Drama, strife and a TV life

A Life in Three Acts, by Tina Grenville (HarperCollins, RRP $40):

Apart from all the info telling me what a great book this is, the back cover also tells me that during her career Tina became one of the most recognisable faces on New Zealand and Australian television.

The only trouble is I didn’t recognise her at all. So I Googled her name and even after a spot of reading, I was none the wiser.

I suppose I could take that to mean I don’t watch enough television but the more likely reason is that I’m not always the most observant of people.

Anyway, having read a few online interviews with Grenville and checking out her television career I decided she sounded like quite an interesting woman, albeit one who has a habit of posing for photographs with her hands on her face (I’m not kidding, every photo I found online matched the look of the image on the cover of her book).

And while the author might not be as instantly recognisable to all of us as the book’s back cover would have you believe, she has had a fascinating life that makes for great reading.

Grenville had a privileged childhood but as she because an adult she certainly had to deal with hardships: her ex-husband disappeared from a Wellington wharf one morning, never to be seen again. The young mum, aged just 19 at the time, rose above the gossip and rumours, moving on to work in radio before becoming a model.

Then there was the television career, but all along her life was littered with gossip and controversy, with complicated relationships at every turn.

I might not have recognised her instantly but I certainly found her life story an interesting read

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.