But as Frankie exclaims with a smile: “That’s about where the similarities end! Home and Away is contemporary and my role is nowhere near as curmudgeonly as the one I played in A Place to Call Home. But perhaps the casting people thought, ‘He looks like a bloke off the land, so we’ll give him a crack!’”
These days, Frankie lives with his actress wife Michelle Pettigrove on the far south coast of New South Wales and is a doting dad of four and grandfather of six.
Life, it seems, couldn’t be better for the much-loved star, who reveals that, like Amanda, he “didn’t hesitate" to accept this latest gig.
After all, he says: “It’s Home and Away! It’s such an iconic show and I’d never been on it, but I’ve done a lot of other shows and I thought, ‘what a great opportunity’.
“I feel like I’ve made it now,” he says, laughing, “and I’m pretty sure the road to Hollywood, which so many of the Home and Away alumni take, will open up to me now! Perhaps I could play Chris Hemsworth’s father in something ...”
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