The Thornbirds

Yes! And yes, I'm old AF.

What I found bizarre when I watched this is that most of the major characters do not have Australian accents. I've noticed in many older television shows ( Western tv shows for example) that Americans would sometimes plays Brits while speaking in American accents. Was this done for the ease of the American audiences who weren't used to non-American accents or because they couldn't find enough Brits or Aussies for the roles? There were plenty of Brits in Hollywood so I tend to lean toward the former. Perhaps Americans back then were not familiar enough with diverse accents in English, and the producers couldn't be "arsed" to cast Aussies because of the lack of knowledge of the majority of the audience.

No, I watched the Thorn Birds.

Question = WHY do people keep making multiple threads to promote this SAME TWITTER USER?.....I am beginning to wonder if OP is not self promoting?

[quote] Perhaps Americans back then were not familiar enough with diverse accents in English,

You're right, r2. Before 2003 or so, Americans were ignorant about pretty much everything. Most didn't even know Australia is a country.

I was quite small but remember my mother watching every night of it. It felt like a big cultural moment and everyone was talking about it at the time.

R4, it’s a popular Twitter account. I see people retweeting their stuff all the time. Someone with one hundred thousand Twitter followers is probably not that worried about doing such subtle marketing.

Yes. Had a crush on Richard Chamberlain

It starred Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward.

She was more masculine than him.

The book was better.

Rachel Ward married Bryan Brown and still looks like a magnificent lioness.

^ Look at a recent picture; she resembles Cyril Delevanti.

This was a big bestselling novel (the kind that’s on the verge of being a bodice-ripper, but isn’t quite) so it had a built in audience.

Rachel Ward (who beat out Jane Seymour for the female lead) was a successful model before acting. Her first few Hollywood projects were high profile, then she kind of slithered away. Not sure why.

Where have all the miniseries gone?

^ Those breasts are airbrushed.

She slithered away off to Kangaroo-Land because she fell in lust with big Bryan (The Stud) Brown.

Rachel Ward was terrible...worst performance in the entire thing

It was very popular among women I knew who had been raised Catholic. I found it too sudsy to sit through. Stanwyck was it her most "Miss Barbara Stanwyck". Only much later did I realize that she could play a variety of roles.

Yes, I saw it 1983, and that was only to see Barbara Stanwyck's overwrought performance. Everyone goes crazy after what R13 posted, but I see it as an absurd dramatization.

Yes! The Horn Birds was fantastic!

good theme music and a nice house.

Rachel Ward. Woohoo!!!

I love the Thorn Birds. I have the DVD and the soundtrack. Funny, that the soundtrack issued by Varese Sarabande actually had one of the tracks missing the dulcimer.

I really hope The Thorn Birds gets issued on Blu-Ray. Both Roots and Shogun have been issued in HD but I hope this one follows as well.

I crushed on Chamberlain when I was younger. And indeed, he was handsome in this. But watching it again, Bryan Brown is so fucking sexy and I imagine his character would be wild in bed, which is why when Ward's character says to him, "You can't make love for toffee", it's hard to believe. No wonder Ward fell in love with him.

Also, it has a fantastic cast.

[quote]r14 Those breasts are airbrushed.

I wouldn’t think so. They’re real. She complained in Time magazine that as a model her breasts were continually being strapped down because they were larger than most.

They also feature in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”.

For r20

[bold]: )

I loved Rachel as an actress and was sad that she never capitalized on her first brush with success. She got high-profile roles in The Thorn Birds and Against All Odds but then she lost steam. She was also good in After Dark, My Sweet.

She didn't age the best, but I appreciate she didn't turn into a plastic surgery freak. She and Brown are still together and Ward seems to enjoy being a director nowadays.

Amazing that Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward are still together after all this time. Australian dick must be amazing.

Ward had amazing chemistry with both Chamberlain and Brown in The Thorn Birds.

And she was lucky enough to go onto have more hot chemistry with Jeff Bridges in Against All Odds.

Ageing, skinny hippie

GOWNS by TRAVILLA.

Rachel Ward has almost always looked skeletal to me. She was okay in Thorn Birds and Against All Odds, but if you look at other photos of her throughout the years, she looks like one meal away from starving. But maybe she just has a high metabolism...she is quite tall, isn't she?

BROWN; This here is Rachel Ward, also known as Rachel Brown because she is married to me. Rachel was an actress that achieved an enormous success with her mini series called The Thornbirds, it was big all over the world... and in movies with Steve Martin and Burt Reynolds. And then in the last fifteen odd years moved in the direction of writing and directing.

WARD: This is Bryan Brown, or Bryan Ward because he’s married to me. And he is my husband... and that’s all he is. Just my husband. And my slave.

R11 Rachel Ward looks like a very attractive 63 year old woman - not some plasticised Californian freak.

Fair enough, R31. I suppose I have to agree with you.

I'm no fan of plasticised Californians but 63 year old Rachel has had the courage of her convictions, she ran off with her man to get her 'place in the sun' and therefore she wears that sun-worship on her face— just like Cyril Delevanti did.

R11, I followed your advice and point taken. Love her even a bit more with all those wrinkles and that lasting marriage to Bryan Brown. Also, thanks for Cyril.

The women in my family loved it, book and mini-series. My sisters still quote some line from it (something Miss Stanwyk says about still having needs?).

I remember Rachel Ward being charming in the role but not much of an actress. It's heartening to see a former model/ingénue aging gracefully.

It was creepy when geriatric Stanwyck was perving on Richard Chamberlain washing his flat bottom on the verandah.

R34, see R13 for the Stanwyck scene.

[quoting]R35 It was creepy when geriatric Stanwyck was perving on Richard Chamberlain washing his flat bottom on the verandah.

Yes. But he was only an infant at the time. He did need it.

She seems to have taken the bad reviews to heart. I love after dark my sweet - of course sexy Jason Patric is a big part of that.

^ Jason was delicious!

It was fucking garbage

Yes, and it was a great series with a great cast. The first night was especially delicious.

[quote] It was very popular among women I knew who had been raised Catholic

Yep; even Germaine Greer loved the book.

It’s more of a saga like Gone With The Wind than a Barbara Cartland.

Germaine Greer is a fabulous writer. That’s perhaps the most articulate of deep~felt reviews I’ve ever read.

R27 Very sad to see Rachel Ward promoting Mehreen Faruqi from the Greens. She is a well known to be anti-Jewish and has attended numerous questionable rallies that promote hate. I suppose Rachel either doesn't know or chooses to look the other way.

[quote]Most didn't even know Australia is a country.

Not true! We've all seen "The Sound of Music."

Dee, it's we all seen.

I absolutely agree Gone with the Wind and The Thorn Bird were two of the best written novels ever. Just really great stories, well told. Not literature, not necessarily masterpieces but solid, admirable, memorable storytelling and writing.

R2, they also did this with the first version of [italic]On The Beach[/italic]. Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire had flat all-American accents, though I liked Ava's performance in it. Fred didn't even try. Only Anthony Perkins attempted one and it slid in and out like his cock did with Tab Hunter's hole.

Lived The Thorn Birds as a teen. It's nice to see that Rachel and Brian are still together and aging normally, how refreshing.

I didn’t watch it. It is interesting that dynasty was so popular that everything was compared to it.

I watched it and read the novel but don’t remember much about either except that both Rachel Ward and Richard Chamberlain were hot AF in the miniseries.

I was going to ask WHET Sydney Penny but it looks like she worked steadily until 2017.

[quote]Lived The Thorn Birds as a teen.

You moved to Australia and had sex with Richard Chamberlain? Bold.

I’m surprised none of you have mentioned Jean Simmons perhaps because hers was one of the few understated, even stoic, performances especially compared to that of Stanwyck.

"Richard Chamberlain was not even vaguely believable. He was totally sexless. And Stanwyck! God, she was awful. She wasn't the least bit sexy. Mary Carson was supposed to be a sexy broad....I should have played her."

Bette Davis on The Thornbirds

I don't totally disagree with her.

Bette Davis would not have been believable as a "sexy broad" in 1982. She did not age well.

R54, I thought Jean Simmons was great. I've always liked her though. Richard Kiley was also good.

^ Neither did Stanwyck.

Stanwyck aged better than Davis did, at least

Yes. I had read "The Thorn Birds" a few years before and fell in love with it.

In 1983, I was a sophomore in college. Bryan Brown, Jean Simmons, and Rachel Ward were the only leads who were Australian or English. Boy, did he fuel my masturbatory fantasies!

With Jean Simmons, all I can ever recall is the scene at the end of "The Robe," when she joins Richard Burton in martyrdom.. They ascend into the clouds as Jay Robinson (as Caligula) screams, "Go...Go to your God!"

[quote]Mary Carson was supposed to be a sexy broad

She was???

The Thorn Birds and North and South (starring Patrick Swayze & James Read) were my mom's most favorite TV programs. I remember that we bought our videotape recorder, so she could record these shows and watch them over and over again (which she did).

Allegedly they had to add aging makeup to Barbara because she looked younger than they had thought.

Poor Father Ralph!

Poor Cardinal de Bricassart!

My college room mate would quote this line all the time.

[quote]R61 The Thorn Birds and North and South (starring Patrick Swayze & James Read) were my mom's most favorite TV programs.

No “Love’s Savage Fury”?

No “Beulah Land”??

Beulah Land was hysterically bad. I have it on DVD and pull it out every few years for a laugh.

Rachel Ward is awful in this. All the emotion of a plank of wood. She personally undercts the whole "Brits are naturally great actors" PR line from Hollywood.

[quote] Beulah

r65 the worst

[quote] Richard Chamberlain was not even vaguely believable. He was totally sexless.

Bette forgot that he was exactly the sort of man teenage girls imprint their sexual fantasies on.

Bette Davis is my favourite classic actress (Barbara Stanwyck actually comes a close second) but she hadn’t been a sexy broad since the 1950s. Stanwyck was perfect. Powerful, vengeful, past her prime and bitter about it.

[quote] the worst

R68, teen and pre-teen girls are known to swoon over gay tv/pop stars, being sexless and non-threatening is a large part of the appeal.

In 1993 Rachel Ward played the mom in the sexy, beautifully photographed “Wide Sargasso Sea” (the prequel to “Jane Eyre.”)

I like how they pronounce her name “Whaaaard.”

(I also just noticed this was redone as a mini series in 2006. I have to look for it!)

Exactly my point, r71. Bette was talking shit because it was another job that passed her by.

[quote]Bette Davis would not have been believable as a "sexy broad" in 1982. She did not age well.

Neither did Barbara Stanwyck. All the booze and cigarettes really did a number on their looks.

I think Stanwyck aged pretty well.

Mary Carson was not supposed to be a sexy broad. She was a hateful, bitter old woman who was pissed she couldn't get a young priest to fuck her.

You could hear the emphysema in Stanwyck's voice, she died from it several years later. I don't believe she ever stopped smoking.

[quote]She was a hateful, bitter old woman who was pissed she couldn't get a young priest to fuck her.

Couldn't she have dressed up like an altar boy?

I loved Stanwyck in this...after her character dies, the show is dull. She chewed up the scenery and I loved her for it. I think that her last sexy role was in [italic]The Furies [/italic].

R44, please don’t tell me that Rachel is a bigot....how fucking disappointed am I right now...

R76, she would have been if Davis had played her. HA!

[quote] Mary Carson was not supposed to be a sexy broad.

In the book I believe she was not a broad, but broad - wide and overweight. The most vivid description to me was that of her body so rapidly decaying after her death covered in maggots.

R44 Don’t assume Rachel is a bigot because she belongs to the Greens.

She says in her Instagram above that she belongs to the Greens because they are a third party which lessens the terrible drama that the two-party USA has.

But the Greens do contain a lot of ratbags, nutcases and anarchists. Rachel and her husband are champagne socialists with two houses. One is on a peninsular called "Palm Beach" which is the 'ne plus ultra' of Sydney's wealthy hedonism.

I remarked in another thread that my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Young, and I talked about it every day during its run and long after it. My favorite line in the book, that I still use to signal a cheapskate, is when someone said they were surprised Mary Carson, "opened up her purse long enough for the moths to fly out."

[quote]With Jean Simmons, all I can ever recall is the scene at the end of "The Robe," when she joins Richard Burton in martyrdom.

I think of her as Eudora on Murder She Wrote.

"Couldn't she have dressed up like an altar boy?"

Stanwyck certainly had the chest part down.

LOL, Barbara's bust was rather modest. Yet she played a stripper in [italic]Ball of Fire[/italic]. Her costume was designed to make her breasts look larger.

I was rather scandalised when Mary Carson stared at Father Ralph's penis.

Barbara Stanwyck was so dykey.

Barb Stanywck showed up on the set of Charlie’s Angels and when the rest of the cast wasn’t there she had the cameraman do all her shots.

Then she went home while the angels were still in their hair and makeup trailers.

[italic]Bitch ain’t playin’!

Scandalised, I tell ya. Scandalised!

Barbara wasn't a real woman. She didn't have any breasts.

Hahaha, horny old thing. Thanks for posting, r91.

Stanwyck was against character... Mary Carson was a fat old thing with red hair. Not that you'd have wanted to see that going rubbing Richard Chamberlain.

That scene between Stanwyck and Chamberlain would have played better in a movie than on a television miniseries. More artistic freedom to allow subtlety. On television it plays like a pitiful old cougar preying upon a young man. A film would have allowed more nuances. The scene could be been fleshed out.

R48 On the Beach was actually filmed and set in Australia. The Thornbirds mini-series was filmed in Simi Vally CA, with the beach scenes filmed in Hawaii.

Colleen McCullough was horrified by the mini series, and she particularly disliked the dusty Southern Californian backdrop for her Drogheda ranch, which was supposed to have been set in the sub-tropical upper regions of New South Wales. A place she went to great pains to describe the details about in her book, as Germaine Greer mentions in the article at R42.

[quote]On television it plays like a pitiful old cougar preying upon a young man. A film would have allowed more nuances.

This was another aspect McCullough hated, and how embarrassingly it was handled. Years before The Golden Girls it was still shocking to see an older woman lusting openly after a younger man. But the campiness of those scenes brought the viewers in droves.

I read from the book last night... Mary's two big scenes... the nudity in the rain and the scene before she dies. I may be missing something but they didn't seem terribly different in the book than in the miniseries. Lots of the dialogue was lifted one to the other. I hadn't read the book in years. It is still a hell of a story but it struck me as more pedestrian and expository in the prose than I recalled and kind of soapy. Still very good but not as excellent as I remembered it. In any event, the Mary scenes seemed similar to me in both. I think the truth is Stanwyck was wrong for the part and (ducking now) not a great actress (at that point in her life? I don't know her earlier work.)

I was 13 when it first aired, and I watched every second of it. Loved it. If I've ever watched it again, I sure don't remember. Is it streaming anywhere in the US?

Then, I only knew Stanwyck from The Big Valley, and didn't know who Jean Simmons was at all. The naked Chamberlain scene made me tingly.

For some reason when I think about this miniseries, I always remember this scene with Mare Winningham driving away.

Richard Chamberlain played the older, inverse (and invert!) character in Nip/Tuck.

I remember reading this in the summer between 5-6 grades or 6-7 grades staying up most of the night late into early morning. I was destroyed, weeping out of control, when Meg’s younger brother died who she did most of the mothering over and everyone consolingly the actual mother and not Meg who really felt the loss.