Mention the “D word” and Annie Whittle visibly shudders.
“My worst nightmare is the thought of having to downsize,” says the veteran actress/singer. “I know some people are suited to downsizing and going into a retirement village once they get to a certain age, but I don’t want to leave my home. It would be heartbreaking.”
It’s easy to see why leaving would be such a wrench for Annie and her husband Ian King. Their home is a gorgeous arts and crafts cottage in the Waitākere Ranges, west of Auckland, designed almost 100 years ago by renowned architect William Gummer. Infused with character and stuff ed full of treasures collected over many years, including Middle Eastern rugs, painted Indian cabinets, original art and many framed photos, it sits in stunning gardens lovingly tended by Annie in the 36 years she’s lived there, and has to-die-for views over the city to the harbour.
“It is such a blessing to live here and I take heart from the fact that the previous owner was 85 when she finally went into care. So I am thinking, ‘I’m 74 now, maybe I’ve got another decade here,'” muses Annie. “But also, my husband is a lot younger – he’s 61 – so hopefully he will look after me in my dotage. I don’t envy him that task!”
Annie is treading the boards again with Roy Billing in Grand Horizons.
Annie is reflecting on some of the decisions we face as we grow older, particularly whether to downsize to a smaller, lower-maintenance home, because that’s what has happened to the character she’s playing in Auckland Theatre Company’s latest production Grand Horizons.
The play – which is still going ahead with audiences fewer than 100 following the move to red under the Covid traffic light framework – stars Annie and Roy Billing as a couple who’ve moved into a retirement village, and are now facing a shake-up of their 50-year marriage.
Annie was thrilled to be offered the role last year. “I hadn’t done a play for six years and I thought, ‘Oh, do I want to do it?’ I read the first page and my character Nancy only had one line, but that was enough for me to say, ‘I’ll do it.’
“It’s a black comedy, written by American writer Bess Wohl, and it was nominated for a Tony, so it’s very, very good. I’m just chuffed to be doing it. I feel very privileged.”
In The World’s Fastest Indian with Sir Anthony Hopkins.
There tends to be a shortage of roles for women of her age in theatre, television and film, so any work is welcome, but it is particularly gratifying when it is such a high-quality production, says Annie, who has been acting for 45 years.
“It’s a double-edged sword because the less you work, the more confidence you lose. Acting’s like anything else, if you don’t use it, you lose it. You have to keep your brain oiled. It’s been interesting for me to be using my memory again to this extent because Nancy has a lot to say. But slowly the old brain cells are starting to click into place.”
As exciting as it is to be back on stage, Annie admits to feeling some nerves during rehearsals. “I have been terribly nervous – my heart is thumping in my chest when I arrive at rehearsals because I don’t want to let anyone else down. But I know that will dissipate because I have been very diligent and I am working hard.
“And I’m blessed because it’s a lovely cast and Jennifer Ward-Lealand is a wonderful director. I’ve never worked with her before, just admired her from afar, and she is incredible. She’s kind, she’s firm, she’s clear and her direction is brilliant. Because she’s a wonderful actress herself, she can get inside our heads. I’m loving it.”
‘My husband is a lot younger, so hopefully he will look after me in my dotage’
Annie reckons a lot of women will be able to relate to Nancy who, after devoting her life to her husband and family, has now decided to put herself first and do something that seems rather crazy. Annie knows how that feels – she and Ian did their “crazy thing” in 2011.
“We blew our retirement savings on a 700-year-old stone cottage in Minorca, an island in the Balearic Islands south of Barcelona,” she says, explaining how they fell in love with the Spanish island after numerous visits to close friends who own a holiday home there.
“It kind of was a moment of madness, but I’d been working on Shortland Street and Go Girls and saved some money, and we thought, ‘If we don’t do it now, we never will.’ We couldn’t see a downside – of course then we couldn’t see Covid coming – and although we haven’t been able to go for a couple of years, we’ve had nine years of wonderful experiences. Hopefully we will get to go back this year.”
Pre-Covid and depending on how much work she’s had on, Annie has spent around three months a year on Minorca. Ian, who is a pilot for Qantas, has limited leave but also loves to spend his time off on the Mediterranean island, missing the New Zealand winter.
“We are in a village that is not touristy and we get involved in all the village activities,” says Annie. “The people are just lovely and we have become very attached to some elderly people who live close by. They are very precious and I hope we get to reconnect with them soon.
As Chris Warner’s PA Barbara Heywood on Shortland Street.
“I love to swim, we both love to walk and we have our own garden there to tend. We’ve planted fig trees, pomegranates and a grapevine – it has become a big part of our lives.”
She’s grateful that she has an adventurous spirit and puts a lot of that down to her late parents George and Margaret Whittle. “They were adventurous people and we travelled a lot,” recalls Annie, who was born in the UK town of Bolton, in Lancashire.
The Whittles moved to New Zealand when Annie was three, but frequently returned to Britain, where George, a university lecturer, did his postgraduate studies.
Annie went to school in both Christchurch and Bolton, and learned very quickly to take on the accent of wherever she was living.
“I’ve got a musical ear, so I was able to do that with ease. Going backwards and forwards between countries, I had to have confidence and I think changing accents helped me later when it came to acting.”
Annie got her wanderlust from her English parents George and Margaret.
Annie was a talented performer from a young age, but initially trained as a veterinary nurse, and has done several stints working in veterinary clinics over the years, including after leaving university, and as recently as the mid-2000s, during a dry spell of acting work.
“It was much harder when I went back as an older person because your whole perspective changes. I found it very hard to deal with the animals suffering and being euthanised. When you’re younger, you can process it and leave it behind when you go home. But now I am less able to do that, so I gave it up.
“I was actually asked the other day if I would go back to the clinic to work, but it is not for me now. I’m still involved with animals though. We have our Labrador Ted and until they died last year, we had two horses that we rescued from slaughter.”
Annie’s foray into entertainment began with singing – during her OE to the UK in her early twenties she sang with bands in Britain and Europe, as well as working as a nanny in Switzerland. Back in Aotearoa in the early ’70s, she performed in light entertainment shows made at the Christchurch Television Studios, many of which were directed by David McPhail. He asked her to audition for A Week of It, the TV comedy sketch show that became a Kiwi classic.
Son Pete was born in 1986.
Working on A Week of It and also having a huge hit with the song Tequila Sunrise helped to make Annie a household name in the ’70s.
“If you were on TV, you were famous in New Zealand and that generated even more work, so I was very busy.”
She took a bit of time off after having her son Pete in 1986, and in between acting she has presented TV shows, including popular gardening show Living Earth in the early ’90s. That job led, in a roundabout way, to her meeting Ian.
“We were required to fly to tiny towns all over New Zealand, which was wonderfully exciting, but I was very frightened of small aircraft,” she shares. “So I decided to have a trial flight thinking if I could understand about the whole process, that would make me less anxious. I became hooked, signed up to get my pilot’s licence and Ian was my navigation instructor. We’ve now been together for 23 years.”
Animal lover Annie with her late rescue horse.
Always resourceful, during one period around 2000 when there weren’t many acting jobs on offer, Annie opened her own shop, Jaipur, selling wooden painted furniture, embroidery and artefacts imported from India. “It was a beautiful shop and I loved talking to people who came in, but I was liable to give stuff away and I never focused much on money. I hated the bookwork side of it and eventually I closed it.”
When a friend mentioned she was doing a course to become a real estate agent, Annie decided to tag along, joined by an employee from the now defunct shop. “So the three of us went to real estate school and it was hilarious. We were so naughty, we used to switch name tags to confuse the tutors.
“I only worked as a real estate agent for six months. I was hopeless,” she admits. “I’d say to people, ‘Don’t buy this place,’ and point out all the bad things. I only sold two houses and one of them was Ian’s, so he was a captive audience anyway.”
Annie surrounded by her treasures, including Labrador Ted.
Annie smiles as she reminisces about what she’s done. She’s grateful to have had so many adventures.
“I feel so blessed,” she enthuses. “I have a wonderful life, and my husband and I go on adventures – what more could I ask?
“I believe you’ve just got to go out and do these things, especially if there is something you really, really want to do. You don’t know when your number is up, so you should grasp the bull by the horns and chase your dreams.”
Annie stars in Auckland Theatre Company’s season of Grand Horizons, on at ASB Waterfront Theatre February 8 – March 5.
