Veteran entertainer Peter Regan best known for The Box, Quest and Prisoner has died.
Veteran entertainer and producer Peter Regan best known for The Box, Quest and Prisoner has died aged 92.
He passed away following a long illness.
Regan was born in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK, and sang with the famed Frank Chacksfield Orchestra for the BBC.
He performed in West End productions of Damn Yankees, Kiss Me Kate, Once Upon a Mattress, and Charlie Girl where he met actor and wife Olivia Hamnett (1943 – 2001).
Both came to Australia in 1971 for the Australian production of Charlie Girl, featuring a young Johnny Farnham, for producer Ken Brodziak.
Early British TV credits included Crossroads, Who-Dun-it and Z Cars.
After returning to the UK following the Charlie Girl tour he was invited by Crawford Productions to play Big Night Out host Gary Burke in The Box from 1974 – 1976.
“We wanted to come back very much indeed. It was very kind of Crawfords to invite me back and pay the fare. It was wonderful,” he once recalled.
In the first episode he was seduced by Felicity (played by 20-year-old Helen Hemingway) who then announced she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl, causing the fictional TV station to try to avoid the scandal. What followed was journalist Vicki Stafford (Judy Nunn) exploiting the situation with Felicity for a story and, in turn, a scene with Australian television’s very first lesbian kiss.
Regan would appear across 496 episodes but opted not to participate in the feature film which followed.
Instead he hosted ABC talent show Quest from 1976 – 1978 featuring Brian May’s ABC Showband and Joe Latona Dancers. Variety appearances also included Penthouse Club, The Graham Kennedy Show, Ted Hamilton’s Musical World, Young Talent Time, Good Morning Australia, An Aussie Audience with Dame Edna and his own Peter Regan’s Musical World on ABC.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s he hosted his own late night Tonight show on NBN Newcastle, “which I enjoyed tremendously, I’d like to do something like that again. I think those days have disappeared for all of us,” he once said.
He also produced That’s Dancin’ for ABC from 1989 – 1991.
Other acting credits include Cop Shop, Prisoner, Carson’s Law, Janus and MDA.