Actress Belinda McClory visits Tonga [1]
Wednesday, December 1, 1999 - 10:00. Updated on Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - 16:00.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 4, December 1999.
Movie Star in Town
Australian actress, and Matrix star, Belinda McClory (30) came to Tonga recently for her father’s wedding, when Rob McClory the First Secretary at the Australian High Commission in Nuku‘alofa, married Savi Pangai from Vava‘u.
Belinda who starred in the top Australian television show Blue Heelers for six years, was spotted by her Tongan fans on the plane from Sydney. Then her father rescued her when she was mobbed at a Nuku‘alofa theatre by an excited crowd seeking autographs after she had introduced a showing of Matrix, in which she plays the character, Switch. Belinda said that Matrix, shot at Fox Studios in Sydney last year, had grossed $150 million. Belinda was accompanied by her husband, Director, Jon Hewitt, who wrote the film Redball for her, which won an award at the Chicago Film Festival.
Also visiting Tonga:
Tonga the first country to welcome the new Millennium, and its preparations to celebrate this historical event, will be televised in Italy before the end of the year.
Antonio Politano (second from left), a photojournalist, and the leader of a television group from Sunnord Multmedia, Rome, said that they were in Tonga to document Tonga’s preparation for the Millennium Celebration. He said that Tonga was part of a Millennium celebration documentary, which covered Gisborne, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Kiribasi.
Jim Frew, a web site designer from San Francisco came to Tonga during September and October, to conduct courses in web site management and design at the Royal School of Science.
The courses were popular and already have encouraged a number of new web pages and sites to be established by Tongan companies and orgranisations.
Jim was a designer for Wired magazine, and he writes for Web Monkey an online guide for web site development.
At the end of the courses, the principal of the school, Captain Va‘inga Tone presented Jim with a traditional Tongan design.
Hiroshi Nakajima, the Executive Director of The Pacific Society of Japan, came to Tonga in November to study pigs, particularly fishing pigs. “What are they looking for on the beach?” he asked.
Hiroshi said that the society is for academics who have an interest in the whole Pacific, particularly Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia.
In Polynesia the two main areas of interest for the society are archaeology and fisheries.
Hiroshi said that the society was established in September 1978, on the recommendation of Professor Shinoto from the Bishop Museum, Hawai‘i, and today the society has 400 members, with 20 per cent of them being overseas scholars.
During his visit he stayed at the Nerima Lodge in Nuku‘alofa.
Stan Wolfgramm, the Director of Drum Productions, Auckland, came to Nuku‘alofa as a judge of the Miss South Pacific Pageant in October.
Stan, the son of Fred and Anna Wolfgramm of Fanga, Nuku‘alofa, is a well-known New Zealand television actor, producer and director.
In recent years Fred has been the driving force behind Auckland’s spectacular annual Fashion Pasifika Show.
Fred starred in the New Zealand television series Shortland Street, and is a playwright and a model. More recently he has directed and produced the popular television series Maggie’s Garden Show.
He has just finished making an inflight movie for the Hong Kong based airline Cathay Pacific, which he said included a mention of Tonga.
Currently Stan is working on a movie about a missionary who lived in Tonga during the reign of Queen Salote, but we will have to wait until it is released before we can find out more.