The formidable redhead could crush participants in The Weakest Link with great finesse – and heartlessness, many thought.
Most people knew Fiona Coyne as the poisonous quizz diva, and not as the veteran actress, dramatist and writer of plays such as The Shadrack Affair, As The Koekie Crumbles and the prize-winning Glass Roots. Or the corporate communications specialist who tells companies how to improve their image; or the adventure sports fan and animal lover who for a long time helped raise baby elephants in Kenya.
We were a bit nervous when we talked to her in Cape Town after a long-postponed operation to her ears. “My dears", she called them.
We asked how much of what TV viewers had seen of her was the real Fiona. She described how a woman once berated her in Pick & Pay because through The Weakest Link she was “contributing to an aggressive nation”. Others felt she was a good actress and suspected she was an “an absolute dear''.
“I can be one but I’m not by nature a Mary Poppins,” she said at the time. But most people who approached her liked the idea of a strong woman who could speak her mind.
Whetever the case, that afternoon with Fiona at the Marimba restaurant was one of the most fun assignments I’d ever been on.
Hell, she’s sharp, entertaining, versatile and . . . nice, we thought as we said out goodbyes.