Kylie. Julie Aspinall
themselves competing with one another for the first time. ‘Mum thought I’d be jealous and insisted I go along to the audition as well,’ recalled Kylie. ‘All I remember is that I had to speak in a Dutch accent and I wasn’t very good at it.’ Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the producers of The Sullivans decided that it was Kylie, not Dannii, who was most suitable for the role. And so it was the elder of the two budding stars who ended up getting the part.
As it happens, Kylie’s good fortune also turned out to be Dannii’s, as well. Carla didn’t last long in the series, as she was soon killed off. She made a comeback, though, when she returned as a ‘vision’ – by which time Kylie was too old to play the part and so Dannii, who bore a strong resemblance to her older sister at the time, was drafted in. She, too, began a successful television career – one which was, throughout their childhood, to eclipse Kylie’s.
By this time, Kylie was attending Camberwell High School in Melbourne. Years later, she recalled wearing a bottle green uniform, which she absolutely hated, and also recalled a campaign by the girls to be allowed to wear green cords instead of skirts in the winter. She also secured a little television work: when she was 11 she took part in a television series called Skyways, in which she met one Jason Donovan, who was playing her brother. ‘Jason was really chubby, with a bowl haircut, and I was really small, with straight blonde hair and big buck teeth,’ Kylie recalled some time later.
There was then a gap in her work, however, until at 16 she got her big break: a part in a children’s serial called The Henderson Kids, in which she played the part of Charlotte Kernow. At the time Kylie was seen throughout Australia as ‘Dannii Minogue’s big sister’ – in some ways it’s a miracle that the two are still on speaking terms – but it was a start and the older Minogue sister very slowly began making a name for herself. Kylie often describes herself, and is described by others, as a bit hippyish, but she has a very determined streak that has always been there, and this was evident from the fact that she used her earnings from the series not to go out and buy lots of clothes as most teenagers would, but to record a demo tape. It was not a great success. ‘All I can remember is crying because I was so nervous,’ she says today. But she was doing it to broaden her appeal to casting directors: ‘The more things you can do, the better,’ she says. ‘Can you paraglide? Me? Sure. Rollerskate? No problem. Sing? Here’s my tape.’ It was a talent she was to put to very good use in later years. For now, however, acting was to be her mainstay: The Henderson Kids was followed by two further series: Fame and Misfortune and Zoo Family. And round about the same time, Kylie also hired her first agent. She was on her way.
During that break in Kylie’s career, it was Dannii who had become the star of the family and it was Dannii who had her own television show, Young Talent Time. ‘She (Kylie) hadn’t done much after The Sullivans and Skyways,’ recalls Alan Hardy, who had worked on both programmes and went on to be the producer of The Henderson Kids. ‘She had gone back to school and got on with her life. The great irony is that her sister was very well known at the time. Kylie was very conscious of that. She told me it was quite difficult having a famous sister.’ It was a problem both girls were to become very familiar with in the years to come.
Kylie was also beginning to grow up as far as boys were concerned and when she was 13, she met her very first boyfriend, David Wood, who is now a hairdresser. ‘It was one summer when a whole lot of us used to hang around at the local swimming pool every day,’ recalled David, who was four years Kylie’s senior. ‘All the guys would spend their time jumping off the high dive boards to impress the girls. Kylie used to go there with her best friend Georgina Adamson, but it was Kylie who got all the attention. She was stunning looking, though very shy. All the guys thought she was great. One day we got chatting and soon became friends.’
Nothing happened immediately. But David established the fact that he and Kylie were at the same school and gave chase, with the result that within a year, he and Kylie were in a relationship. ‘She always wanted to be famous, always saying “I want to be a star”,’ remembered David. ‘Not in acting, in pop. Or else with her own line in fashion clothes. She was always ace with a sewing machine – she can knock out an outfit in two hours. She wasn’t really much of a partygoer. She hated nightclubs – if we went at all it was because I pestered her to go. But she was great fun to be with.’
David also saw the more tempestuous side of Kylie’s nature. ‘I have seen her cry and get extremely angry,’ he revealed. ‘She doesn’t like to expose her emotions – but yes, she can get mad. We had a few rows over the years. We split up four or five times. Sometimes it would be her that wanted it and sometimes it would be me but we always got back together again. I never had eyes for anyone else while I was with Kylie. I suppose I was like any Jack the Lad young guy at that age – a bit too casual, sometimes. She hated it if I wasn’t there to pick her up when I said I would and she would have a go at me. I also stood her up a few times and there were scenes then. But at that age I could get away with that sort of behaviour, just ring her in the morning, apologise and everything would be fine again.’
And even way back then, Kylie was a clean-living girl. ‘She didn’t like my drinking and smoking at all,’ David admitted. ‘I wasn’t going out and getting drunk all the time but at parties I liked a few. She hardly touched a drop. She is a very light drinker and normally sticks to soft drinks. But she would nag me. And she can’t stand smoking, which I like.’
In recent years, Kylie has emphasised how important her career is to her – to the extent that she has often put it before her personal life – and that trait was evident right from the start. When The Henderson Kids came along, Kylie put her all in to getting the part, despite feeling very nervous about going for the role. ‘She was very shy and insecure,’ said Alan Hardy. ‘To be honest, I think she probably still is. But she was very sweet. She found acting very hard and it took a long while to win her confidence so that she would trust us and give more of herself. She learned that we weren’t there to get her, that we were all on the same side and she could be herself on camera, rather than try too hard or let her shyness get on top of her.’ She also revealed another side to her character, however, one that would stand her in good stead for the demanding lifestyle that lay ahead. ‘In her audition, she showed that she had this toughness – yet she was so tiny and looked so vulnerable,’ recalled Alan. ‘She gave a great performance and she had a delightful personality.’
It was Chris Langman who cast her for the part. ‘We were looking for someone to play the lead female’s best mate,’ he said. ‘I cast Kylie as Charlotte but the other girl we picked for the lead also happened to be a blonde and we didn’t want two blondes in the first and second roles. So we decided to dye Kylie’s hair red to make her look a bit different. Kylie was shy and the other actress, Nadine Garner, definitely wasn’t, so Kylie took a back seat for a while. She would sit on set between filming and draw pictures of us all, and they were really very good. But I don’t think she ever believed how good they were, which was quite typical of her.’
Kylie and Nadine became friendly, to the extent that they used to sing harmonies and duets together, even hoping that one day they might join forces and sing professionally. ‘Kylie always had a fantastic voice,’ reflected Alan. ‘I used to get annoyed when I heard people criticising her voice after she became a singer. There’s no doubt that Kylie can sing. There was a song at the time called “I Am The Warrior” and she changed the words for me to make it “I Am The Worrier”, because I was always fretting about getting everything done properly. I still have a card somewhere that she sent me. She’d written in it, “Don’t worry Al baby.”’
Alan also had an early insight in to the way the Minogue family worked together. ‘It was a very strong family unit,’ he recalled. ‘At The Henderson Kids, we encouraged the parents to give their children over to us and let us work. It can be quite