Hundreds of Home and Away fans were recently shocked to discover Summer Bay favourite Lyn Collingwood, aka stickybeak Colleen Smart, had apparently died at home.
“Oh no, RIP,” wrote one heartbroken viewer, who read the mistaken ‘news’ on a Facebook post. “The show was never the same after she left.”
Only one problem. Lyn – still very much alive in her eighties – was as surprised as everyone else to learn that she had passed away, supposedly following a long illness.
“No, I’m not dead,” the evergreen star cheerfully confirmed to New Idea. “It’s going to happen one day, but not yet! I’ve been throwing back red wine, but I’m still here!”
Indeed Lyn’s been keeping very busy, although she recently nixed any possibility of a Home and Away comeback.
“A few years ago I might have considered it, but now I’m that much older – and about 12 inches shorter,” she joked.
Taking a rest from acting, Lyn has written a fascinating history of the suburb where she grew up, Dover Heights: Rocks and Sand They Couldn’t Sell.
“It’s funny because there was a Home and Away storyline about Colleen plagiarising something,” jokes Lyn, who often contributed comic lines to her scenes. “But this book definitely isn’t plagiarised!”
Lyn appeared on Home and Away for its first two seasons, alongside Peter Vroom as her son, Lance, and later returned as a regular in 1999. Her trademark catchphrase, “Yoo-hoo, it’s only me!” made her a fan favourite on the show.
