Elisabeth Easther

Elisabeth Easther was just out of drama school Toi Whakaari in 1995 when she was cast as Shortland Street nurse Carla Crozier. She gained Kiwi television infamy as the street's first murderer. For three years from 2010, she was a familiar face as the mum in an ad campaign for Countdown supermarkets. Easther is also a journalist, radio commentator, voice artist and award-winning playwright (Seed, Famous Flora). In 2018 she travelled around the Hauraki Gulf, following in the footsteps of her mother — pioneering broadcaster Shirley Maddock — as host of an updated version of Maddock's 1960s TV show Islands of the Gulf.

When I didn't continue with my law degree in favour of drama she never tried to put me off in favour of the more practical path. Instead she supported those ambitions and when the going got tough she always knew what to say to pick me up and dust me off...I'm forever grateful to have had her footsteps to follow in. Elisabeth Easther on her mother, broadcaster Shirley Maddock, TV Guide, 20 February 2018