Keeping it in the family

As a starry-eyed teen, Jason Donovan became famous for his role on Neighbours. Now history appears to be repeating itself for his daughter Jemma. The pair tell Tiffany Dunk why the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

- 

Jason Donovan was looking for a birthday card for a friend near his London home recently when he stumbled across one that made him chuckle. Picking it up, he took it to the counter and placed it face up. “Can I buy this,” he asked the nonplussed clerk.

“He sort of looked at me and I looked at the card,” Jason recalls gleefully at the baffled look he received in return. “And I felt like saying, ‘Do you want to give me that one for free? I didn’t get paid. I’m not getting a royalty on this!’”

Emblazoned with the title of their hit duet, Especially For You, the card featured the iconic wedding picture of a young Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue, taken at the 1987 nuptials of their Neighbours’ characters Scott and Charlene.

“I thought it would be a bit tonguein-cheek if I bought it,” the 51-year-old chuckles of the real life-meets-reel life moment. “You know, we were part of popular culture, it’s insane. When that show hit off in 1986, for four years it was just an incredible experience. And then that experience becomes not just incredible for you, but for the rest of the world.

“You don’t realise when you’re in it what’s actually happening. You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. Memories are what we live for.”

Jason’s entire world shifted when, aged 17, he was cast in the role of Scott Robinson in the series which celebrates 35 years on air this month. Fresh out of high school and eager to follow in his father Terence Donovan’s acting footsteps, not only did