Nikki Webster is not about to be cut down by the tall-poppy syndrome. She has a burgeoning showbusiness career to get on with, reports Anne Crawford.

The Wizard of Oz rehearsal is set to begin in a large hall in Prahran. Toto the dog has had a final brush. Artistic directors position themselves on long tables facing the action. All eyes are trained on the slight teenager with the big voice.

Nikki Webster, the girl who flew at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics as the world watched, is playing Dorothy. Forget what you might have read about her success since, what you see is a small, pale girl with big brown eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Irrepressibly perky, bubbling with self-confidence. Wearing hip sters and a midriff, like any number of other teens outside in Chapel Street. Sort of.

During breaks from acting, she stoops to play with Toto or gravitates towards Bert Newton who plays the Wizard, chatting easily with the veteran performer. Webster’s face lights up constantly. She clasps her hands as she giggles. She apologises if she fluffs a line (which is rare) and follows directions eagerly. She is never late for rehearsal and never comes unprepared, says Newton, who first worked with Webster when she was six. The cast, apparently, have given her the thumbs up. No one has a harsh word to say about her.

Yet Nikki Webster has attracted an unusual amount of personal criticism in the media. She has been the butt of jokes by newspaper columnists, music critics, at least one stand-up comedian, even sports writers. “So cute you could belt her,” said a Sydney columnist, “sickeningly sweet little miss” said a Melbourne paper. Classic tall poppy treatment – only Nikki Webster is 15 years old.

The media crooned when she shot to fame as “Hero Girl” before a stadium audience of 110,000 and a global audience of 3.7 billion people. She was the elfin child in the pink floral dress who “sang like an angel” and “captured our hearts”.

The fearless 13-year-old schoolgirl who quickly became one of the “most watched faces in the world”. “Little diva.” “Darling of the Olympics.” A household name. But Nikki Webster, seen by some as an overnight sensation, didn’t slip quietly back to school. She had long held ambitions – although she calls them “dreams”. The Olympics just sped them up.

Record companies competed with each other to sign her up. (A single of the song she sang in the closing ceremony, We’ll Be One, was released in October 2000.)

A change of image was needed. Webster, who designs her own clothes, stopped being the cute little girl in the pink frock and appeared in the video clip for her first pop single Strawberry Kisses in pink hipsters and crop top. Inevitably, she was touted as the next Kylie. (She and Minogue, her idol and role model, are e-mail buddies.) Strawberry Kisses went straight to number two on the charts, quickly achieved platinum status and has sold more than 120,000 copies. Her album, Follow Your Heart, reached gold status. She went on a promotional tour to Europe earlier this year.

The Australian pop charts weren’t the only lists she was appearing in. Late last year, Nikki Webster was named number 10 on Who Weekly’s entertainment industry “power list”, among other lists of rising stars. She has appeared on magazine covers, is the face of Jager’s “It’s a Girl Thing” cosmetics and the face of Movieworld. She is mobbed at shopping centres by her young fans as she promotes music and make-up.

Ken Mackenzie-Forbes, one of the producers of The Wizard of Oz, was among those who recognised her potential at the Olympics. Mackenzie-Forbes watched Webster auditioning for the musical Annie soon afterwards and set about acquiring the rights for The Wizard of Oz, which he’d produced 12 years ago, his company Macks Entertainment teaming up with SEL/GFO.

“Unless you have someone very compelling for Dorothy, there’s no purpose putting it on,” he says. The Melbourne show, which features Pamela Rabe (as the Wicked Witch of the West), Patti Newton (Glinda the Good Witch), singer Doug Parkinson (the Cowardly Lion) and Philip Gould (Tin Man) opens at the Regent Theatre on June 27 for a 12-week season. Then it moves to Brisbane. Webster, rehearsing with some new cast members, says she’s looking forward to playing Dorothy again. The 1939 movie version starring Judy Garland is an “all-time favourite” of hers and it was a “great honour” to be asked to play the lead role.

To settle her in, her parents came down from Sydney when rehearsals started. Her grandparents, out from England for opening night, followed. She has a chaperone and a home tutor when she tours (she’s studying year 10).

Webster says she enjoys being recognised. “It’s great that people remember me from my first single, Strawberry Kisses, and they’re asking me ‘When are you bringing out a new one?’ and I say ‘Well, actually you’re lucky because I’m bringing one out on the 29th of July – my new single, Something More Beautiful. It’s great that everyone’s really happy, and they say they’re looking forward to seeing The Wizard of Oz.”

She speaks with a mix of youthful enthusiasm and a seasoned performer’s upbeat self-confidence. Little wonder. She has been in the industry since she was five. A long list of television, film, theatre and commercial credits includes Les Miserables, The Sound of Music alongside Lisa McCune, spots in Australian soaps and as a featured extra in Priscilla Queen of the Desert. She performed a duet with Michael Jackson on his 1996 HIStory tour. Webster says she has wanted to sing and dance on stage for as long as she can remember. She says she’s not in it for the money (that goes into a bank account for later life) and that she wants to become an all-round performer on the world stage.

Her mother, Tina Webster, who runs a childcare centre, says she doesn’t know where her daughter’s love of performing comes from. “I’ve looked and I’ve looked but I’ve got no idea – certainly not from me or my husband! It’s a love. She likes to perform. She wanted to go to dance school when she was very tiny. You do what all mums do, you get in the car and take them.” Her daughter organises herself and is very self-disciplined, she says. All offers to perform go through Webster’s manager, her mother, then her.

Tina says her daughter loves small children and that much of the charity work she does is with them. She visits her mother’s childcare centre whenever she’s at home.

Webster insists on answering all her fan mail – thousands of letters each week. Most are from children. She has a website that has registered more than 250,000 hits. The people who buy her music, the six-to-14-year-olds, have been called “tweens”, in between children and teens.

Those close to her, including best friend Kaylie Lee and her mother Glenda Lee, say success hasn’t really changed her. “There’s a lot of kids who would’ve changed dramatically – she hasn’t,” says Lee, who runs the dance school Webster attends.

Says Tina: “We’re still a very normal family – there’s no way she’d have a chance to change.” She says her daughter is aware of the knockers. “I let her look at everything. I wouldn’t show her anything that’s disgraceful, though. She’ll read who it’s by and say ‘Well, they haven’t met me, mum’ and I say ‘No, darling, they haven’t’. Everyone’s allowed to have their own opinion. If you can’t take it, you should get out of the business. She’s probably a lot older and nicer about it than I am.”

Bert Newton, who has two children in the industry and met his wife Patti when she was a child performer, says Webster has got her feet on the ground.

Why the flak? “Simply because she’s a headliner. If she wasn’t the sort of person she is, she’d find it hard to handle. It’s easier as an adult.”

Webster says she looks to Kylie Minogue, who has weathered the tall-poppy syndrome and emerged successfully on the other side. She says she’s not hurt by unfavourable press or the digs. “I’m in this industry for all my fans and as long as they’re happy, I’m happy.”

Source: The Age