June 4, 1980
My "best day" was arguably the pinnacle of my entertainment career.
I was selected to compere a 90-minute, live, nationwide telecast at peak viewing time on Saturday, June 4, 1980. The show rated its socks off, but it almost didn't happen.
I'd toured the country hosting shows and, locally, several telethons in the 1960s and 1970s, but this was a huge "step up" for me.
The Miss New Zealand Show 1980 also included the country's first million-dollar lottery draw (the prize pool was actually more than $3 million) and a large stainless-steel barrel containing the numbered marbles was on stage among the glamorous contestants.
Internal Affairs and police supervised the draw and the Irish Rovers drew the winning numbers. Bob Parker was the booth announcer.
TVNZ's then top director Malcolm Kemp was in charge.
I was aware he didn't want me as host, preferring a "household TV name", such as Peter Sinclair, but my longtime friend and the show's promoter, Dennis Brown, insisted I could, and would, do the job.
All set to go, then it hit the fan.
TVNZ camera crews and support staff called an industrial strike throughout the country in the week leading up to the telecast.
The show's producer, Michael Stedman (now head of Natural History New Zealand), made the call to rehearse anyway.
Kemp put chalk crosses around the stage: "Walk to that mark and stop," he said. "I'll have a camera there, if the strike is called off. Then take seven paces to the left and face straight ahead. I'll have another camera positioned there."
Hell's teeth! We're talking live television here, I thought. And half the country could be watching!Suddenly, it was Saturday.
A substitute TV programme was lined up. At last, about 2pm, the strike was called off.
Relief all round, but I had a big job to do at 7pm, with no camera rehearsal.
Waiting backstage at the Regent Theatre as the floor manager counted down to showtime: 15 seconds ... 10 seconds, my heart started pounding.
Someone in the darkness backstage walked behind me: "There's close to two million people watching tonight, Collins. Don't stuff it up!"
By 8.30pm, Waikato's Vicki Lee Hemi was crowned Miss New Zealand, someone had won a truckload of money, and the lights went out on a telecast that worked like clockwork, ending my "best day" in showbiz.
• Neil Collins is a Dunedin city councillor.
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