Neighbours fans across Australia were devastated to hear in early December that the much-loved Ian Smith had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was finishing up on the show. But when TV WEEK had a phone chat with Ian just before Christmas, he had some “extremely good news” to share.
“I did a PET scan and the words, I believe, were ‘significant metabolic change, significant shrinkage of tumour’,” the 85-year-old actor reveals.
“I’ve gone from a threat of dying this coming March to maybe a few more months… and now, God, who knows? It’s not a cure and it won’t be a cure, but I certainly have got a year, maybe two.
“That’s amazing. It really is.”
Ian was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer called pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma and underwent chemotherapy as well as immunotherapy. It was Ian’s diagnosis that prompted him to contact Neighbours’ executive producer Jason Herbison to see if he could return to the show as Harold Bishop, the character he’d played on and off since 1987, one final time.
“I asked Jason if I could get Harold to say goodbye and he kindly said yes,” Ian says. “I liked Harold. There’s not enough of his type in the world. I wouldn’t like to live next to him, I’ve got to be honest, but he’s good. He’s a nice man.”
Neighbours producers even went along with Ian’s wish that Anne Charleston, who played Harold’s wife Madge, would return to the show.
“How good was that?” Ian marvels. “Gee, you couldn’t ask for more.”
Viewers will see Anne on screen in 2025. She won’t be playing Madge, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2001, but a new character.
“That would have been hard for her to do, and she did it so successfully,” Ian says. “It was so good.”
Ian lost his own wife, Gail, to cancer in 2019. The two of them were married for 50 years, and Ian misses her terribly.
“I’m on my own now and the world can be pretty lonely,” he admits. “It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve got around you, without your partner for life, oh gee, it’s damn lonely.”
But Ian has been touched by the support he’s received from the cast and crew of Neighbours, as well as the public, since news of his cancer diagnosis was revealed. He says his last day on set was “wonderful”.
“It was a kick up the backside for a cynical old bugger like me. It was so real, so sincere. I just had to stop and say to myself, ‘For God’s sake! These people really do like you!’ Youngsters standing in front of me and just crying…”
Guy Pearce, who played Mike Young on Neighbours, was one of the many people who got in touch.
“What a superb human being Guy is. By golly. The minute he found out about me, straightaway on the phone. Just lump in the throat time, honestly.
“And I’m doing it now,” he adds, getting choked up. “Sorry.”
So what’s up next for Ian? Well, he might be making a few phone calls.
“It’s rather funny, because there was a time there when I was supposed to die this coming March, and I was just giving things away,” he says. “And I feel like ringing up and saying, ‘Ay! Give it back! I’m going to keep living, if you don’t mind!’”
He’s not feeling any pain – “I’m so lucky” – and he’s able to just appreciate all the little joys that come from having more time left than he thought he had, like eating the tomatoes that are ripening in his garden.
“When I planted them, I said, ‘Well, I’ll plant them but I don’t know who’s going to eat them,’ because that’s what I thought,” he remembers. “I’m about to eat them, next week.
“You know what, I feel like I’ve been reborn.”
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