Australian stage and TV actor Paul Karo, 89, died on April 4. Born in Scotland and raised in New Zealand, Karo moved to Australia in the 1950s and soon became a star of such revues as Under the Clocks and Further Off the Beach (he maintained his love for the theater and continued trodding the boards for the rest of his career). From the 1950s through the 1990s, he appeared on numerous TV shows, most famously as the gay director on the 1970s behind-the-scenes TV drama The Box. It was called a groundbreaking role, but today of course it’s pretty cringe-making (remember Billy Crystal in Soap? * Shudder * ). Karo himself complained, “Everyone thinks of me as playing the role of a queer. They haven't had the opportunity to see me do anything else.” Karo also had a continuing role in Prisoner, and appeared in such Aussie series as Homicide, The Sullivans, Skyways, Carson’s Law, Golden Pennies, Sword of Honor, and the “dingo’s got my bay-bee” movie A Cry in the Dark. Of his portrayal in The Box, Karo said, “I’d originally intended him to be more the knowledgeable sophisticate who loves Shirley Bassey, stays up all night to watch old movies… that sort of thing. I think it would have been more authentic, but the role calls for me to play it camp and that’s the way it is.”
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