Tony Holden - Kiwi comedy veteran
Posted on 22 August 2011
Credits: Interview, Camera & Editing – James Coleman
Tony Holden has produced and directed hundreds of hours of NZ television from
A Week Of It, Radio with Pictures and
Gliding On to
Shortland Street, City Life and
Dancing with the Stars. Holden’s roles over his 40 year screen career include Head of Production at South Pacific Pictures, General Manager of Commissioning and Production at TVNZ, and CEO of Comedia Pictures.
In this ScreenTalk interview, Holden talks about:
- Auditioning and casting Karyn Hay for Radio with Pictures
- Learning the art of comic timing
- How Gliding On struck a chord with New Zealanders
- Shooting live to tape on A Week Of It
- The early days working with Billy T James
- His emotions producing Billy, the tele-movie about Billy T James
- Commissioning at TVNZ
- The future of NZ television
This video is
available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a
Creative Commons licence
NZ ON SCREEN 2013
Comments
by Cherie James on 12 September 2011 at 9:08 am
Holden's right about one thing - Billy would've been looking down thinking 'you tosser'. The film is so inaccurate, Tainui's performance is so far off - the entire production couldn't have been more off track if you'd all tried. So great it got Lynn's tick of approval though. Especially since she left our family home in 1985 and was living with someone else during that entire time, and following my father's death. She got away with re-writing herself so well back into my father's life by talking to Matt Elliot, something I would not do to protect Dad's privacy - something any true wife, which I know she wasn't, would have also done. The film should've been called 'Lynn'. It exonerates her and depicts Dad out to be pathetic, silly and weak - something those of us who were there, knew he wasn't.
by Cherie James on 17 October 2011 at 11:21 am
A top-rating TV movie in August depicting the “love story” of Billy T James and his wife Lynn has so incensed the late entertainer’s family and friends, they’ve broken a 20-year silence to reveal the truth about his marriage. In the November issue of North & South (out today) , his daughter and sister-in-law explode the myth of the comic’s close intimate marriage and set the record straight about the family behind the star power.
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