Six years on national television cuts into anyone's shock value. Even Norman Gunston came to look (halfway) normal after a while. To get a sense of what's so extraordinary about Lisbeth Gorr's creation, Elle Mc Feast, you need to think back to 1991, when she first burst onto the screen in the comedy sports show, "Live and Sweaty". It wasn't Elle's formal debut. Gore had already honed her style on Melbourne radio on a footy show called "Kick-to-Kick", following law studies and a regular gig in an all-girls singing group. But television, as it turned out, was Elle's natural medium.

She was sassy, she was smart, with fleshy bits overflowing from the stuffed bodices and wasp waists of absurdly glamourous evening dresses which made her look like a cross between Scarlett O' Hara and the Bad Fairy. She knew her footballers inside out and variously cajoled, bullied, sweet talked and humiliated these heroes of Australian Rules into a range of stunts, from the re-enactment of the grand final to the preparation of spaghetti bolognaise. It was bold, funny and often revalatory stuff. Among women in televison, a field favouring the timid, Elle was a stand out. It wasn't just that she was bright and told dirty jokes and proved that skinny girls with tidy shiny bobs don't always come first. It was also that she dished it up to men, making them laugh even as she took the mickey.

Six years on, Libbi Gorr remains both unique and successful, whichever way you measure it. Ratings wish she's one of the ABC's biggest rawcards. Her volume of work is considerable: apart from "Live and Sweaty" (she took over from Andrew Denton as host in 1993) she has fronted the political series "Mc Feast", and compared and co-written six documentaries. On the business front, she and her team have negotiated a lucrative outsourcing deal - less than the $6 million reported, she insists, but still substantial enough to peeve many within the ABC who fear "their" money going to an outside production house. She has been courted by commercial television, won awards for her documentary on breasts and, as Elle Mc Feast, will host a weekly night time show, scheduled to be aired next year.

But back to that issue of shock value. How far can the Mc Feast repertoire stretch? Is the vamping, the flirting, the display of cleavage still valid satire? Or has the character Libbi Gorr created to spoof televison bimbos become a bimbo herself? (She does, after all, have her critics. Sydney's "Daily Telegraph" recently conducted a poll asking readers if Elle Mc Feast was funny, which supposedly found that, no, she wasn't. Antonella Gambotto, in a spiky interview for "Cleo" said of her : "She's just a spoilt princess.") Gorr's response has been to either avoid the question, or to bite back hard enough to discourage future attempts.

You can allow for a certain defensiveness. Who else is making specials on subjects like breast cancer or safe sex or the dilemmas of the working woman in the 90s and pulling a substantial audience in the process? Some would say : worthy end, perhaps, but what about the means? Why the flouncy frocks? Can't she make a doco that doesn't have a dirty body part (or verb, in the case of "Roots") in the title? And why should Mc Feast be allowed to get away with saying and doing things that no man would be forgiven for? To the last one, the answer is simple : because she can. Because she's funny. Because television needed someone like Elle, a brassy girl with a sharp wit, a girl who goes to the edge of taste where good comedy starts. The rest she can answer herself.

Do you think of yourself as a comedian? When you put your name on the passport, do you say comedian, or writer, or performer?

At one stage there, I was putting down kosher butcher. But, of late, I've been putting down "entertaining communicator" because it's fluid : it changes.

A lot of comedians don't like to call themselves comedians - even though that's what they do. There's something about the word.

Because you're meant to have a deep, substantial side. My personal background as Libbi Gorr isn't in stand up comedy, it was in comedy cabaret. I would never give myself the same job description as, say, Wendy Harmer, who is foremost a stand up comedian, skilled in writing gags and presenting routines.

Did you ever want to do standup comedy?

Never. I've done it, that's my job, but the interesting thing for me was that I learned how to do stand up on television. I did it arse about, my whole career has been arse about. Probably the first time I atttempted stand up was as Elle Mc Feast opening "Live and Sweaty". It was this tearaway wild-child vehicle, and that's where I learned my skills - on television, in front of everybody.

As opposed to the classic way - on the dirty, booze soaked carpet in the pub.

Oh, I did all that, but that was as a comedy cabaret singer with the Bagels, you know, and borrowing my lecture notes from people who'd managed to get to Con and Admin at nine, when I didn't. I got home at nine after a big night out. But my comedic influences were the Cabbage Brothers and the Bagels and the Doug Anthony Allstars and the Tilbaldi Brothers. That's what I always found amusing and challenging and fun...the 1986 Melbourne comedy circuit was just a joy - the smoky Prince Patrick Hotel, and the comedy festivals, and...

Well, hallelujah. Someone who doesn't say Monty Python.

[laughs] I always feel very guilty about that, that I can't get the politically correct influences of Monty Python and so on. I need to admit to Paul Hogan, you know. I'm a Paul Hogan girl through and through.

You really think he's funny?

I used to cry when he finished. When that music came on - dum, dum de dum - it used to move me to tears. I loved the larrikinism, the cheekiness, the ensemble nature of it. It's like barracking for Collingwood, identifying with the underdog. Being a Jew, it's your constant influence. Football lost all meaning for me when Collingwood won the premiership.

You've done a lot in a relatively short time. Two shows, six specials that I could add up.

Maybe. The way I look at it is a bit like "Willy Wonka and the chocolate Factory". I happened to get a chocolate bar with a gold ticket and I'm happy to go on the ride. The important thing is enjoying it through the scarey bits. And having people to go on the ride with. That's the beauty of it - a) to enjoy the ride, and b) to share it.

I would never say it has come easy, but there is a sense in which you got the chocolate bar - the up and running team, the hosting job...

Yes, I did.

Do you sometimes think it's going to stop if you don't keep running really hard, really fast?

In that respect, this job is like any other public job, like any sport, in that you're as good as your last game. I feel you're as good as your last performance.

Do you care what people write about you, what they think about you?

Much less than I did. Because it's a television persona they're writing about. It's fodder in one respect. And there are different levels of it. You've got your interesting, thought through, well researched stories - because they are stories - and you've got the supermarket end of it. And that's one spectrum. So, as time has gone on and I've become more experienced - and also, I've had remarkable access to people who've been through the same process - I've learnt that it's just something which happens.

It's noticeable to me how little personal stuff there is on you. Obviously that's a choice you have made.

Mmmm. I've given away very little. I'm clever [laughs]. To be quite frank, there's so much focus on the difference between Lisbeth Gorr and Elle Mc Feast.

It's a wonderful distraction that device, isn't it? I think it's a big swizz...

Why?

Because it's a convienient device to deflect too much probing and attention.

Well, it didn't start out that way. It actually started out as a comedy device. Things that seem really complex often have quite simple answers. "Kick to Kick" was happening on 3XY. I adored listening to Richard Stubbs - he was king and had a breakfast show on 3XY. He used to say hello to me occasionally and i died. You know, completely nothing - I couldn't speak to him. Very starstruck, always have been starstruck. When I joined the Bagels they were doing jingles on 3XY. And I thought it would be fantastic to be able to go on to the breakfast show and record a jingle - [sings] good, good, good morning to you, X-Y-Zoo. Through doing that, I met up with his brother Grubb - Peter Stubbs - who loved football. And I loved football - Melbourne girl, born and bred. They had this Saturday morning football show, and they all had funny names : they had The Coach, Rick Wall. Trevor Marmalade, Grubby. Pseudonyms were the go. So I made up Elle Mc Feast.

You made up the name, but did you really make up the person?

I associated the name with an attitude. But I didn't make up a completely huge new character in terms of an Effie, or a Con the Fruiterer. If I'd been really that clever I would have put on a wig. I would have completely and utterly fictionalised it. But it was exploring fantasies that I had which were - league footballers! As any normal person had, because they are the heroes of Melbourne life. That is what it was : a way of talking to and demystifying gods. I borrowed a tape recorder and the station used to pay me 20 bucks every other week.

Tell me about your family. A motor mechanic dad. Two older brothers who - let me guess - adore you?

And I adore them!

There's a theory that the whole course of your life is set depending upon your place in the family. Is there anything in it?

Well, from what my mothers told me, when you've already got two children, by the time the third one comes along, yes, you let them juggle knives, because you've got more faith in the whole life process. So as the third child - that may be the case.

Very happy childhood?

Um, it was an interesting childhood. Big fantasy life. Both my parents worked. Mum is a pharmacist, and from a very early age we were encouraged to be independent, amuse ourselves, create our own lives rather than being extensions of family. So all three of us are quite - as mum says - unique individuals.

Were you a performer? Did you put on shows for your family?

I put on shows for myself.

In front of the mirror?

No, no just on the front porch, to nothing. I had this imaginary family in my head called the Midgets, and I was all seven of them. You know, I played all the different characters. It was like my own version of the Young Talent Team - and John Farnham and Colleen Hewett were my pretend parents. And, now, with each special I do, I like to put in a "Young Talent Time" person.

As a tribute to your childhood?

As a tribute to a lot of childhoods, because those were the things we grew up with. And those were the things that were the mainstays of 70s childhood in Melbourne.

Where did you grow up?

Murrumbeena. 3163. Daryl Braithwaite was born there too. Modern icons. I wish I could say there were more substantial, but that was it, that was the era I grew up in and the life that excited me.

Pop culture, really, and sport

Yeah. Very normal. My grandfather, whom I loved, took me to see "Pippin" three or four times when I was eight. Couldn't get enough of it. Couldn't work out why every time Colleen Hewett came onstage she'd say, "Oh, my eyelash is coming off." I thought, haven't you got it right yet?

One story I heard is that you were kicked out of Hebrew school because you had a row over Daniel and the lions den. Is this true?

Well, I wasn't kicked out of Hebrew school for that. There was this woman, someone out of the goodness of her heart taking a Sunday School class, coming up against a bunch of tearaways. And she kicked me out for something. I can't remember why, but I felt very wronged. I remember being interviewed by the headmaster and he said, now, you apologise and go back in. And I said I won't apologise, and if you send me back in there it's like sending Daniel into the lion's den. He didn't send me back. He understood there was an integrity in what I was saying and he didn't put me back into that class. And I wasn't subjected to any more of a belittling that some teachers can go on with.

Was Jewishness an issue at all, something you were conscious of?

Oh, always, because I went to an all girls private ladies college - well, it was Korowa Church of England Girls Grammar School at that stage - and there were three Jewish girls in that Glen Iris set and it was my role every Passover to take the matzoh - which is the unleavened bread you have during Passover - in order to share my culture. I had to spread Vegemite on it and distribute it to the class so that we could actually illustrate where passover came from.

Did it make you feel special?

Different. It was always that one step removed from what the rest were doing. It was like barracking for Collingwood. In the 70s n Melbourne, you didn't barrack for Collingwood, in that era you barracked for Melbourne. They liked David Cassidy, I liked John Farnham.

Then to Methodist Ladies College. What did you think about being at an all girls school? I suppose I'm asking because I found it totally suffocating. Were you a rebel?

I wanted to be a fitter-in-erer, but intrinsically, obviously not. After being at school and being a lady studying divinity and sport lessons with Danish dancing, I'd go to Dad's workshop and there were the men of my childhood : Black Max, Wingnut, Parrot. So it was a very ecletic upbringing. My after school life was rich and varied, friends and a streetful of people to play with. It didn't really have any impact on me until I went to Little Athletics and the kids all talked about what sort of school they went to, government or Catholic, and I didn't know what I went to.

Did you ever get to be a prefect?

No, once I hit MLC, I was struck off the prefect's list and...

Congratulations!

Thank you. I was devestated at the time.

I was never allowed to be a prefect, either. What was your sin?

My sin was, in retrospect, that I challenged authority.

And during all this, were you playing with Barbies and doing girlie things?

Oh, very strange experience with Barbie dolls, because I only had Barbie dolls, I never had a Ken doll, so once you got past all the girlie stuff and you wanted to get into the good stuff you had two women...

Yes, the girls school experience.

The house plays were my passion at school. When I was in third form, I had a part in this play and I had to come on and say, "Yea, I am the axe, a whistle is my tune.." I can't remember the rest of it, but the thing that is overriding is that they taped my breasts down with Elastoplast and, of course, because they were such bouncy teenage breasts - even then they were determined to have their own way and were poking through the Elastoplast - so when I got up to say, "Yea, I am the axe" in all seriousness, everyone was laughing because my boozies were sticking out.

What about body image? I remember it being a huge issue at my high school.

It was never really relevant to me until I left school. It never really struck me - except for dancing class, which I hated.

Why? Because you were tall?

No, because I was plain. And we're talking the year "Grease" came out. Buxom brunettes did not have a chance against a girl who looked great in Olivia Newton-John pants. But that's 15. I've learnt since then that all 15 year olds go through the same deal. It's not unique.

Were you obsessed with boys?

Nup.

No boyfriends?

Nah, not until really late.

You really were a late developer.

Yeah. Tomboy. Rascal. I had brothers, I knew what boys were like.

Germy.

Boys used to sit on me, tickle me, lick my face until I wet my pants. That's my experience of boys - rough and tumble, loving, treated as equals kind of stuff. That's why it was such a rude shock when I got to university and the whole gender thing fell into place, because that kind of looks related status was not a race I'd ever had to compete in before.

When did you first have sex?

Oh. I can't tell you. But I was old.

Teens?

Oh, yeah, 19 or 20. And with someone that I wanted to.

Was it a good experience?

It was exciting. It was disturbing because I remember I went to the bathroom later, and I looked in the mirror, and I saw my face. And I saw this flush on my face and I recognised the flush as one that I'd seen on my mother's face when I came home early from sports training once. She's been hiding behind the door and I hadn't even realised what had been going on. That was my overhelming memory of that, and also that he broke my heart...

Why did you wait so long?

Because I'd been taught that it was something special. That love and human relationships are to be treasured. Sounds all very old fashioned but that was the way I was brought up.

You were waiting for...?

I wasn't waiting until I was married, I was waiting until I was ready. I didn't want to feel pressured into anything before I was ready to do it, and I didn't feel ready. An everything but girl.

Are you saying you were a cock teaser?

[shouts] Takes one to know one!

I was a shocker. I'm the first to admit it.

I didn't actually imagine it to be cock teasing. I just saw it as self protectiveness. Because I saw what happened to girls who got involved in that way really early. It changed them. There was one boy I really loved, I was obsessed with him. I was at school. There was another girl vying for his attention that evening, this really gorgeous girl. Of course, I'd gone my merry way and said, no thanks. And a little bit later in the evening I'd thought, maybe in order to get anywhere with this guy, that's what I have to do. Everyone was staying over at this party and I crept outside to where he was sleeping. And I looked through the window and he was sleeping with this other girl. And they were doing it. Nothing ever came of that relationship either. That's when I realised that there has to be more to it than sex. There's got to be more substance to it.

Why did what you saw make you think that?

Because he threw her away. At that stage, the way I was brought up, you're offering the essence of your soul. If I have sex with you, then I am giving myself to you, this dreadful Barbara Cartland notion of eternity and giving something really special. And teenage sex is experimentation, it's fun. Maybe because I was so indoctrinated with the loving side of relationships that I thought, and still do bellieve, that sex is associated with love. I was shocked that people could use each other like that. [laughs] Doesn't it sound conservative?

Let's talk about Elle, this character that you've created. Some of the adjectives - buxom, flouncing, bouncing, pouting. Do you feel uncomfortable with it sometimes? Have you created a monster?

The character started out with a very specific purpose, with footballers, and certainly the girlishness, the coquettishness, the flirtatiousness, were very much part of it.

I'm asking because one of the very early things you said you wanted when you went into TV was to be anti-bimbo. Is it a rod for your own back sometimes? It's so overpowering you can't see the truth?

Perhaps, perhaps. I always say that if you look closely you can actually see.

Though you have many supporters, probably the weight of the detraction would be that you have "used" your femininity to make life easier for yourself. I would resent that. Do you?

[long pause] I've been fascinated by it more than annoyed. Because honestly, far worse than men telling women what they should be, is women telling women what they should be.

But you know why women do that, partly. Because of bringing down the side, letting down the team.

I can't explain it, but I think it's there. Some women feel that if you exploit your gender, you're making it harder for them - particularly if they haven't. Now it may be the wrong judgement, but often there is a judgement, and that's why I think women are often tougher on women. It was one of the very first things that was said to me : "I like what you do but some of my female friends have trouble with it." Who are these unnamed female friends? It's like there's meant to be this sinister, secret, faceless sisterhood patrolling the ideological progression of women who are actually living feminism - working, having choices - and for me that's what it's all about. But this Mc Feast thing grew, and grew, and I've gone with it. And it has endured. The work is blossoming into the kind of area I'm interested in. It's like a means of being able to express yourself in a way that you're entirely comfortable with and proud of.

So you are making up Elle as you go along?

Yeah. An improvised life. A work in progress. It's trial and error because it's uncharted territory...There are two things I want to say. First, there was no job description, so I did the best I could with Elle within the realms that I knew - whilst learning televison, coping with being in a strange city [Sydney], with people calling me Elle when I thought I was Libbi, having intimate discussions with them. The second thing was about private life. Once you hit television, the image on TV is a commodity. And so that's why you accept it, there's no use fighting it. So Elle Mc Feast is in the market while I'm at home with a cup of tea having conversations with my friends and family.

You've done six documentaries - four of the six have been matters related to sex, organs and sex. Why that choice?

"Sex, Guys and Videotape" came about from a proposal that had been wafting around the ABC. They had funding from federal bodies but no one knew how to make it. The HIV awareness program was really gathering speed in '93. It fell into Mark's [Mark FitzGerald, Gorrs producer and collaborator] hands and he believed it could be made if I made it. Men didn't want to be lectured by men: there needed to be a hook for them to get interested in it - and from "Live and Sweaty", because it was doing so well, there was obviously an audience out there for Elle Mc Feast.

Do you think your choice of subjects - however it happened and regardless of how serious you are about what you're trying to get across - has made it easy for people to make easy judgements about your work?

Very easy to be disempowered when you're a woman in a sexual context on television, absolutely. It has made the road more bumpy. Bottom line : all the programs are accessible. It's not like you're giving extra knowledge to the converted; you're actually delivering a message to an unconverted audience - those who mightn't have wanted to watch the ABC before, and who might not have wanted to address these topics before - all wrapped up in this entertaining, fun package. But essentially there's a very easily digestible message - you know, the Mary Poppins spoonful of sugar message. That has always been the thought process of choosing programs, because if you're going to make programs you want people to watch them. I've never had that artistic, highbrow element of wanting to make a program for me.

Or just for art.

Yeah, It's never actually been that. Especially with public funds. And I've always placed a great emphasis on making sure that the programs are promoted and sold, because too much effort and thought and time and creativity go into making them to have them slip off into the ratings nether region of noughts and twos.

One article quotes Mark FitzGerald as saying : if Libbi has a fault, it is that she sometimes lacks confidence. Is it still true?

With age comes wisdom. Now I know I lack confidence instead of denying it [laughs] and trying to pretend that I'm all right all the time.

You don't seem underconfident. Are you?

Sometimes there will be instances where I'll say right, right, right, right, right, right, maybe we should go left. Occasionally, that demon will rise up inside and whisper, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" And the little voice says, NOOOO! But as time has gone on, and with each - whether it be with each flight into heaven or each passage over hot coals - you become a little bit more sure and find a sense of self, and a sense of work, only because there's proof. I really believe that most of this stuff stems from the fact that when I was thrown in, hosting, I was so raw.

There were so many fingers in the pie. Was it hard to hold onto the essential you?

Obviously that's what happened when I first started. Who is me? What is the difference between Elle Mc Feast and Libbi Gorr? What is it?

Were you aware of that struggle at the time or is this something that you have found in hindsight?

I think you're pretty aware of the struggle at the time, when you find yourself howling on the floor of your Sydney apartment for no apparent reason except for complete and utter confusionand feeling like, "Which string is being pulled?" and, "I need to get some gravity here." That was the night I rang my brother and sister in law and they flew up, from Melbourne. Just for the night.

You rang and said, "Help?"

I said "Help", yes. "Help. Please. Help." There was this whole golden girl, inhuman, supergirl image and inside it was - my God. I'm not Andrew [Denton]. That was really what was going on in '93. What was being said to me was, "Well you're not Andrew." And I went, "You're right, I'm not Andrew; who am I?"

But of course, you didn't say that at the time. What you went out and said was, "Hey, the whole Australian population isn't Andrew."

That's what I said - "Go f**k yourselves."

But what you felt was - howl, pain...

Horror, yes. He was the shadow of the elder sibling in this creative womb I found myself in. And I got the golden ticket and I was holding onto it for dear life.

Did you ever think, "I can't take this one on" - leaving your home, leaving your friends, all the support systems?

Nah. Because it was an adventure. It was just one of those things you say yes to, an instinctive thing like yes, I will have another chocolate. The only thing that would have been nice, in retrospect, was to have more of a base before I started. But I have that now. So that's why this next year is so important to me, because I have creative support and artistic liasions - in Sydney - that I didn't have when I first came. I was very much on my own there.

Your background is in law, and you actually spent a year working in the field. Did you ever think you'd go into full time practice? Or was it more like the grown up version of the secretarial course - something to fall back on?

Well, it was always something to fall back on, though I was prepared to give it a go, to give proper life a go. But the circus was far more tempting. I didn't enjoy it, anyway. Great bunch of people, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as staying up in smokey pubs until three in the morning singing bawdy songs with the Bagels. But it was pretty difficult to face crooks - you know, they lied to me. I couldn't work out what was really going on. [laughs] I said to my senior law partner at the time, "I can't talk to this man because he lied to me; he did stab this other bloke." He said, "Their crooks, Lib. They lie."

Andrew [Denton] said to me when he worked at Prudential, when he had his period of straightness, he always used to act kind of odd, a bit eccentric, to throw people off balance. Were you like that?

The most fun I had the whole day was getting dressed to go to work, so I could play the part of being the young lawyer. It was the only thing that got me through the day and even then I'd chuck in Nanna's embroidered cardies and the occasional pair of Doc Martens.

What kind of lawyer do you reckon you'd be?

A very bad one. I'm not patient enough - very short attention span. Girl of the televison age.

What's the nature of the performer from inside the beast?

It's a road paved with glass and boiled lollies that ultimately leads to hell.

Is it tailor made to create neuroses?

Well, which comes first? I would'nt imagine that one would become a performer unless you had the neuroses there, this particular form of attention seeking and craving acknowledgement. Or, is it just wanting to be heard, once again? Daniel in the lion's den. The last thing that I ever wanted for myself was to be a packaged up television personality.

Have you avoided it, do you think?

As best I can. As much as has been possible. There's no credible wall of current affairs to protect you. There are very few women role models on television. It may be the same at "60 Minutes", where you worked, but at least you have the credible wall of current affairs, so that's a structure and a place and a reason to be.

That's why I think it's much, much harder being an entertainer than an on camera journalist. But they were only role models.

I wanted to be Jana.

I've heard this. Is it true?

Yeah, she was the only one who said to me that there is life on this planet apart from big tits and spinning a barrel.

But you went away from that. You've never followed that. You may say you wanted to be Jana but I don't believe it.

What I do is "60 Minutes" with a twist, that's all it is; "60 Minutes" with a twist - with humour, a little bit more rebellious, less safe. But they're both about issues and current events.

You didn't really want to be Jana, it's just a good line.

I did. I do. Well, I've f**ked it now. [laughs]

Some young women may look at you on television and use you as a role model. Do you feel comfortable with that notion?

Very scarey prospect, isn't it? But fascinating. If young women who don't conform to established models hope there may be a place in the world for someone who isn't either a supermodel or even a straight journalist, then it's something that I find quite phenomenal. I like this empathic connection, when women come forward with praise. It seems like things are possible for those who don't fit the mould.

What do you think they're responding to?

Probably humanity. Occasionally, I will make a dick of myself, the hair will not stay in place, can't possibly diet myself into oblivion, don't have the discipline, or the inclination. I think it's the freedom, probably. Physical freedom is perhaps a representation of that, but more - from the letters which come into the office - it's the freedom to speak, openly, without fear of consequences.

If you could be tall and thin and the mould of perfection, would you? Truth.

Uuuuh. Probably. But, then I've always thought that if I were given three wishes, I'd wish for another three wishes. Very practical.

How tough is it in the television industry?

It's a very tough industry. I don't think anyone would tell you differently.

Are you tough?

Getting there.

You said somewhere that you wanted to save Libbi Gorr for something more credible. Now, what the hell does that mean?

Good question. I don't know what that is yet.

Is that true?

Well, I probably have save Libbi Gorr for something more important. My real life.