Ilona Rodgers

Ilona Jeannette Rodgers (born 28 April 1942) is a British actress of stage, television and film. Born in Harrogate, West Riding of Yorkshire, where she started her career, she later went on to appear in New Zealand and Australian productions.

Rodgers has also worked in American productions including Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Power Rangers

Rodgers, a native of Yorkshire, trained at a stage school in Surrey and the Bristol Old Vic.^[1] Breakthrough roles came in British television, including Carol in The Sensorites, a six-episode adventure in the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who.^[2] She also appeared in an adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit and made guest appearances in The Avengers and Adam Adamant Lives!. She had a guest role in America in The Beverly Hillbillies^[3][4] and The Saint. Her final British screen credit was an episode of Paul Temple in 1970, before she emigrated to New Zealand.^[5]

Rodgers first lived in New Zealand from 1973, appearing in the soap opera Close to Home and a successful goldmining drama, Hunter's Gold.^[6]

Between 1978 and the mid-1980s she lived in Australia. There, she appeared in television programmes The Sullivans, over 200 episodes of Sons and Daughters (as Patricia Hamilton's sister, Margaret Dunne) and the 1985 Australian miniseries Anzacs (as Lady Thea Barrington), as well as nine episodes of Prisoner in 1983 as character Zara Moonbeam, an imprisoned medium who claimed to have clairvoyant powers.^[6]

After relocating back to New Zealand, her work included medical soap Shortland Street and presenting duties on a light entertainment and advertorial program called Good Morning.

Rodger's best-known role in New Zealand is probably TV series Gloss. She starred in Gloss for three seasons, from 1987 to 1990, playing bossy magazine editor Maxine Redfern. The series was about a fictional publishing empire run by the Redfern family.^[7] Rodgers played the Australian wife of New Zealand comedian Billy T. James in the final, sitcom version of The Billy T James Show (1990).

Her stage work has included the one-woman play Shirley Valentine,^[8] By Degrees written by Roger Hall, and Three Tall Women by Edward Albee.^[6]

• Ilona Rodgers at IMDb