horn.

Nyree's first TV play was called His Polyvinyl Girl. Her main BBC television roles have been the serials Madame Bovary and Judith Paris, as well as roles in Reunion Day, Corrigan Blake, Kipling, Sherlock Holmes and other productions.

She has featured in the ITV series The Liars, and many other plays. This year, of course, she is the female star of the mammoth BBC serial The Forsyte Saga.

She has also appeared in several films, including Two Left Feet with Michael Crawford, The Cracksman with Charlie Drake, Live Now Pay Later, and Part-time Wife.

One of Nyree's biggest disappointments: three attempts to star in musicals have been foiled. A slipped disc meant that she could not take her part in The Perils of Scobie Prilt with Mike Sarne; the show was withdrawn. Hepatitis took her out of She Loves Me, and her part in this Broadway musical was taken by Rita Moreno.

Two years ago Nyree was picked for the starring role in Wolf Mankowitz's musical Mata Hari which was to have opened in the West End but somehow never got of the ground.

With my dancing background, and I can sing, I would think that musicals would be another good medium for me . . . but something always prevents me. So I say: well, why fight it? The odd thing is that every time fate has stopped my chance in a musical I seem to walk straight into some big new TV role.

The other interesting point revealed in my interview with Nyree Dawn is the hard work that goes into her professionalism. She is not one who believes that one merely has to look the part and glide through a role with instinctive native talent.

Irene Soames in the Galsworthy serial has been described as the womanliest woman of them all, driving all men to despair and distraction as she sweeps seductively and destructively through the pages of the Forsyte Saga.

When Nyree started work on the part last March (she already knew the books quite well, and now probably knows them backwards) she went into training, enough to make a Cassius Clay quail.

Her day always starts at home in her Maida Vale flat with a couple of hours of limbering up on the ballet dancer's barre screwed into the wall (next to a television set).

I started as a ballet dancer in New Zealand while I was still very small, and I had my own school when I was 17. It's marvellous training . . . and prepares you for anything thrown at you later.


Here the actress rehearses in her Maida Vale flat assisted by her husband, Bryon O'Leary, who is also a New Zealander

In several episodes of the serial Nyree, as Irene, is called upon to show herself an accomplished pianist.

Usually such scenes are faked. The actress Wears a dreamy look, the camera deliberately avoids focusing on her hands while the music comes from a recording played on the side.

But this was not good enough for Nyree Dawn. So, husband Bryon, who plays the piano well, gave her lessons-up to six hours a day in a short-cut system which he devised himself. Viewers will see her fingers on the keys-although the music will come from a professional pianist.

Nyree also wants to be able to sing well, so. there are singing lessons every Thursday.

And, because Nyree also likes to stand up and sit down gracefully, there is more regular training. Every Friday she visits a London Institute where they teach deportment and general relaxation of the body.

It's the tension, Miss Porter tells interviewers. Working in television makes you very tense. Even when you are not acting you have to creep around and stay quiet all the time. It's a very tense-making medium. On stage you can'get rid of an awful lot of nervous energy. But not in the studios.

At home she practises relaxation even more by lying down on the table with her head on a heap of London telephone directories (four thick volumes).

There's a lot more to Nyree's pre- paration for a part than just learning her lines.

The cost of The Forsyte Saga will be £260,000, making it the BBC's most costly serial to date. For his part as young Jolyon Fiorsyte, actor Kenneth More has admitted that he may receive £30,000 (including foreign rights). Nyree is not saying what the 26 fifty-minute episodes will mean to her in terms of money, but it is obvious that she, too, will be treated very much in the star category.

Nyree's part spans several decades within the 47-year plot of the epic, and she will age throughout the series.


John Bennett as Philip and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene in The Forsyte Saga.

The BBC has also gone to great trouble to make sure that the costumes worn by Nyree and other members of the cast will be appropriate for each period. Costume designer Joan Ellacott had to produce, in the course of three episodes, costumes for Nyree ranging from a plaid dress suitable for a Victorian teenager (1878), a formal black and white walking-out dress complete with bustle (1887) and a bishop sleeved chiffon gown for 1892 when the bustle had disappeared.

Nyree considers the long skirts wonderful to wear. . . So exciting and glamorous. But she is not too enthusiastic about the corsets which go underneath. They certainly whittle the waist down but I am not surprised that Victorian women were always fainting-I was nearly brought to the point of fainting, twice, with all that lacing!

In Britain Nyree is best known for her TV work in serials-Madam Bovary, Judith Paris and The Liars, as well as a number of television plays.

Nyree was once offered the part of female lead in The Avengers but turned it down because she was too interested in acting to become too stereotyped in one role like an Emma Peel.

I like to play very different parts in all my TV roles . . . this is why so-called over-exposure has never harmed me.

I act for pleasure, not just for money or fame.

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