Talking to Tina Cross about her 40 years as a singer, performer and entertainer is a bit like opening the floodgates to a huge memory dam.
“Sorry if I’ve rabbitted on,” she apologises towards the end of our interview. “You ask me one question and about 500 other things come to mind. But hey, better than not saying anything isn’t it”
It certainly is. One memorable story that springs to Cross’s mind – lord knows what the original question actually was – offers an interesting glimpse into the inner workings of live television in late 1970s New Zealand.
“Ray Columbus said to me, ‘I’ve got you a great spot on Telethon, you’re going to be on just before it winds up, what do you want to sing'” remembers Cross. “I said I’d really love to sing a Helen Reddy song that I’d done – a song called Peaceful.
“Back in those days we used to mime. So it was your song, which they’d recorded previously, but when you performed it on telly it was a mime, because the ways and means of doing things live back then were actually quite tricky production-wise.
“So I’m ready to go on, the floor manager calls me, the music comes down onto the floor – and it’s not me, it’s Helen Reddy.
“I was absolutely mortified, but there was nothing I could do. It was live-to-air, I couldn’t stop and say, excuse me, you’ve got to stop, it’s not me. But I didn’t miss a trick. My miming was absolutely spot-on. The only person that actually knew it wasn’t me was my mother.”
Believe it or not, Helen Reddy isn’t the only artist Cross has had to impersonate on television. She also stood in for Grease star Olivia Newton-John on one occasion as well.
“It was back in the early, early days of Ready To Roll. For some reason TVNZ couldn’t get the clip for You’re The One That I Want with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, so myself and a guy called Graham Chapman from a band called Salty Dogg recorded it.
“And because it was number one, it ran on Ready To Roll for 18 weeks – with us singing their hit song. They couldn’t get the original clip so I got this massive exposure.”
Raised in the South Auckland suburb of Otara, Cross has been singing and performing since her early teens.
“My first professional gig was on telly. We went into the city daily to rehearse, and this is me coming in from Otara. My parents, bless them, were really not in a position to buy me a car, but they begged, borrowed and stole to get me a little Austin 1100 so that I could drive myself to TVNZ.”
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In addition to their constant support, Cross credits her family with encouraging her musical ability in the first place.
Nowadays, aged 54 and with two children of her own, Cross says that family musical tradition is still going strong.
“My son plays drums, guitar, sings pretty well, and my daughter’s a great dancer – she sings well too. I think once you’ve got music in the family, it just doesn’t stop.”
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