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Ep 4: Meet Your Heroes with Gillian Blakeney (Gayle & Gillian and Neighbours) and Kathleen O’Rourke podcast artwork

Fascinated with Gearóid Farrelly
Ep 4: Meet Your Heroes with Gillian Blakeney (Gayle & Gillian and Neighbours) and Kathleen O’Rourke

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Show Notes


We all have our teen-idols and in this episode I come face to face with mine… sort of. In my younger school-days I was mad about Gayle & Gillian Blakeney from Australian soap opera “Neighbours”. There was a time you couldn’t open a magazine or turn on a TV show without seeing them. Afterwards they moved to LA and their careers took an unlikely twist which saw them building companies and brands. Today Gillian runs a very successful fashion label Leigh & Luca (Madonna has been seen in her creations!). Her diverse career has seen her become vice president of a vitamin company and along with her sister Gayle they revamped a toy company with a little help from the Osbournes. She has gone from playing a successful business woman on television to becoming a driven entrepreneur with a very impressive “get-it-done” attitude.

I am also joined by Irish writer and comedian Kathleen O’Rourke, who was thrilled when her short film got an Oscar nomination… mainly because she hoped she would get a photo with her teenage obsession George Clooney. I wonder what happened!!!