MARILYN MAYO I'M SO LUCKY TO BE ALIVE!

TV fave Miss Marilyn gives her first interview in 15 years!

- Craig Bennett

When the cork pops from a bottle of champagne, former children's TV host Marilyn Mayo's face lights up and she beams her famous smile.

"It's been a totally hellish four years, but made all the more tolerable thanks to the love of close friends, the unstinting dedication of my two stepdaughters, Lillian and Katrina, plus a cheeky glass of wine or champagne," smiles the Logie-winning TV queen who enchanted countless kids in the '70s as Miss Marilyn on The Super Flying Fun Show.

As she settles in to give her first interview in over a decade, Marilyn explains that her health ordeal began in May, 2020. She was at her inner-city Sydney apartment with her partner of more than 30 years, Jim Photios.

"I'd felt perfectly fine, then out of the blue I began to feel strange. It was like a black curtain closing in around me.

I fell to the floor. The next thing I wake up in St Vincent's hospital ICU. I'd suffered a massive stroke," recalls Marilyn, 80.

"It was a thalamic brain haemorrhage and I heard specialists discussing whether I'd pull through... that if I did, I may never walk or talk again. It was terrifying, it was surreal and it was an unfolding nightmare"

Marilyn remained in hospital for three months. When she was released from ICU, so began intensive physiotherapy before being transferred to a Sydney care home.