Life After Tragedy: Satisfaction's Alison Whyte

Photo by Adam Haddrick

On a cold, rain-drenched October morning in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, Melbourne actress Alison Whyte — wild red hair flying in the wind — runs down the front stairs of the pub she owns with husband Fred Whitlock, hugs her kids Rose, 8, Emilia, 6, and Atticus, 3, and grabs the leads of the two family dogs. “Come on, let’s go down to the wetlands to see the flood,” she says, laughing.

Holding hands, the Whitlock family brace themselves for wild weather, but they’re used to that: on Feb. 7, they fled their home on a ridge line above Yarra Glen to escape the Victorian bushfires. “We only lost a few sheds, a chook, the cubby house,” says Logie winner Whyte. The Grand, their hotel in the main street of Yarra Glen (pop. 2,000), was a haven for hundreds of families on Black Saturday, as Whitlock explains: “We had people in every room, animals, kids, families, all sheltering. It was a real defining moment for this place.”

Victorian College of the Arts graduate Whyte, 42, and ex–army cadet Whitlock, 43, are no strangers to experiences. Married for 16 years after meeting at drama school in 1989 (“She was spellbinding,” says Whitlock), they’ve jointly juggled acting roles — Neighbours, McLeod’s Daughters and Blue Heelers for him; Frontline, Good Guys, Bad Guys and, most recently, the part of an upmarket brothel worker in the drama Satisfaction for her — with raising their family and running pubs. They owned the Terminus and Union Club hotels in inner-Melbourne before taking over the Grand in November 2007. Says Whyte: “We came out to the sticks to relax.”

But life hasn’t been all beer and skittles. In 2004, their third child, daughter Stella, was stillborn at 36 weeks’ gestation. “My other pregnancies were a breeze,” says Whyte, who recalls the time after her daughter’s loss as “awful, awful ... it’s life. That’s what puts importance and value on life. I would never not have had that baby. Never. Stella is part of our family. Every little soul is every little soul and they belong to you.” She saw a “fantastic counsellor” and concedes, “You feel like a beaten person and have to uncrunch yourself, and it’s a different person who you are now. Different, but whole. Still you.”

Whyte, says Whitlock, is “a tough girl. You saw it after Stella died — the strength of her for the rest of the family was extraordinary, and at the same time she was very connected to her emotions and didn’t deny the grief.”

Whyte heads up a creaky staircase to a lounge on the pub’s first floor — later, she grabs a glass of Turkey Flat rosé — and talks about daily life: feeding the chooks, doing craft with the kids and cooking dinners. “I make homemade pizza, make my own dough, something that takes a bit of time that you know everyone is going to go gaga over,” says Whyte, a fan of Lee Child thrillers. “I make it with spelt, fresh vegies. We just replanted our vegie garden — everything around the house was burnt.”

Family has always been at the heart of Whyte’s life. She was raised in tiny Smithton (pop. 3,500), Tasmania, the youngest of doctor George and Elsbeth’s four kids. When her family moved to Hobart, Whyte’s love of acting was triggered at St Michael’s Collegiate. One of her earliest roles was a herdsman “with stuck-on beard” in Oedipus: “I wanted to play the glamour role.”

She got her wish — and a 2008 Logie award — playing prostitute Lauren on Satisfaction. The show is “so much fun,” and having a wardrobe which is largely handmade lingerie is “fabulous,” says Whyte, now rehearsing for her role in Optimism with Barry Otto and Frank Woodley at the Sydney Opera House in January. “I love wearing all that.” She had “never” worn a G-string before taking the role in 2007, and “in fact my first wardrobe fitting was having a G-string held up in front of me — oh, man.”

It helps motivate her to do regular Pilates classes: “Nothing like a nude scene to get you to work on your butt!” Whyte brings more than that to the show, says producer Andy Walker: “She is divine. She is so nurturing of the show and everyone she works with.


Satisfaction 3 starts on Showcase on Dec. 8.