Catacombs Credits Guide
Zienia Merton

Originally my part was meant to be Sandra Sabatini, an Italian, and when I came up with my foreign accent mark one the director Lee Katzin said to me, "Well, you're not a Sabatini". He didn't think that the Italian accent would work within the context of the show, for no other reason than that it slows things up a wee bit. So I said, "Well, what do you think I sound like?" and he said, "Well, you know, mid-European. What do you want to be called?" and I said, "I'm not very familiar with a lot of European surnames. He said, "Hang on a minute, There's a great deli in downtown L.A. called Benes - you are Sandra Benes."

I think that considering the amount of time that we spent with each other, it was amazing that we all got on so terribly well. I would leave home at 5.30am, I was in make-up by 7.00am, I would work a full day and leave at 5.30pm and it was the same for all of us, day in, day out for fifteen months on the first season. Prentis Hancock, Nick Tate, Clifton Jones, Anton Phillips, Suzanne Roquette and myself had a table at the restaurant at Pinewood Studios and the staff used to be absolutely amazed, We used to walk in there day after day to have our lunch and they used to say, "God, you're still together? You're still eating together? You're still talking?"

My favourite episode was The Full Circle - how could I forget that one? Bob Kellett, the director, had seen One Million Years B.C. with Raquel Welch in a Maidenform bra in fur, and he said, "Well, you're not having one of those! There's a leopard skin, Zienia. Off you go to wardrobe and you make that fit." I was literally sewn into it - It was tied around me, pinned-into me - if I wanted to go to the loo I had to think about it an hour beforehand!

So there we were in Black Park in the middle of November, being attacked by about forty thousand midges and I remember sinking to the ground, exhausted and tired with all these cavemen chasing after me. It was freezing, it was not nice, and the continuity lady, Gladys Goldsmith, was sitting on her camping stool doing these funny head movements at me. I thought, "Poor thing, is she cold as well, or what?", but she kept going on and on and suddenly I looked down and, of course, I had exposed myself! It wasn't much to look at but it was there, so I quickly covered myself up and all the guys who had been standing around said, "Oh Gladys, what a spoilsport!"