An unexpected meeting inside an elevator with film producer Albert Zugsmith led to an exciting career in film for Suva-born Ethelwyn Garnett in the 1960s.
Garnett, who had just finished filming Fanny Hill in Germany and was working on another film in Hollywood, was visiting her parents, Mr and Mrs C V Garnett in Lami in 1964, when she was interviewed by this paper.
Zugsmith, who worked with renown film studios such as Universal and MGM, first met Ethelwyn inside a lift in Yugoslavia and asked if she was interested in film work.
She was signed for seven years shortly after a screen test. In Fanny Hill, Ethelwyn played the role of Phoebe while Fanny, the main actress, was played by German actress Letitia Roman.
“Fanny is not a bit like the book,” Ethelwyn said in The Fiji Times of September 12, 1964, “She is innocent all the way through the film – which is a comedy.
“Most of the other actors and actresses had very strong German accents and though they could speak English, they well have dubbed voices when the film is released.”
In 1960, the Lami resident left Suva where she worked as a bank employee in search of greener pastures abroad.
Ethelwyn, who loved travelling, first went to New Zealand where she did photographic modelling at Auckland and Wellington before moving to Australia, then Hong Kong, where her career led to opportunities for appearing in television advertisements.
Later, she travelled to other parts of Asia in a cargo ship and then worked for five years at Beirut, Lebanon as a hotel receptionist.
From Beirut she did further photographic modelling in London before travelling to Europe where she met Zugsmith, in Yugoslavia, which today comprises several countries including Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.
The former Suva Grammar School student’s first acting experience was taking part in plays at school and at the Fiji Arts Club.
Zugsmith, a former journalist, was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialised in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
Shortly after being signed up for Fanny Hill, Ethelwyn took the stage name Cara.
