David Bowie was a fan. So was Iggy Pop.
So much so that the pair would get tapes of this Australian television show sent to them.
But in 1985, the writer's room for A Country Practice was in crisis.
The beloved Australian television show was in its fifth season, and its biggest star had decided to leave.
The writers needed to find a way to kill the nation's favourite character.
Forty years ago when Molly Jones died and left her on-screen husband Brendan widowed, fans did not know they were watching a real-life couple.
The pair are now being interviewed for the first time as one.
"Yeah, they didn't know. We kept it very quiet," Anne Tenney, who played Molly, told 7.30.
"That was our business, not theirs," Shane Withington, who played Brendan added.
"We didn't do any media on it even though they really tried with people up trees and following us around overseas," Withington told 7.30.
Between 1981 and 1993, A Country Practice was appointment viewing twice a week on Australian television.
Over 12 seasons and more than 1,000 episodes, the series followed the lives and dramas of the citizens of the small town of Wandin Valley.
From the town gossip Esme Watson (Joyce Jacobs), gentle cop Frank Gilroy (Brian Wenzel) and wife Shirley (Lorrae Desmond), to vet Vicky (Penny Cook) and doctor Simon's (Grant Dowell) protracted courtship and eventual wedding, fans became deeply invested in the lives and relationships of the characters.
Even animals Fatso the wombat and Doris the pig had their own fans.
For Tenney and Withington, then in their 20s, the fame of playing Molly and Brendan, was both parts exhilarating and overwhelming, as they were mobbed by fans but also rubbed shoulders with one of the biggest stars on the planet.
"They'd fly us to a telethon in Brisbane and the show was so huge that we'd land in the airport and they'd say, you can't get to the TV station because people have driven up and blocked all the traffic," Withington said.
"David Bowie was a fan, and he would have the tape sent to London and he and Iggy Pop would sit and watch the show.
"It was such an enormous thing.
"When he toured, he invited us to come meet him and go the Glass Spider tour.
"I got drunk with David Bowie. We were privileged to be in that show."
Of the hundreds of fan letters Channel 7 would receive each week for A Country Practice, most would be addressed to Molly.
People still approach her in the street today and tell her how traumatised they were when Molly died.
"I say 'I'm really sorry, I really didn't have much to do with that at all'," she told 7.30.
"It was the writers and the production people that made you cry."
The scene that broke Australia
Actor Georgie Parker, who played Lucy Gardner in later seasons of A Country Practice, remembers watching Molly's death when it was broadcast in 1985.
"I don't know many people who saw it who don't remember it frame by frame," Parker told 7.30.
"The way they did it was so beautifully played, beautifully directed, and it was such a gentle way of letting go of a character and saying goodbye to them."
In the famous scene, Molly is lying on a couch outside on her farm. Brendan and their daughter Chloe are flying a kite in the distance.
Brendan notices something wrong and runs towards Molly. The camera, looking from Molly's perspective, fades to black.
"That screen goes to black and you realise ... that's us letting her go," Georgie said, tearing up.
"It's very easy to overwrite those things because you want to jam a lot of feelings into it, but the feelings are inherently there and the writers trusted the director and trusted the cast."
Withington has a different view, albeit one taken in good humour.
"I call it the Brendan grieving scene because I had the dialogue, I had the child, I had the kite, I had to run up a hill, hitting the mark," Withington said.
"She just shut her eyes and becomes an icon. Bit of friction in the family over that."
Plotting Molly's death
Parker is starring in a new play marking the anniversary of Molly's departure.
How To Plot A Hit In Two Days is set inside the writer's room as they draft Molly's final season.
"They've decided to kill her because they've realised that's the only way that Molly would leave her husband and child — she has to be not able to stay," Parker said.
In the play, Parker's character is based on screenwriter Judith Colquhoun, who wrote the episode with Molly's death.
Colquhoun, now in her 80s, is affectionately referred to as TV's 'Most Wanted Serial Killer', responsible for "lots and lots" of deaths, including two others on A Country Practice: Christopher and Sophie.
Molly's demise, however, had an ulterior motive.
"Leukaemia was chosen to give Anne Tenney plenty of time to change her mind," Colquhuon told 7.30.
"Also, something like leukaemia gave us a chance, because she was such an immensely popular character, to ease it in gently and make it a gentle death.
"I had actually nursed my mother-in-law, who I was very close with, at home with leukaemia until she died, so I knew what was involved."
Over 14 episodes, Molly's death was plotted out with the hope Tenney would change her mind.
She didn't.
"I really wanted to leave. I really needed to leave. I wanted to move on," Tenney said.
Even after leaving, letters continued to arrive. Fans were now processing her character's death.
"People ... who'd lost someone to cancer [would write] and say how much her passing in the show meant to them because it helped them accept the fact that mum or dad had died or a sibling had died," Withington said.
Tenney tears up when she remembers visiting a fan whose 21-year-old daughter was dying of leukaemia.
"I did go to the hospital and I met her … that was really sad … her family were amazing."
Life after A Country Practice
Tenney admits there was a tricky period after leaving the show.
"I had some job offers, but they were very similar to the Molly character, so I didn't want to do those," she said.
"I just left a social circle as well … it was a great atmosphere and we were a real family."
New roles eventually came her way, including the role of matriarch Sal Kerrigan in the comedy hit The Castle.
Withington remained on A Country Practice, but not for much longer, and he currently plays John Palmer on Home and Away.
Many fans still don't realise that Anne and Shane are a real couple until they see them together.
"When we go to country towns, it's like a royal visit," Shane laughs.
Anne tries her best to keep her head down.
"Sometimes I can be anonymous, but then Shane says, "Oh, Molly's over there'," she said.
Even though they kept their personal relationship out of the public eye for so long, Anne and Shane know that the characters on A Country Practice had a real, lasting impact on people.
"We've heard people say you couldn't go to school if you didn't watch A Country Practice. Everybody was talking about what was going on," Withington said.
"It did bring the nation together, and we're proud of that."
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