Career
Levin-born Rebecca Gibney began modelling part-time while working as a receptionist at a Wellington jeweller. Modelling led to television advertisements, then — after worries she had saturated the commercials market — to bit parts in TV shows "Pioneer Women" and "Inside Straight".
Gibney’s first big acting part proved challenging, partly because her director spoke little English. German-Kiwi co-production "Among the Cinders", based on the novel by Maurice Shadbolt, saw her playing romantic interest to the troubled main character. Gibney later described the experience as "absolutely terrible", and the film largely bypassed cinemas. By the time it screened on NZ television in 1987 — four years after it was shot — Gibney had begun a new life in Australia.
Before leaving town Gibney spent two months in Picton, as the new addition to the teen adventurers on TV series "Sea Urchins". By 1985 she had traded busting Malborough Sounds' wildlife smugglers for playing a Melbourne vet in kidult series "The Zoo Family". She then played the social worker in big-screen drama "I Live With Me Dad", and got an ongoing role as Cooper’s Creek’s only female mechanic in "The Flying Doctors".
But it was in the 90s that Gibney would win fame, and an increasingly busy run of acting roles. In 1990 she starred in big-screen thriller "Jigsaw", playing a business woman who becomes prime suspect in the death of her husband. The film was soon forgotten, but Gibney’s career was about to take off, thanks to mini-series "Come in Spinner".
Based on the classic World War II-era novel, Spinner involves a week in the lives of three women (including fellow Kiwi actor Lisa Harrow) who work at a Sydney beauty salon. Gibney took away Logie and Australian Film Institute Awards for her acting, and the series scored twice for outstanding mini-series or TV movie.
The following year Gibney won further attention when she joined rocker Jon English for the first of three seasons on TV comedy All Together Now. Impressed by her work in 50s tale Snowy, Kiwi-born Roger Simpson wrote her the lead role in "Halifax f.p", the first of an extended series of tele-movies — 21 would be made in all — based around forensic pathologist Jane Halifax.
She currently resides in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia with her husband and son.
