MARK HOLDEN'S SECRET FLING WITH SUSAN HANNAFORD!

ONCE UPON A TIME, THE SHOWBIZ PAIR WERE YOUNG AND IN LOVE

- Phillip Koch

She grew up as the sweet girl next door on The Sullivans, but once Susan Hannaford left the beloved Aussie series, she ditched Kitty’s pigtails and reinvented herself as a flamboyant, blonde-haired US property tycoon. And no one was more shocked by her transformation than her former flame, Mark Holden!

Almost 50 years ago, Mark dated Susan while he was starring as Dr Greg Mason on The Young Doctors and she was one of the nation’s biggest TV stars.

“We were an item for a while and it’s just now, in the fullness of time, that I see how bizarrely her life turned out and all the wacky stuff she does in America. It’s bizarre,” Mark reveals in an exclusive interview with New Idea.

“We were young and we were both on a television show, and it was a lot of fun. Susan had a Mercedes and we’d roll around Sydney as two young, well-known acting-type people. It was a glamorous, fabulous time.”

Mark, who had a legion of female admirers thanks to his pop star days as ‘The Carnation Kid’ on Countdown, adds: “It must have been fun for the fans to see us together.

“It was a wild ride, and it was a really fantastic time. Oh yes, I was living out that dream of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.”