Bruce Samazan
| Bruce Samazan | |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 November 1970 |
| Occupation | Television actor |
Bruce Samazan (born 13 November 1970) is an Australian actor who appeared in several soap operas and drama series on Australian television, the only actor to have played regular roles in Australia's "Big Three" soap operas of the 1990s (E Street, Neighbours and Home and Away).
Samazan was a brickie's labourer, until 1989 when he accompanied his girlfriend to an audition for a part in the Network Ten soap E Street. The series had debuted six months earlier and had received a lukewarm reception from audience and critics alike and a major cast and crew re-shuffle was imminent. His girlfriend didn't get the part, but the casting director liked Bruce so much they offered him the part of a new character called Max Simmons, a new recruit at the community police station. Debuting eight months into the show's run, his role was primarily comic relief, but with the addition of ruthless killer Sonny Bennett to proceedings, E Street's storylines got darker and the character of Max became a more central and balanced. By 1992, Samazan was at the height of his fame, and won the 1992 Silver Logie as the Most Popular Actor on Australian television.
By the beginning of 1993, E Street's popularity had dwindled and the producers became more and more desperate to lure viewers. This resulted in one of the soap's more outrageous plots which involved Samazan's character Max turning into a werewolf. Although this scene being part of a dream sequence, it was at this point that the tabloid media began to speculate that E Street had "jumped the shark", and the series was axed in May 1993. Bruce stayed with the show until the final episode where his character fell in love with Bonnie Tate (Melissa Bell) who awoke from a coma just in time to see the final credits sequence.
In mid-1993, Samazan released a rap music single under the "pseudonym" B-Man Samazan on the Westside Records label called "One of a Kind", and filmed a music video for the song with Kellie Hoggart from Teen Queens (and later of Hi-5 fame). The song peaked at No. 80 on the ARIA Charts. Samazan's Neighbours co-star Scott Michaelson (who played Brad Willis) went on record during a 2003 court case saying Samazan had been lucky his song did not get too much airplay because it was "particularly bad".
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