Belinda Giblin : 'I WAS SCARED TO REPLACE ROWENA'

SONS AND DAUGHTERS’ DRAMA QUEEN IS TELLING ALL

- Jenny Brown

It was glitzy, glamorous and completely over the top. Yet Belinda Giblin never really wanted the sudsy Sons and Daughters role that shot her to enduring fame.

Replacing Rowena Wallace as super b---h Patricia ‘Pat the Rat’ Hamilton just didn’t appeal. In fact, Belinda now reveals she refused the producers’ offer twice before finally accepting.

“It was a bit confronting. Rowena was fabulous and had already won several Logies,” she admits. “I thought people might resent me taking over the role … it felt a bit like being an understudy. I really wanted to create something in my own right.

“But the third time they asked, my husband and I had just bought a house and needed to pay the mortgage. I loved the idea of going to work every day. So I agreed and that was it.”

Scriptwriters neatly explained Pat the Rat’s changed appearance. They simply claimed she had received extensive plastic surgery before returning as alter ego Alison Carr, played by Belinda. But the plot thickened even more when Rowena eventually reappeared to play her own twin sister!