Where There's A Will... There's A Ray

Woolfie Harks Back to His Showman .

- Kelly Bertrand

“What if I never got on that boat?” It’s a question legendary Kiwi entertainer Ray Woolf sometimes finds himself asking.

What if, at the age of 17 and with his entire life’s worth of dreams in front of him, the Dagenham lad hadn’t followed the rest of his family from the UK onto the SS Orion bound for New Zealand?

“Well, I mightn’t even be alive now!” he says with a chuckle. “I might never have got into the entertainment industry. And I never would have fallen in love with this country.”

Having just finished co-writing his biography, Hey Woolfie: Welcome to the World, the singer, actor and entertainer has been in a reflective mood of late, with many memories stirring in his mind – most happy, some painful.

There was a lot to include in the book. His TV resume alone is extensive reading – C’mon, Happen Inn, Play School, A Going Concern, Saddle Up, Two on One, and, of course, The Ray Woolf Show and The New Ray Woolf Show. Plus the music, the musicals, the performances, and later roles in local TV series such as The Strip and Nothing Trivial.

“Writing this book made me remember so much,” he says. “Tonnes and tonnes of memories; some interesting, funny stuff. The idea to write it had been around for a few years, and eventually I asked [biographer] Roger Booth if he’d be keen to do it, and here we are.”