Paul Casserly: Where are the sexy sirens?

Where are the sexy sirens now? Photo / Paul Casserly

Opinion

If you've been in Auckland in the last eight years you may have seen the photo that accompanies this blog.

It sits atop the little yellow dairy that sits atop Richmond Road where it hits Surrey Crescent.

Unlike other dairies that are festooned with the colours of an American syrup drink, this one is sponsored by that august journal of television, The TV Guide.

At least it was circa 2004 when this fetching billboard came and stayed part of Grey Lynn's visual landscape. Back then the Guide was only $1.60, a sum that included the goods and services tax, which was then only 12 per cent.

They were simple times, they were good times and on Shortland Street, they were sexy times.

Anyway, if like me, you have been wondering where those Sexy Sirens of Shortland Street have gone, I've been doing some digging.

Well, I emailed a friend who knows about this kind of thing.

On the left, Li Ming Hu played Li Mei Chen on Shortland Street. She was the Asian siren. After the Street she went on to feature as one of the three leads in Roseanne Liang's brilliant and award winning short film Take 3, did a series of Power Rangers and most recently appeared in the tele-feature adaptation of Nights in the Garden of Spain.

In the middle, Laura Hill played Toni Warner on Shortland Street. She was the blonde siren. Since leaving the show she has done a tonne of theatre shows around NZ, reviewed books on TVNZ7 and will shortly star in Circa Theatre's season of Peninsula in Wellington.

She has also written for Shortland Street and Go Girls. She will be appearing on screen again in the very near future with an upcoming guest role in the new season of Go Girls.

And on the right, Amber Curreen played Shannon Te Ngaru on Shortland Street. She was the brunette siren. She had a baby on the show and in real life, so no need of prosthetic bumps in her case.

She has had a few screen roles since Shorty (including Nights in the Garden of Spain) but has most recently been working for Q Theatre and helped produce the most recent version of the Raising the Titanics play.

And that's what's-his-name at the bottom. He lives in Los Angeles now where he was hoping to become Ryan Seacreast before falling in with a Mexican street gang.

Actually Dominic Bowden did almost become Ryan Seacreast in 2007 when he hosted the Idol spin off The Next Great American Band.

He also pops up as an entertainment reporter on One News. Apart from the amazing Californian weather, Dom must also be enjoying the fact that over there Steinlager is about 20c a bottle.

As for The TV Guide, it was recently shut down after 160 years following some sort of scandal. Either that or it's still going strong but will now cost you an eye-watering $2.20 of which a full 15 per cent is GST.

And yes there is another TV Guide cover on the other side of the 'Dairy That Time Forgot'. It features Sarah Louise Platt, who is played by Tina O'Brien on Coronation Street, the one who was knocked up when she was 13.

She can rightly be called a 'siren' too as she was voted the 53rd most sexy woman in Britain in FHM in 2007, the year she left the show.