Madge Is Still Soaking Up Life!

The woman in the iconic ad finally comes clean

- Wendy Squires

You can thank acting icon Sir Laurence Olivier for giving us Australasia’s most famous manicurist. Had the respected thespian not appeared in a commercial late in his career, then Robina Beard, better known as Madge from the Palmolive dishwashing detergent ads, may never have exclaimed, “You’re soaking in it!”

Robina explains, “I had been living and working in Canada and returned to Australia broke. My agent encouraged me to audition for a TV commercial and I said, ‘I’m a professional actress, I don’t do commercials!’

“Then he told me I would be paid $15 for trying out, which was enticing – it was 1968 and that was decent money – but still I resisted. Then he pointed out that Laurence Olivier had appeared in a Kodak commercial in the US and I thought, ‘Well, if it’s good enough for Olivier, then it’s good enough for me.’”

And so, Madge the manicurist was born, dipping hands into dishwashing liquid on our screens for some 20 years from 1968 to 1988 for Palmolive, in what still stands as one of New Zealand and Australia’s all-time favourite ad campaigns.