Ginette McDonald
Ginette McDonald grew up Irish Catholic, the third child of seven in a family dominated by brothers. The family house in Wellington had holes in the bathroom floor, and a ballroom where her father, a doctor, sometimes played violin. She fell in love with television as a child, after first spying a TV in a radio store.
As a teen, McDonald was invited along to a drama course run by Nola Millar. Some of the youngsters in the group persuaded Downstage Theatre to let them perform a comedy sketch; McDonald was among them. The legendary character Lynn of Tawa was born soon after. Her father's medical practice was shared by doctor Diana Mason, wife of playwright Bruce Mason. "He really encouraged me." Keen to see more Kiwi accents on stage, Bruce suggested she invent a character for Downstage's late night show Knickers.
So at 16 she came up with Lynn of Tawa, inspired by talkback callers with "flat, monotonous voices who were always asking things like how to get snot stains out of a pink twinset". McDonald talks in detail about Lynn in this interview for comedy history show Funny As. Lynn's accent was partly born from an adolescent desire to puncture the bubble of the liberal audience she imagined at Downstage. Together Mason, McDonald and Roger Hall cooked up successful sketches for the gormless character from an outer Wellington suburb. Follow-up show Knackers saw her taking over the PA system, and joining Paul Holmes and John Banas.
McDonald made her screen debut in 1971 alongside Bruno Lawrence, in this first episode of landmark Kiwi drama Pukemanu. She played a runaway private schoolgirl who falls in with a biker gang.
Soon after, she exited for England on a path to certain fame, blissfully unaware that the acting competition in London could be fierce Wellington. In-between waitressing work, she won an early part as a maid in a BBC version of Katherine Mansfield story At the Bay (Vanessa Redgrave played Mansfield).
McDonald won gigs on television, radio, and the stage. Her theatre work included a West End production of Australian hit Don's Party, and a number of "Yorkshire miners' daughters and Cockney girls". She joined Richard Burton on an ill-fated screen remake of Brief Encounter, and lost a prize role in nursing drama Angels after seven callbacks, when the producers discovered she wasn't English. Impressed by her stage work, director Ken Hannam gave her a lead role in TV play Sweeping Plains.
Wearied by five years in London, and fretful at living out her acting days "in a tiny flat in Finchley Road", McDonald returned to New Zealand in 1976. When she spied a new soap opera called Close to Home, she was appalled. But when Close to Home producer and mentor Ross Jennings offered her a part as "a 38-year-old nymphomaniac housewife from Te Puke", she said yes, and did not regret it.
Lynn of Tawa was reborn in 1979, after McDonald was asked at short notice to contribute to a celebrity roast of Fair Go presenter Judith Fyfe, for live show Good Day. When TVNZ entertainment head Malcolm Kemp saw the results, he asked if the character might guest on variety shows. McDonald's brother Michael got busy writing scripts, even though Tawa was a place that meant little to him. Lynn proved so successful that a one-off special followed, then her own TV series.
There were also a terrifying but triumphant appearance at this Royal Variety Performance (17 minutes into part three; comedian Michèle A'Court pays tribute to it here) Lynn dared to address the Queen directly: "God bless you. We all love you, eh". The character also appeared in a TV anniversary special, where McDonald was wheelchaired in while heavily pregnant. Lynn's spelling has caused confusion over the years: her TV series spelt it Lynn, but a 1994 special was titled Lyn of Tawa - In Search of the Great New Zealand Male.
Whatever the spelling, Lynn would become "a curse and a privilege"; she was both a distinctive calling card, and a millstone around McDonald's neck, thanks to constant demands for her return, and the many people who were unable to separate actor from her alter ego. As Listener writer Noel O'Hare put it in 1989, "no matter how much recognition McDonald gets as a producer, it is those brief sporadic performances as Lynn of Tawa that people remember her for".
Outside of Tawa, McDonald was winning attention for other roles. Rosemary McLeod wrote her a starring role in gender satire All Things Being Equal, and she got the role after promising to lose roughly 15 kilograms. McDonald talks in her Funny As interview about the stresses of acting live, opposite an unpredictable, sometimes addled Bruno Lawrence). She won a Feltex Award for playing a pragmatic woman married to a compulsive worrier in 1979's It's Your Child Norman Allenby. Another Feltex followed, for her Pioneer Women portrait of Hera Ngoungou, a Pākehā who was brought up Māori.
McDonald's time in London had spawned the desire to get behind the cameras. With the support of Ross Jennings, she won a place on a TVNZ training course for producers and directors. On completion, she was told she was "gifted but warped". She debuted as a producer and director on the last series of Gliding On (she had originally played Beryl in Glide Time, the first screen adaptation of the play). She went on to direct for Close to Home, Open House and Country GP — McDonald is especially proud of this Country GP episode, in which Simon O'Connor's character grows increasingly paranoid.
McDonald soon decided she was more suited to producing. Maurice Gee drama The Fire-Raiser (1986) marked the start of "a beautiful professional partnership" between McDonald and director Peter Sharp. McDonald calls him "unquestionably one of the best drama directors we have ever had for television. Together we brought out each others strengths." Both Sharp and McDonald had the idea of giving Fire-Raiser's main role of arsonist to ballet dancer Jon Trimmer. The Fire-Raiser won awards in Australia and America, plus GOFTAs back home for director, drama, children's programme, and Gee's script.
McDonald then "poured her energy and passion" into the ambitious Peppermint Twist, a light-hearted portrait of teenage life in a 60s era small town. The show incorporated music, colourful sets and graphics. It performed solidly among its teen target audience, but McDonald was surprised it got given a prime time slot. The show was axed long before the planned 50 episodes had been produced.
Dreams of maturing into "a raddled, chain-smoking 57-year-old senior drama producer in a structured television company" faced setbacks, after Television New Zealand made the call to close its in-house drama department. McDonald was working with Peter Sharp on Maurice Gee kidult series The Champion at the time. In Hollywood, McDonald and Sharp auditioned actors for the show's central role, a black WW2 serviceman stranded downunder. The pair narrowly turned down a then-unknown Cuba Gooding Jr (Jerry Maguire) for the part.
Lynn of Tawa was reborn in one-off documentary In Search of the Great New Zealand Male and travel show Visual Symphonies. McDonald talks about inspirations behind Lynn of Tawa and the controversy her character caused in this episode of Magic Kiwis. The 1990s also saw her continuing to act and produce. She produced TV adaptations of Riwia Brown pregnancy play Ngā Wahine, and Robert Lord's decade-spanning Joyful and Triumphant. McDonald also co-starred as a dead tramp opposite Rawiri Paratene, in offbeat gambling tale Dead Certs, and produced Face Value, a trilogy of solo pieces. She took centre stage in one of them: Her New Life was a finalist at both the Banff and New York TV Festivals.
McDonald also did an extended run as presenter of gardening show Ground Force. In 2007 she was made an ONZM (Officer of the Order of New Zealand) for services to entertainment. Soon after she returned to Downstage Theatre for solo play My Brilliant Divorce. She continues to act, including in TV movie Rage, based on the 1981 tour, and 2018 Tom Scott play Joan. Her daughter Kate McGill was also in the cast.
In Apirl 2024 NZ On Screen launched The Ginette McDonald Collection. It includes written tributes by her brother and collaborator Michael, comedian Michèle A'Court, and varied fans.
Profile written by Ian Pryor; updated on 30 June 2024
Sources include
Ginette McDonald
'Ginette McDonald - Funny As Interview' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Rupert Mackenzie. Loaded 6 September 2019. Accessed 30 June 2024
'Fires, nymphomaniacs and Lynn of Tawa' (Video Interview), NZ On Screen Website. Director Ian Pryor. Loaded 18 February 2010. Accessed 30 June 2024
Amy Jackman, 'The woman behind Lynn of Tawa' - The Wellingtonian, 27 February 2014, page 12
Noel O'Hare, 'A Long Way From Tawa' (Interview) - The Listener, 16 September 1989, page 20
The Champion press kit