Les Hill was a 1990s soap hunk, made famous through his role as Blake in Home And Away – but fast forward more than three decades and the star has played some very different parts
The majority of teenage girls’ bedroom walls in the 1990s were covered in posters featuring the newest Australian soap opera stars.
There was Home And Away’s Shane Parrish and Vinnie Patterson (Dieter Brummer and Ryan Kwanten) and Neighbor’s Scott Robinson, Mike Young, and Rick Alessi (Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce, and Dan Falzon). Les Hill’s portrayal of Blake Dean from Home and Away was another Australian face that was prominently featured among them.
In July 1990, Blake made his first appearance in Summer Bay with his younger sister Karen. They were searching for Ailsa Stewart, who had been imprisoned alongside their mother, Margot.
He was a handsome, gregarious teenager who constantly got into problems at school and felt Donald Fisher’s anger.
Blake also went on to date Meg Bowman, but their romance ended tragically when Meg, who had been suffering leukemia in secret, died in his arms on the beach.
Actor Les was cast as Blake while he was just 16 years old and still in school, therefore it was one of his first-ever roles. He was paid $2,000 for personal appearances and went on to become one of the biggest stars of soap operas in just a few years, despite Home and Away at the time being paired against the immensely famous Neighbours in the same TV time slot.
He was chosen Best Male Character, Best Actor, and Sexiest Man in Soap by Inside Soap magazine readers in 1993. The Sydney Morning Herald named him the new poster boy for Home and Away, saying he “obliterated the memory of Craig MacLachlan,” better known as Henry Ramsay in Neighbours.
Blake was apparently even offered a part in the popular US TV series Baywatch, but he had to decline because of his filming commitments for Home and Away.
However, Les seemed to have burst out of his soap opera, and he proclaimed his intention to leave Summer Bay in 1993. After a brief relocation to the UK, he costarred with celebrities including Craig Charles, Bruno Brookes, Keith Chegwin, and Michaela Strachan in the children’s TV programme Go Getters. He performed in pantomimes for Christmas as well.
Les has acted in several TV shows and movies in the thirty years since. These include the critically acclaimed Australian true-crime drama Underbelly, in which he portrayed a gangland character named Jason Moran; the paramedic drama Rescue: Special Ops, in which he costarred with Craig MacLachlan; and the romantic comedy drama Wonderland.
However, he has also made time to play Blake once more. He made a special appearance on Home and Away in 2002 as part of a plot celebrating the show’s fourteenth anniversary, and he returned in 2005 for its 4,000th episode.
Away from the film, Les has launched his own wine line, Seven Sundays, to indulge in his passion for winemaking. “It started out as a joking ideas between two friends of mine one Sunday afternoon and ended up with us making our own label,” he said in a 2009 interview with stuff.co.nz.
For Australian Seven Sundays, I would like to return to New Zealand, establish myself in Wellington, and explore the Marlborough region to see if I can find a new Sauvignon Blanc.
Les was fortunate enough to sell his oceanfront Sydney home for $2.81 million in 2020, just a year after purchasing it, so it appears that his acting and extracurricular activities have paid off.
And the 50-year-old’s acting career is far from done; he is presently starring with English Doctor Who actor Jodie Whittaker in the Australian TV series One Night, which follows three friends whose lives have been altered by the horrific events of one particular night, twenty years ago.
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