Cheryl Morgan and her widowed mother have moved to a new town to be near a hospital where Mrs. Morgan is to have an operation to save her sight. Cheryl has made friends with Mrs. Ashbridge who has heard her sing and promised to help her get special training. Her mother forbids Cheryl to see Mrs. Ashbourne, as she believes she was involved in her husbands death.
“Nobody Knows My Face!” – Mandy PSL: #143 (1990)Plot
Millie Mason is a budding actress with dreams of becoming a star. It seems she’s on her way to fame when she gets spotted by an agent, Eddie Tanner. Unfortunately every role she gets cast in she ends up in a costume, mask or in the shadows, so nobody sees what she looks like. Her agent also thinks keeping the mystery of what she looks like will make her an even bigger star, with a big reveal. Millie finally gets sick of being unknown and threatens to quit if she can’t appear as herself., for her next interview. Eddie agrees and Millie is delighted. Only on the day of the big reveal she ends up getting mumps and is all bandaged up anyway!
Thoughts
Firstly, yes that is Dennis the Menace on the cover. Of course Mandy and Beano were both published by D.C. Thomson, it was quite common for the comics the reference another comic, sometimes characters would even be seen reading the comic they were part of! ! In this instance Millie’s first job is appearing as Dennis the Menace for a grand opening.
Millie then gets her big TV break, doing a series of commercials. As Jane the Germ Killer, she gets interviews and fame and when her contract is finished in a year there will be a big reveal of who she is. Apperently Jane the Germ Killer is a big hit. I know some advertisements have been a staring path for big careers (like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio) but I don’t remember them getting TV interviews for just staring in the ad! Then during a public appearance as Jane, Millie is kidnapped. The kidnappers threaten to publicly unmask her if they don’t get paid. At first Millie is scared but she also thinks of the benefits i.e. that people will finally know who she is! She is disappointed to find out it is all a big publicity stunt by the agency. Apparently they didn’t tell her about the stunt because they wanted her reactions to be realistic. Which is bad enough but once they got her to the safe house, that may have been a good time to explain everything. But no, instead they tie her up and leave her wondering what is going to happen until some nice agency guy decides to turn up later. It just makes an unethical situation even worse
Even Millie sees how terribly wrong this is and wants out. She lets them know they can’t sue her for breaking her contract without her letting everyone know about the publicity stunt. The agency agrees but only on the condition that she never reveals she played the character. They are going to replace her with another actress and pretend she was always the one. Yep thats showbiz for you!
So Millie’s back to square one, and she can’t even use her television experience on her resume. She does gets another chance when she stars in a TV mini series. Unfortunetely her face is hidden in shadows. This trend of masks and shadows continues, until she decides she has had enough and quits. Eddie convinces her to come back to the business after he gets his writer friend to write a script based on the idea of “The Girl with a Thousand Faces”. Using a similar idea to the Jane the germ killer ad campaign, they are also going to build up the idea of the mystery girl but this time he promises she will get her big reveal at the end.
Really I couldn’t see this concept work today, people would track down Millie Mason no bother, on IMDB/Wikipedia or some social networking site. Actually I find it difficult to believe even in pre-web/social networking days, that not one reporter didn’t track her down! Eventually Millie gets her big moment to finally show her face….only to end up in hospital with the mumps.
This story has some unrealistic setups, particularly the kidnapping plot, but the story isn’t one to take it too seriously either. Millie could have come off as a very unlikeable character, a girl that seems to be in the acting business not for the roles but to become famous. Yes she does come across a fame hungry at times but as its played mostly for laughs, she isn’t a terrible character. You don’t wish for her downfall. You sympathise with her frustration, but can also see the humour in the situation. The big joke of all this build up only for her to be covered in bandages for her unveiling, is played with a kind of; roll of the eyes “typical” rather than as a devastating blow.
Young Linda Channon had a beautiful and unusual singing voice. She had runaway from her guardians, the Jacksons who were travelling entertainers. Seeing a picture of herself in a newspaper, she thought they were advertising for her return. In fact the picture was published by a famous film director Guy Darran, who was looking for Linda to star in his new film “The Singing Princess”.
Tansy and Vanessa Blythe, Gilly Martin, Caro Leroy, Shannon and Tony Hilliard—along with Tansy’s dog, Splodger—made up the Magnificent Seven. With their old van, this youthful drama group was on tour in Adelaide, putting on shows in villages and holiday camps so that they could earn enough money to convert an old warehouse into a theatre in their home town of Marwood
Bonnie Scotland’s talent for playing the bagpipes had gained her a scholarship to Cameronian College. USA, where it was the tradition to have a piper for ceremonial occasions. One of Bonnie’s duties was to play the pipes in the morning to waken everybody.
After a bank robbery where explosives were used, a young girl lost her memory, and her speech. She ran away from hospital and met some fairground people, Pat and Jeff Alford. They discovered she was a talented artist, and decided to cash in by setting her up as an Instant portrait artist. They called her Hayley, and pretended to be her aunt and uncle. Hayley was haunted by the face of an unknown man —but could not resist a strange urge to keep drawing sketches of the mystery man’s face. Hayley’s only friend was Frank, a boy who worked at the fairground.
Fifteen year old, Jill Baker started a folk group along with her friends, Bill Moss and Don Ellis. They were not doing too well and Jill’s grandmother—a former music-hall star suggested that Jill should borrow the costumes, wigs and the banjo that she had used. When the group appeared at the Fiesta Club there was a near riot. Jill’s handling of the audience aroused the admiration of Al Hunter, a theatrical agent who had known Jill’s Gran when she topped the bill as Banjo Belle. He suggested that she could pretend to be the actual Banjo Belle for more success. Jill only agrees to this, so she can afford to buy house for her grandmother.
The Smith children, Marie, Marc, Mick and Mitzi were orphaned and taken in by their Uncle Bert and Aunt Faye. Their relatives were only interested in exploiting the children’s talent as a pop group called “The Family Four”.
Susan Steele was a brilliant schoolgirl athlete and a member of her senior county team. But Susan’s real love was embroidery and she was secretly helping her grandmother make a special tapestry to mark the 500th anniversary of their town, Hillbury.
Gwen Jones from Llandriffryn in Wales had won a scholarship to the famous Slavonia Ballet School in Moscow. Her highly individual style appealed to some of the Slavonia authorities, but not to Madame Pruna, the ballet mistress, who was out to make life at the school unbearable —for Gwen. But when Gwen saw her first-ever stage performance of a ballet, she was determined to finish the ballet course.
