Judy Nunn; a true star
JUDY Nunn is known for a lot of things.
Her 13-year stint as Ailsa on the TV show Home and Away, her gamut of novels, her role in the first lesbian kiss on Australian TV and her career as an Olympic heptathlete.
No wait, that last one was Glynis Nunn.
Yesterday Judy was guest speaker at the breakfast launch of the Voices on the Coast Literary Festival, where again someone had to admit she mistook her for the other famous Nunn.
"I thought you were the Olympian," the woman said.
"So did someone else at an Australia Day thing. So you were coming to hear the athlete?" Judy asked with a laugh.
Judy was an obvious hit with the literary buffs, having them in stitches all morning.
"Judy Nunn was the first woman on Australian TV to kiss a woman," she said in closing, explaining a dispute as to who held the coveted title.
But Judy was there to talk about her "early great love affair with books" and promote her 13th novel, Tiger Men.
"Being guest speaker, people want to find out a bit about you," she said.
"The fact I'd been born very short-sighted meant I dived at a very early age into books, which is evidently quite a natural thing for short-sighted kids to live their lives in books.
"Being the National Year of Reading I thought I'd focus on the book side of things, not particularly going into my career as an actor.
"There is a very interesting connection between acting and writing, because actors work a great deal obviously with characters and the written word.
"I come from theatre, so I've worked with some of the great playwrights Shaw, Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen, all of the great classics.
"In studying texts like that and working as an actor and working with dialogue like that and relationships like that and studies of the human condition, it really does train you to be a writer.
"This is a whole new career for me, when I say new, I've been published for 25 years, but I was also acting for the first half of those.
"Now I concentrate more on my books, which is a great passion of mine, so I'm really very fortunate that I've had two careers I'm very passionate about and the books are virtually what I do now.
"It doesn't mean to say I've stopped acting because I can't just switch that off, I love acting, but books are my great passion."
With so many people self-publishing books these days, has being an author lost its gloss?
"Writing's a wonderful thing, I'd encourage everyone to write," she said.
"You get so many people who say, 'I'd like to write a book but I can't,' so long as you have literacy skills, so long as you can read and write, you can write a book.
"Whether or not it's going to be a good one, that's another thing. But I think it's wonderful to express yourself, then if you can bring that out and self-publish and you've got it there for your family, if it's not going to go any further.
"I think there's room for all forms of books out there, the more the better."
Judy has three areas of inspiration and revels in unveiling Australia's historic gems.
"I write historically based fiction. Obviously I love Australia and Australians, so that is my inspiration," she said.
"Sometimes it will come from a place, like Territory is set in Darwin, the fact Darwin was annihilated twice in 32 years, once by the bombs and Cyclone Tracey.
"Sometimes, like in Heritage, which is based in the Snowy Mountains, it will be what went on in that area.
"Or it might be a happening like Maralinga, a creation of a nuclear testing ground in the deserts of South Australia.
"I research for a good three months or so before I start writing. That'll mean field research. Then throughout the entire writing process I have mountains of books that I've put little sticky notes in.
"As you research to get it historically right you bump into some bizarre, wonderful thing.
"The idea with research is to research 100% and throw out 80% of it."
Judy Nunn
Television actress on Home and Away, The Box, Prisoner and Sons and Daughters.
Best-selling author of 13 novels.
Theatre actress in London and Australia.
Married to Bruce Venables, author, and stage, film and TV actor and writer.
Initiated and per-formed the first lesbian kiss on Australian television with Vicki Stafford on The Box.
Glynis Nunn
Won the first women's heptathlon in Olympic Games competition.
Is the only Australian to have won an Olympic multi-discipline athletics event.
Won the national senior title in 1978 while still a junior.
In 1982, when the pentathlon became the heptathlon, she was Australian champion and won the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games gold medal.
In 1984, she was named Australian sportswoman of the year.
