.
Reference > Erinsborough News > Love Thy Neighbour

From a romance that started in Ramsay Street, now Fiona and Nick are making beautiful music together…

Heart-throb actor Nick Carrafa is no longer Fiona Corke’s “neighbour” – he is her closest friend, confidant… and live-in love!

Fiona, who plays Gail Robinson, and Nick, who recently left the Network Ten series after a stint as mechanic Tony Romeo, have decided after a prolonged silence to come out in the open about their relationship.

Amid much speculation, the couple refused to admit they were anything more than “good friends” while both were working on Neighbours. They feared talking about their life together would cause too much confusion for viewers.

Nick, who has returned to the stage since leaving the series, quips: “Well, we had to do it (come out in the open). Paul (Hogan) and Linda (Kozlowski) have made their admission so we thought we’d better do it too.”

The couple first met several years ago while making a film together at Melbourne’s Swinburne College. They remained friends and their relationship developed when Nick joined Fiona on Neighbours late last year.

“We were both so blown out by how well we got on together,” Nick says. Fiona adds: “We’re so fortunate that we’re in the same line of work. You learn to grin and bear it when something doesn’t work out. And it also makes us cherish the moments we do have together… it’s great when that happens to us unexpectedly.”

Nick feels a key to his relationship with Fiona is that they are both spontaneous. He says he has been involved in relationships in the past that have failed partly because they were “too planned”.

“It’s important that we don’t take each other for granted,” Fiona adds. “We are still individuals, but are committed to living together and supporting each other in whatever each of us wants to do.”

There is no denying, however, that both would love to spend more time together. When Nick left Neighbours he joined Elaine Smith and Grant Dodwell in the stage comedy Love Off The Shelf. As a consequence, he and Fiona rarely crossed paths. “It would often be a case of us just having ‘brekky’ together, so it was hard for a while,” Nick says.

“But I’m often still out in the early hours of the morning. I’ve been running the Lizzard Lounge Café in Brunswick for about a year and playing in a band called The Lounge Lions.”

He is also preparing for a part in the stage play Moliere, to be performed as part of Melbourne’s Spoleto Festival in September.

“We were hesitant about doing things together (publicly) while we were both in the show,” Nick says. “But now it’s not so bad. It’s amazing how quickly people forget you once you’re off the screen.”

This article originally appeared in TV Week magazine dated 30th July 1988 and was written by Darren Devlyn

Article submitted by Steve