SUSAN Hannaford was a former household name and wholesome TV star watched nightly by Australians viewers of her top-rating family program.
As a teenage actor she won Australian hearts with her portrayal of a shy but plucky girl getting on with life in her TV family the Sullivans.
Now, the actor leads a bizarre existence in Hollywood in a palatial $9 million mansion padding around in micro shorts and stilettos her once-brunette blocks peroxide-bleached.
As reported on Channel 7’s Sunday Night, Hannaford holds court on a silvery throne and her two adopted grandchildren Bella and Dante drive around in a toy white Mercedes cars.
She has now become the controversial boss of a California property empire centred on Beverly Hills mansion in which she lives.
Channel 7 will screen the offbeat interview this Sunday with the woman who now claims to be a multi-millionaire property tycoon, but is best remembered as Kitty Sullivan.
Hannaford played the youngest member of the wartime Sullivan family of suburban Melbourne, which swept Australian TV awards during its seven-year run until 1983.
Sensitive and demure, ten-year-old Kitty was a conscientious but emotional little girl in the early series of The Sullivans.
Her character grew in strength as the war progressed and she became a nurse, wife and mother.
After the series ended, Susan Hannaford ran a dress shop in Sydney’s Double Bay, but struggled to continue her acting career.
She also designed clothes and appeared in the social pages of Sydney newspapers.
Hannaford made news in 2013, when she was evicted from her lavish beachside home in Sydney, which was sold by her financiers for $3.15 million.
Now the former actor is said to rent her mansion on websites including Airbnb as “the Palazzo Beverly Hills” previously occupied by celebrities and royals.
The house has its own “private by invitation only” website with glowing reviews.
Sunday Night reporter Matt Doran reports that Hannaford “filled the house with celebrity chefs, and her maltese terrier was having its nails done and hair blow-dried”.
But he added that rooms he was allowed to visit were also run-own, dirty and in need of repair.
Asked her about the worth of her property business, Hannaford replied “a quarter of a billion”.
Doran also questioned the actress over an alleged “14 million dollars [that] went missing”, to which she said “oh I understand that”.
Asked by Doran about “over a dozen debt-related matters”, she replied, “oh I think there’s probably a lot more than that”.
Hannaford walked out on the interview when Doran asked her if she had difficulty in telling the truth.
“Do you have difficulty with your IQ?” she asked the reporter.
ncG1vNJzZmimlazAb6%2FOpmWarV%2Bau7Wx0a2Yoqadmru1e9OvZrCgn2K2tHnToaCsZZakv66x0WaYrqukp66ttcCnZKGnpaiyqbvLnWSnmZ2aeqK6w2auoaecmsCwucRmq69lo6mus3vNnq6sZaOpvLPFjmyZbHFnbrF4g8Jsb56bYGmDpn2UnZxub5NohHmvmJtn