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2 unusual facts about Vanessa Downing


Vanessa Downing

When Downing left the series in 1990, apparently because she missed working along co-star Roger Oakley the part was taken over at short notice again by Debra Lawrance who went on to play the character from 1990 to 1998, with subsequent guest appearances.

She is best known however for being an original cast member of the television soap opera Home and Away at the age of 32, playing a role many years her senior as foster mother Pippa Fletcher, replacing Carole Willesee at short notice, the wife of newsreader Mike Willesee, who was originally cast as Pippa, with the casting news hitting the headlines, at the publicity launch of the soap.



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