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Neighbourhood > Guest Character Profiles > Gloria Slater Linda Hartley

When Paul Robinson began training as an air steward, he started dating a young girl named Gloria and invited her over for dinner. Paul was clearly besotted with her, and the family seemed to like her very much, but disaster struck when Jim found out that Gloria was the daughter of Charlie Slater, a man he’d known at university. Although Jim wouldn’t elaborate on his reasons for hating Charlie, his attitude to Gloria changed. That evening, Paul took Gloria home and she reluctantly allowed him in to meet her parents. When Paul mentioned that his father was Jim Robinson, Charlie seemed very eager for them all to get together and have dinner. Jim, however, would not even entertain the notion.

A few nights later, Paul and Gloria went out for dinner again. Paul was still determined to find out what went on between their fathers, but Gloria seemed to be as much in the dark as he was, or simply reluctant to talk, so he didn’t let it spoil the evening. When dropping her off at home, Paul was surprised to find Emily, Gloria’s mother, sitting by the side of the house in tears. Gloria’s reaction showed that this wasn’t the first time such an incident had occurred, but Paul was determined to try and reason with Charlie. When he managed to get nowhere with the drunk bully, Paul agreed to take Gloria and Emily back to the Robinson house.

Gloria was extremely grateful to Paul and his family for helping out. Meanwhile, Jim finally explained to Paul why he hated Charlie so much. He explained that he had made some designs for a suspension bridge in university, which he’d shown to Charlie. Charlie had then stolen the ideas and passed them off as his own, before making his fortune from the design. However, Jim realised that, although Charlie was wealthy, he was certainly not the kind of man Jim would ever aspire to be. After staying with the Robinsons for a couple of days, during which time Charlie had tracked them down and failed to convince them to return home, Emily and Gloria left the area and Paul didn’t hear from Gloria again.

Notes: Linda Hartley returned to Neighbours in 1989 to play Kerry Bishop. Gloria’s mother, Emily, was played by Diana Greentree, who returned to the series in 1987 as Mike Young’s mother, Barbara and again in 1998 as Rose Kirk. In 2004, Linda provided a voice-over as Kerry and in 2005, she returned in the guest role of Kerry lookalike, Gabrielle Walker.

Biography by Steve

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