List of Shortland Street characters introduced in 1994
The following is a list of characters that first appeared in the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street in 1994, by order of first appearance.
Marilyn Bluck
Marilyn Bluck was the overbearing sister in law to Jenny Harrison. Introduced at the start of 1994 as an emergency temp receptionist, Marilyn soon got under the skin of the staff by getting names wrong, changing processes, and disturbing doctors in person to see if they were available to take phone calls - as she didn't want to disturb them by simply transferring the calls. Jenny felt there was a conflict of interest in managing Marilyn's eccentricities, as Jenny owed her life to Marilyn. It was soon revealed that Marilyn was responsible for rescuing Jenny from her abusive marriage, taking Jenny and a young Nick to her Dargaville home after a hospitalisation following an assault. However, Marilyn's husband Ian saw this as a betrayal, failing to believe his brother would be abusive towards Jenny and cost Marilyn her own marriage.Soon after arriving in Ferndale, Marilyn tried to steal Laurie from Marj and soon tried to steal Marj's room and job permanently. Marilyn wore her heart in her sleeve, and motivated sales person - hosting a successful lingerie party for the female staff, sparking Kirsty's entrepreneurial spirit and inadvertently was the catalyst for inspiring Stuart Neilson by directing them to a self-help guru. Despite picking up work at the cafe, Marilyn soon left for Dargaville - realising she had burned many bridges in her short time in Ferndale and not wanting to stand in the way of Marj and Laurie's happiness. Soon after returning home, Jenny received word that Marilyn had been hospitalised with a breakdown. Gossip within the clinic alleged that Marilyn's ex-husband came home with his new, younger, and pregnant girlfriend resulting in a fish pie being thrown. Chris put Marilyn's name forward as a replacement to run the cafe, but was vetoed by Gina.
She returned in 1995, having left Dargaville in shame when her lover Imran had disappeared back to Pakistan with her savings. Marilyn returned to working at reception and became infatuated with Dr Finlay Keats. However the traumatizing truck crash at Christmas saw Marilyn pack her things, reunite with Imran, and leave for Pakistan. Her nickname from her colleagues at the clinic was "Motormouth Marilyn".
Simon Hilton-Jones
Dr. Simon Hilton-Jones was the hippy doctor abruptly hired to replace Katherine Blake. Simon was the youngest of the Hilton-Jones family, and whose father held a position on the medical council. Simon proved unpopular with the staff due to his poor time management and apparent lack of interest in prescribing medication or taking comprehensive histories. Though inspirational to the young Jonathon McKenna. CEO - Michael reluctantly decided to let Simon go, but not before he shred a few words of wisdom to Jonathon, something that inspired him to become a doctor.Hilary Sturgess
Hilary Sturgess was a reoccurring protagonist introduced early in 1994 as a ruthless property developer and daughter of Shortland Street shareholder Noel Sturgess. After she left her electronic organiser at Kennedy's Bar, she was impressed by Stuart Neilson's detective skills and offered him a role in her business. When the clinic had liquidity issues following the opening of the new High Dependency Unit, it is soon revealed that the construction company that is owed money belongs to Hilary. After meeting with acting clinic director Hone Ropata, Hilary became increasingly interested in the business operations of the clinic and promptly manipulated clinic director Michael McKenna into selling his shares to her. Hone began affair with Hilary, clouding his judgement.Noel teamed up with Jenny Harrison to try and block Hilary's restructure plans, however Noel died the night prior to the shareholder meeting where the plans were going to be voted on. Hilary was bequeathed her father's shares in the hospital becoming the majority shareholder and replacing her father on the board of directors. Without opposition, Hilary rolled out the restructure and brought in Australian firm Ideal Health and their consultant [|Dr Ethan Gill] to overhaul her investment. When Hilary is forced to fire Hone from his acting clinic director position, and appointed Ethan to replace him, it triggers the pair to break up.
By June, Hilary's fortune had turned. Stuart had made a series of costly mistakes for a marina redevelopment, ultimately costing Hilary too much money to continue with the plans and resulted in her firing Stuart. An offshore investment failed resulting in her company going bust, and any money in her father's estate was lost to debtors. Ideal Health then revealed their true agenda by buying rival, and larger, hospital St Catherine's and pulled out of the Shortland Street contract. Not seeing the clinic as financially viable and with Hone no longer interested in her - Hilary was forced to agree to sell her stake in the clinic for a significant loss to the staff to operate it as a cooperative model. Hone met with Hilary to make peace, with Hilary revealing plans to return to her roots and buy an arthouse movie theatre down south.
Greg Feeney
Greg Feeney was the drug dealing step brother of Carmen Roberts and potential love interest for Kirsty Knight. The character was portrayed by Tim Balme for numerous stints up until 2000.Grace Kwan
Dr. Grace Kwan first appeared in early 1994 portrayed by Lynette Forday. She departed in 1997 before returning 16 years later in a recurring role.Charlotte Olsen
Charlotte Olsen was the head girl of Ferndale high and nemesis of Rachel McKenna. She also clashed with Nick Harrison and had him removed from his prefect position. Charlotte grew jealous when Rachel started to date her crush – [|Tim Cunningham] and successfully broke the two up.Ellen Crozier
Ellen Crozier was portrayed by Robyn Malcolm for nearly 6 years. She proved to be one of the show's most successful and well received characters.Minnie Crozier
Minnie Crozier was the teenage daughter of Ellen, who often found herself in challenging and dangerous relationships. She was portrayed by Katrina Devine for 7 years before she was axed as part of a cast overhaul.Johnny Marinovich
Dr. Johnny Marinovich was introduced as the often mentioned husband of new character Ellen Crozier. Before Yiakmis was cast, another actor had won the role but had dropped out. Yiakmis signed on to an initial 3 weeks, before being extended to 3 months. His contract was then extended to a further 6 months before he ended up becoming a core cast member. Johnny arrived to Ferndale in early 1994 but his marriage broke up when Ellen discovered Johnny had fathered a daughter through an affair many years beforehand. Johnny was tempted to get back with Ellen but when she had an affair he started a relationship with Jenny, who fell pregnant. Johnny would struggle to cope with the news that his father Davor was a Nazi war criminal after being discovered by Ruth Brasch, and his father's brain damaged state after an attempt at suicide. Following Jenny's abortion, Johnny started an affair with Ellen but returned to Jenny when she developed cancer. When Jenny suggested marriage, Johnny left her. He had a brief affair with teenager Ramona Derby and another with widow Julia Thornton. Johnny had an affair with Isobel Kearney and she became pregnant shortly before Johnny began to date Tiffany Warner. The two married in 1998 and Tiffany also fell pregnant however she fell from a building and died. The baby was saved and Johnny ended up leaving with his daughter.Rebecca Frost
Rebecca Frost appeared as a regular character for 3 years. She arrived as the paramedic partner of Sam Aleni and an old nursing school friend of Jo Jordan.Rebecca soon orchestrated a second job as Chris Warner's nurse following his spinal injury in a car accident. It soon turned out Rebecca was out for revenge after Chris played around with her sister Janet. Chris was not phased by her attempts at revenge and she developed a degree of empathy for him, however when Chris accidentally suffered a fall, the truth is revealed and Rebecca is fired from being his nurse. Rebecca then moved into the McKenna's home to supervise Rachel McKenna whilst her parents were on holidays. When the McKennas returned, Jo invited her to move into her share house with Stuart Neilson and Kristy. However, Stuart soon professed his feelings for her which she didn't reciprocate, and moved into Sam and Carmen's share house. Rebecca found that living, working, and socialising with Sam was too much for their relationship to handle and moved back into Kristy's place after Jo leaves town. Rebecca soon discovered Chris's drug addiction and arranged for him to go into rehab. After being suspended from the ambulance service for speeding in Chris's car, Rebecca started working as a nurse at the clinic and began dating Chris. However, Rebecca struggled with the change of pace with hospital nursing and Chris left for a holiday in Rarotonga without her. In Chris's absence, she develops feelings for Manny Atutahi to which caused Chris to act out in jealousy.
The relationship Manny was short lived and in 1995, Rebecca's heart valve started to fail following complications from having rheumatic fever as a child. The brush with death caused her to become a born again Christian. She briefly dated Police Officer Erik van der Molen before finally getting heart surgery. Rebecca had a short term relationship with Kane Taiaroa before she began dating ambulance partner Rangi Heremaia. In 1997 Rangi and Rebecca became engaged only for Rebecca to pass out and die moments later, with her death being blamed on a faulty heart valve she had received years beforehand.