Australian
Screen

Clip description

The building’s wine bar is about to open up for the evening rush but Norma Whittaker (Sheila Kennelly) can’t figure out why Jane Chester hasn’t turned up for her shift (she’s too busy dealing with her druggie sister Debbie). Norma asks chef Dudley (Chard Hayward) to work, even though he has had a difficult afternoon taking relatives to visit his cousin Jaja’s grave (she was travelling in a car that drove off a cliff whilst on fire). Barmaid Prim (Pamela Gibbons) refers to an ugly scene she has had with long-lost father and alcoholic Hollywood star Trevor Banks, who has come to Australia to film a movie. Then cousin Jaja (Anya Saleky) walks through the door very much alive. As everyone looks on in horror, Jaja blithely wonders why the laundrette is closed and then asks if Dudley can have the night off because she is ‘dying to see the sights’ of Sydney.

Curator’s notes

This is the last scene in the 1975 finale. It was the show’s biggest cliffhanger and left regular viewers gobsmacked. Note that during the closing credits one of the flats is vacant, which is why a question mark is superimposed over it during the cast roll.

Number 96 promoted its 1976 premiere via newspaper advertisements featuring Jaja in a sexy halter top and hotpants. The headline screamed: ‘Jaja has returned from the dead. Where has she been? Whose mutilated body was in Jaja’s coffin? It’s all in the new, big Number 96, now a full hour of drama and excitement every Monday and Tuesday at 8.30 pm.’

It turns out that Jaja had short-term memory loss caused by the shock of seeing the car crashing (she was thrown free in the nick of time). Despite refusing to do any nudity, Anya Saleky remained with the show for several months as its resident blonde bombshell, following a great tradition that began in 1972 with Abigail, the first sex symbol on the show – and Australian television.