Photography: Chris Hillary
On a warm Auckland summer’s night in the ’90s, Bec Sandys was just another girl dancing on Karangahape Rd when a group of drag queens pulled her aside.
“You look just like Kylie!” they squealed.
Weeks later, she was shimmying across a stage in gold hot pants, belting out Spinning Around to a packed club.
“One minute, I was out for a boogie – the next, I was being Kylie Minogue!” laughs the 49-year-old Ashburton-born comedian.
“We became a troupe and even did a string of shows.”
Saying yes to whatever opportunity knocks is how Bec has done more jobs than most – from a parachute packer, boat groomer and building-site labourer, to a TV writer, cricket commentator,
and wedding and funeral celebrant.
But now she’s finally getting a chance to live out her childhood dream of becoming a radio star, joining Radio Hauraki as their new daytime host.
Music was always her north star
“Music is not just the soundtrack to my life – it’s my whole world,” Bec enthuses.
“I even remember blowing out the candles on my 39th birthday cake, wearing a Hauraki t-shirt and wishing that I worked at the station. Talk about next-level manifesting!”
Preparing for the role ever since she was a kid, Bec used to run a “radio station” from her lounge, recording shows on cassette and using walkie-talkies as a phone-in line. Music remained a constant as the quirky tomboy battled her way through her high school years, where she sharpened her entrepreneurial skills by selling fake IDs she whipped up in detention.
A life-changing meeting at sixteen
At 16, she became a trainee hairdresser, lathering the locks of future PM Jenny Shipley. “My first brush with celebrity in Ashvegas,” she jokes. While the job only lasted six weeks, a chance meeting at the local skate ramp that same year was life-changing. Watching a blond, dreadlocked skater fly across the bowl, she told her friend, “That’s the boy I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”
JShe was right. Thirty years later, she and Quentin, aka Q, are still together, sharing their cosy Christchurch home with an elderly blind cat, Azrael, and a jet-black kitten named Ziggy in honour of David Bowie. While Q travelled the world as a pro snowboarder, Bec chased winters across Japan, Australia, India and Europe – both with and without him.
A love story with a few detours
“It hasn’t always been smooth sailing,” she admits.
“We had years apart, lost letters, missed emails… I call it a donut relationship – there’s a big hole in the middle when we weren’t together, but we always came back. And we let each other be exactly who we are.”
Comedy arrived for Bec almost by accident. At 41 and newly sober, she was cast alongside Kiwi comics Brendhan Lovegrove and Jeremy Elwood in a film that never got released.
“They encouraged me to give it a crack,” she recalls.
“I’d just quit booze at 40, so there was no Dutch courage. From the moment I stepped on stage, I was hooked.”
Performing in Melbourne and San Francisco, she went on to open shows for Irish comic Ed Byrne and Kiwi star Urzila Carlson, who became both a friend and mentor.
The people who keep her grounded
“She’s had a massive impact on me,” Bec enthuses.
“She taught me I didn’t need to force jokes. Being unapologetically myself was enough.”
Today, it’s family that anchors her. Her sister Mel, 47, is her “ride or die”, alongside a tight-knit sisterhood from her snow-boarding days. And her “mini me” nephew Jacob, 10, is her shadow.
“We’re both fussy eaters who love skateboarding and music,” she tells.
“I even busted my foot trying to ollie with him!”
Moving back to Auckland to work at Hauraki means life has now come full circle for Bec.
“It really is my dream job,” she muses.
Keeping love alive across the miles
Once again, she and Q, now a painter-decorator, will do long-distance, but this time with daily Facetimes and regular visits.
“I think of work like spinning plates,” she tells.
“Keep throwing a few things up and see how many you can keep going.”
So what would teenage Bec think of her life today?
“She’d be pretty bloody stoked I’m hosting on Hauraki. But honestly? I don’t think she’d be too surprised.”
Hauraki Days airs from 9am-2pm weekdays. See hauraki.co.nz for more info.
