Sunday Mercury, Sunday, August 22, 1999.
It's Showbuzz: Demons Prove To Be Tony's Cup of Tea by Frank Durham, in Los Angeles Vampires have come between actor Tony Head and his loved ones. Assorted demons have kept him cooped up in Hollywood while he yearns for his girlfriend, two daughters, assorted animals and a Regency house standing in its own grounds on the other side of the Atlantic. But the money in Tinseltown is good and making a cult show is perkier than appearing in a steaming series of Gold Blend TV commercials. Tony, aged 43, is on his third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the States. His new role is very different from constantly titillating audiences in Britain and America with a coffee-cups romance with the girl next door, a dalliance that constantly threatened to brew up into a boiling hot affair. In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers is a 16-year-old schoolgirl, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who has to take on an assortment of nasties from a praying mantis posing as a schoolteacher to students who eat their college principal. The problem is that Buffy's school, Sunnydale High, in Southern California, is inconveniently situated on an ancient "hell's mouth" where vampires and such seek to escape into the world and wreak mayhem. Tony plays the fusty, English, school librarian who is an expert on vampires and helps Buffy to research ancient prophecies about demons and plot strategies to combat them. It all seems a long way from canoodling with Sharon Maughan over numberless cups of instant coffee. But it's those 10 years of TV commercials - Gold Blend in Britain and Taster's Choice in the United States - that have got Tony where he is today on a hit series that has no less than 200 websites dedicated to it. Tony said: "My fame from the coffee commercials was a two-edged sword. In England, it gave me a very nice house and the capacity to be able to turn down work. "But it killed me as far as TV and film were concerned. "At the same time, it was great for theatre. "There I was a box office face and could put bums on seats. "Here in Hollywood, they have a very different attitude. I was, for any reason, high-profile. That meant I was bankable." Tony knew he wanted to be part of Buffy The Vampire Slayer as soon as he read the pilot script. Now he is an expert on all things evil and is pulling in megabucks but he admits he finds living without 33-year-old girlfriend Sarah and their daughters, eight-year-old Daisy Mae and Emily Rose, aged 10, incredibly hard. Home is an 11-roomed house set in 10 acres near Bath, Somerset. There Sarah and the children live blissfully with 10 horses and assorted other animals. Tony said: "Being apart is very difficult. I miss them so much. The girls' school is there and our home is there. But it just so happens that my job is here. And there is no comparison with the money I can earn. "It's hard. But it would be just as hard if I were working on an oil rig or in the Army."
Picture: BATTLING EVIL... Tony Head in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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Page created October 1999. Original material © Betsy Vera (bentley@umich.edu). This website is for information and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by others.
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