We, as a nation, refuse to let the mysteries of children’s television persist forever. If there’s someone even tangentially related to a kids TV show from the 90s who hasn’t been uncovered yet, someone will locate them. And now it’s happened again. ABC Radio National‘s program The Real Thing has found the first Bronson from Round the Twist.
Yes, there were three Bronsons. As the ABC points out, the second and third Bronson still work in theatre and television in some capacity, but the first Bronson, who appeared in the original 1989 season of the show, was considered lost in the ether. Vanished. Maybe dead? That’s pure speculation but the bloke was absolutely not on the radar.
Rodney McLennan deliberately vanished from public view because he didn’t want the baggage that came with it all. “Part of [it] would have been from the overall experience of being a child actor,” he said. “I decided I didn’t want to be in the limelight.”
Though he landed a few acting gigs after the show, the roles quickly dried up by the time he was a teenager. “I was no longer a cute kid. I stopped meeting the preconceived notions of what they were looking for,” he said.
The Real Thing is a new RN podcast which seeks to find ‘the real Australia’. I suppose that finding the first Bronson is tantamount to finding the real Australia, so they can probably pack up their things and call it a day right now.
Have a listen to the full interview HERE.
Source: ABC.
Photo: ABC / Round the Twist.
