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Guest Character Profiles > Kelly Katsis Katrina Milosevic

Kelly Katsis 2008-2009
Occupation: Primary School Teacher

When young Callum Jones was caught showing sexy photos of Nicola West at school, his teacher Ms Katsis arranged a meeting with his guardian, Toadie Rebecchi. Not sure why the teacher wanted to see him, Toadie was nervous, and asked housemate and high school teacher Dan Fitzgerald to join them. After the meeting, Toadie was left relieved that it wasn't something more serious and agreed to have a quiet chat with Callum, while Kelly was left mistakenly thinking that Toadie and Dan were a couple, and asked an amused Dan if they might be interested in giving a talk of same-sex parenting at the school one evening.

Some weeks later, Kelly heard Callum fighting with his friend Mickey Gannon. Callum was annoyed that Mickey was accusing Nicola, Toadie and Callum's good friend and former housemate, of being a witch, after rumours went around that she'd poisoned Mickey's uncle, Steve Parker. That evening, Kelly visited Toadie and explained that Callum's disruptive behaviour at school and the stories about Nicola meant that she was going to have to report the situation to Human Services. Callum, who had been listening to the conversation, grew more and more upset and, the next day, started attacking Nicola's car and some flowers she had planted with him. Realising that perhaps Kelly was right, and he wasn't able to cope with the situation, Toadie got in touch with Callum's aunt, Robyn Lovell, who lived on a farm out in Ballarat and, later, Kelly arrived with Human Services to help Callum pack, before he was taken away, leaving Toadie devastated.

Kelly's involvement in Callum's move to Ballarat soon came back to bite her when Toadie's ex, Steph Scully turned on her. Kelly replied that it was probably difficult for Steph to see Toadie at the moment, since he came out of the closet whilst in a relationship with her, and Steph was left stunned, though didn't correct her. A few days later, when Kelly heard that Dan was planning to move in with his girlfriend, Libby Kennedy she called him a pig for treating Toadie so badly, leading Toadie to finally realise the wrong assumption she'd made about him. But, before he could correct her, more pressing matters came to the fore as Robyn had realised how unhappy Callum was in Ballarat and brought him back to Ramsay Street, where Kelly, Toadie and the others gave him a cake, a surprise party and told him that Ramsay Street was where he belonged.

Feeling sorry for Toadie after his 'break-up' with Dan, Kelly introduced him to her friend, plumber Shane Dooley, hoping to matchmake them. Toadie was surprised, and when his secretary Rebecca heard what was going on, she laughed and told Kelly that Toadie was straight. Humiliated, Kelly grabbed Shane and left, but Toadie convinced her to meet him, and she agreed to go out to dinner, if he promised to never make her feel that stupid again. The date was going well, until Kelly leaned over to get her bag, and Toadie got the wrong idea and leaned in for a kiss. But the next day, she offered to help out when Toadie realised that, if he was serious about becoming Callum's legal guardian, he'd need to tidy the house up before it was inspected. Several of Toadie's other female neighbours pitched in, and they all noticed the sexual tension in the room, but Kelly once again went home before things could go any further. The following week, Kelly agreed to stay with Callum for a few hours when Toadie had to work and, desperate to get his guardian and his teacher together, he pretended to be ill. Once Toadie and Kelly were both at the hospital with him, he claimed to be feeling better, but realising he'd been faking it, Toadie, Kelly and Dr Kennedy told him he'd need an operation, forcing him to come clean about his matchmaking plan. As Kelly had earlier given Toadie a leaflet about a motorised Esky she was selling, he decided to ring the number and ask her over for a 'haggle', just as she was doing the same thing, offering it to him at a discount, so they were both forced to leave a message, and Callum was delighted that they finally seemed to be getting their acts together.

Kelly was delighted when Toadie asked her to join him as his date at Libby and Dan's engagement party, which started off badly as Elle Robinson, one of Toadie's neighbours who Kelly had become friends with, turned up in the same dress as Libby. Though Kelly tried to break the tension by joking about it, the evening ended badly with Elle storming out. The night ended more positively for Kelly and Toadie, though, as they shared a kiss and ended up going back to his place together. The next day, Kelly offered Callum the use of her new laptop to write his book report, but, at lunch, she realised that he'd been going through her files and had found some modelling photos. Having overheard Kelly, during a discussion about Paul Robinson's plans to introduce a page three girl to the newspaper, mention that she'd be happy to show her body to the world, Callum had emailed the photos to Paul. Though Toadie did his best to stop Paul from publishing the shots, they appeared in the newspaper the next morning, and, meeting up after work, Kelly told Toadie that she'd been suspended from her teaching job.

Happily though, a campaign by Callum and the other kids, in which they staged a 'read-in' at the General Store, and forced Paul to run a campaign in the newspaper to get Kelly reinstated, was successful, but the incident had all but ruined her relationship with Toadie. As he asked her to join him for lunch at the store, they got talking about Toadie's plans to apply for legal guardianship, and she offered to help with the application. Later, as Kelly chatted to Carmella about how wonderful Toadie was, she decided that she would have to get the former lovers back together, and a quickly-thought-up barbecue to welcome back long-time resident Harold Bishop seemed like the perfect excuse. After arriving to speak to Toadie about Callum's reading, suggesting that he would benefit from being kept back a year at school, Kelly attended the barbecue, where Carmella started asking her why she wasn't with Toadie any more. With Callum upset about the idea of being behind all his friends at school, Kelly found a way to bribe him by offering him computer games if he read some comics, then told them what had happened. Though Callum fulfilled his side of the bargain, Kelly and Toadie were still worried, as he could easily worked out the story from the pictures, and Kelly began to wonder if Callum might need to have his eyesight checked.

After returning to do some more reading and writing tests with Callum, Kelly concluded that he wasn't dyslexic, so he should probably be sent to have his eyes tested. Kelly then offered to stick around and help Callum and Toadie with a bet with the neighbours, to see who could produce the best Christmas lights. Unfortunately, the lights blew the fuse at number 30, and Kelly's idea to secretly plug in an extension at number 28 ended up blowing their power supply too. But when Karl fixed the blown fuse, Callum snuck in through the bathroom window and plugged in a couple of extra power cables, meaning that a couple of days later, as Kelly, Toadie and Callum unveiled their light display, the power was still coming from number 28. But their effort wasn't enough, and they were beaten by Harold and Lou's efforts, meaning that Toadie lost his bet and was forced to run around Ramsay Street in his festive underwear. The following week, he asked her to join him for a pizza and a workout session, simultaneously, and by the end of the week, were getting along well. When Callum and Mickey then had a falling out about the existence of Father Christmas, Toadie and Kelly made Callum see that Christmas was about making other people feel better. And so, Toadie and Callum, dressed as elves, went to see Mickey to apologise. Once the boys had patched up their differences, Kelly and Toadie found themselves standing under the mistletoe together and got back together with a kiss.

As Callum admitted that he'd never had a proper Christmas and Santa had never brought him anything, Toadie and Kelly became determined to make that year special for him, and Toadie asked Steve to dress up as Santa. Callum failed to fall for it, but later he, and several other Ramsay Street residents, were out on the street on Christmas Eve, when they spotted some lights in the sky, and some of Callum's faith was restored. But, after a happy Christmas, things took a downturn later that week when Callum refused to wear the new glasses prescribed to help with his reading. After falling out with Toadie, Callum ran off to go fishing with Mickey, who made him see that the glasses were important and he could probably find some cool ones to wear. Sadly, as Callum returned home to apologise to Kelly and Toadie, he found out that they'd received a surprise visit from the Department of Human Services about the guardianship, and it looked like Callum's place in Ramsay Street was about to come under threat. While social worker Roz Challis agreed to reassess the situation, Kelly found a way to get Callum to wear his new eye patch, and take the neighbours' minds off the disappearance of teenager Zeke Kinski in a rafting accident, by throwing a pirate party. The plan worked, and although Roz turned up halfway through and saw Toadie and Callum play-fighting, she saw the funny side and agreed that Callum could remain in Toadie's care permanently.

The following week, Toadie was attempting to help neighbour Rachel Kinski, who'd been offered a record contract and wanted him to check the small print. Toadie, however, was worried that Rachel was using it to distract herself from Zeke, her brother's, disappearance, and asked her to speak to her family before doing anything. After phoning record executive Hamish Patrick, Toadie reported to a horrified Kelly that they wanted the already skinny Rachel to lose weight, and Kelly encouraged him to call them back and get them to change that clause. When Toadie did this, Rachel received a call saying that the deal was off, and she stormed over to Toadie to find out why. When he explained that they wanted her to lose weight, Rachel ran off to call Hamish, with Kelly's encouragement.

Meanwhile, when Kelly was looking at a front page newspaper article about Zeke's disappearance, she placed her hand on his photograph and started having visions of him in the water. Though she tried to play it down, Elle realised how shaken she was, and she explained that both her mum and her nan had 'the gift' aswell, but it would often do more harm than good. As Kelly saw how upset Karl was about the whole thing, Elle convinced her that it might do some good to give him a little hope, so she went to his house and, as she touched his backpack, her visions returned and she tried to explain things to Karl, but he went crazy, throwing her out of the house. When Susan later caught up with Kelly, she was furious, explaining that Karl needed to start accepting that Zeke was gone, not have his hopes raised again. And when Toadie turned on Kelly too, she walked away, telling him that she had hoped her boyfriend would be a little more accepting and understanding. As Toadie refused to listen to any of her explanations, and was unwilling to accept that she even had 'a gift', but hoped that they could still date each other and just avoid the issue, she pointed out that she had been trying to help Karl, and everyone had made her feel like a sicko, torturing him for kicks. As Toadie came to realise what a mistake he'd made, Kelly asked to meet for a chat, where she told him that she'd taken a new job, at a small school in Malawi and would be following her dreams there. She told him that she would be back one day, and asked if maybe they could try again, and Toadie answered her with a final, lingering kiss.

Trivia Notes
• Click here to read our interview with Katrina Milosevic

Episodes Featured
5526, 5558, 5559, 5562, 5565, 5568, 5569, 5575, 5578, 5579, 5580, 5582, 5585, 5588, 5590, 5592, 5594, 5597, 5600, 5601, 5605, 5608, 5609, 5613, 5615, 5619, 5620

Biography by Steve

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