Gypsy Smith (née Nash) is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Kimberley Cooper. She debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 18 February 1998. Gypsy and her on-screen family the Nashes were introduced to fill the void of Debra Lawrance's departure as Pippa Ross, to form the main family at the caravan park home, often described as "the centre of Summer Bay". Cooper quit the serial in 2001 and last appeared on 15 February 2002. Cooper has won two awards for her portrayal of Gypsy and is often referred to as a "sex symbol" of the serial. In June 2011, it was announced that Cooper had reprised her role as Gypsy. She returned on 9 September 2011 and departed on 13 October 2011.

Character creation and casting [link]

In 1997, after Debra Lawrance quit her role as Pippa Ross producers decided to introduce a new family to run the caravan park, because the household was seen as the "centrepieice of the show".^[1] They created the Nash family consisting of Gypsy played by Cooper, sibling Tom Nash (Graeme Squires) and their parents Natalie and Joel Nash played by Angelica la Bozzetta and David Woodley respectively.^[1] The family come to Summer Bay from Hong Kong to start a new life.^[1]

Cooper later spoke fondly of the serial, stating: "I never look at Home and Away and cringe [...] Unapologetically it's good TV for the time that it is made in."^[2] In 2009 executive prodcer Cameron Welsh stated he would love to see Cooper return as Gypsy.^[3] In 2010, Zac Drayson who plays Cooper's on-screen husband Will Smith revealed that Cooper wanted to return along side him, but could not commit to filming because of her wedding commitments.^[4]

In June 2011, it was announced that Cooper had reprised her role as Gypsy and had returned to filming in May. Cooper confirmed that Gypsy's return would be "dramatic, in true Gypsy style".^[5] Gypsy returned with her daughter Lily in September 2011.^[6]

Storylines [link]

Gypsy arrived in Summer Bay, her father's old home town, with her father Joel, mother Natalie and older brother Tom. She had grown up in Hong Kong and as a result was used to the city life. The somewhat quieter pace of life in Summer Bay was something she had a hard time getting used to at first. She and Tom were also surprised to find their uncle Travis Nash, who they had never met, living in the town and learned that Joel had left Summer Bay when he found out his father had been behaving inappropriately towards Natalie. Although things were tense at first, the two branches of the family soon bonded.

As an attractive young woman, Gypsy was never short of male attention. The first person to take an interest in her was Vinnie Patterson but since he was dating Justine Welles at the time she quickly made it clear she was not interested. She soon caught the eye of Will Smith, who had also just arrived in the Bay. In order to impress him, she bought him some dope (which in fact he did not touch) and when Joel and Travis found it she ended up in trouble. She eventually reported the dealer, Lillian, to the school. She also became good friends with Sam Marshall and later Hayley Smith.

Gypsy, together with Justine and Tiegan Brook, started up a band called the Broken Dolls, managed by Vinnie. After their first performance at a school dance, Gypsy snuck off into a classroom to spend time with Will and as a result the pair were locked in and had to spend the night at the school. Joel was furious when he found out and tried to break the pair up but eventually relented. As soon as Joel started to approve of Will, Gypsy lost interested in him somewhat. She later changed her mind and seemed ready to sleep with him but when he treated the matter casually she broke up with him again. She briefly dated Sam but never saw him as anything more than a friend.

While bushwalking, Gypsy, along with Will, Sam and Hayley, was taken hostage by Murray, a drifter who had previously robbed the Diner. During the incident, Will turned down an opportunity to escape in order to stay with Gypsy and told her that he loved her. However, she was upset when straight afterwards he left town without telling her. By the time he returned she was seeing an older man, Robert Perez, and was delighted when her parents, unaware of the connection, employed him as their tutor.

What no-one in the family knew was that Perez was actually David DiAngelo, a career criminal who had spent fifteen years in prison as a result of a chance encounter with Joel, when he was working as a policeman in Hong Kong. DiAngelo kidnapped Gypsy while supposedly taking her to a booksale and held her prisoner for nearly two weeks, planning to kill her. When he forced Gypsy to record a tape message to be sent to her family, she managed to include a clue as to her location and the police rescued her. DiAngelo came after the family again, setting fire to their house. Gypsy was rescued from the blaze by Travis and DiAngelo was finally caught but the house was gone and Gypsy and her family were forced to move in with Travis and his wife Rebecca. Gypsy struck up a sisterly relationship with their foster children, Justine and Peta Janossi, especially after Travis and Rebecca left and Joel and Natalie started fostering the pair.

Gypsy and Will continued to remain close without actually dating and instead Gypsy started seeing Jesse McGregor. The age difference worried a few people but her parents cautiously approved. Gypsy, however, soon found a relationship with a stay-at-home single parent somewhat dull and after meeting a guy over the Internet she broke off with Jesse. She then went to meet her Internet beau at the Surf Club...only to discover to their mutual horror that it was Tom.

Gypsy took a liking to Mitch McColl when he arrived in the Bay and the pair dated for a while but she backed off when she realised Hayley liked him. Gypsy ended up in trouble when she and some of the Bay's other teens went joyriding in the car belonging to Irene Roberts' boyfriend Anthony Doyle. A speed camera photo of the car clearly showed Gypsy and faced with Joel's intense disapproval she went and confessed to his superior, Mike Carter, who let her off with a warning.

Will had tried to cover for her during the incident and the pair reconciled. However, Gypsy hid the fact she had slept with Mitch and when the truth came out it caused a rift between her and Hayley. She was also passed over for school captain and in annoyance started a campaign against headmistress Judith Ackroyd and hence fell out with Peta, who was dating Judith's son Edward. She started a feud with classmate Claire Rodgers, who accused Gypsy of being a slut. When she found out Claire had slept with Sam, Gypsy made it public knowledge, widening the rift with her friends further.

When Tom took Alf Stewart's boat out for a rich kid's party, he asked Gypsy to help out. She was enamoured with the birthday boy, Charlie Nicholas, and started dating him, even though she was still seeing Will. She quickly realised Charlie had a drink problem but enjoyed the party lifestyle too much. She soon sobered up when she learned Natalie had had an affair with an old friend, Glen Tanner, and he was the father of her unborn child. Immediately afterwards, Charlie's drinking involved the pair in a car accident: Charlie was killed and Gypsy badly injured.

Gypsy matured considerably over the incident, telling Joel she was responsible for what had happened when he tried to blame other people. But her affair with Charlie had been revealed in the worst way possible and she was left a virtual outcast. She did, however, end up bonding with Natalie(who was almost as vilified) for the first time and was upset when both she and Tom left the Bay, leaving her alone with Joel, now conditioned to think the worst of her, and forced to sell their home.

With Gypsy's reputation at an all-time low, she found herself receiving unwanted advances from Kieran Fletcher, Sally's fiancé, who pointed out no-one would believe she was innocent. She kept quiet until halfway through Kieran and Sally's wedding, when she announced what had been happening. Fortunately both Hayley and Colleen Smart backed her up. Her courage caused her to build bridges with Will and Hayley, as well as starting a friendship with Sally.

Joel and Gypsy ended up moving in with Vinnie in Joel's old family home and Gypsy and Vinnie ended up becoming good friends. She had quit school during the Kieran incident and ended up getting a part-time job at the Drop-In Centre. Ironically, she ended up staying there herself when relations with Joel hit an all-time low, shortly before he moved in with Judith, who he had started seeing. Gypsy became close to Shelley Sutherland, her boss, but the fact that Shelley's daughter Dani was seeing Will meant spending time with her family was uncomfortable.

No-one seemed happy with Vinnie and Gypsy living alone together, especially Vinnie's girlfriend Leah Poulos, but Gypsy's old teacher Harry Reynolds was an odd choice for chaperone given that everyone thought he and Gypsy were seeing each other. Despite their protests, the pair then did start seeing each other. Soon after, Gypsy received a hoax call telling her Harry was dead. This turned out to be the work of Kirsten, a former girlfriend of Charlie's, who then made it look as though she and Harry had slept together. Gypsy and Harry apparently split up but this was just a ruse to flush Kirsten out and she was charged with harassment. Around the same time, Joel and Natalie reunited and moved to Queensland, leaving Gypsy as the only Nash left in Summer Bay.

Not wanting Harry to see her as a schoolgirl, Gypsy decided to complete her education at TAFE while continuing to work at the Drop-In Centre. In the end her relationship with Harry did not last long-she found out he still had feelings for his old girlfriend Shauna Bradley and in anger shredded his shirts and smashed up his bike. Possibly as a result of this latest bad experience with men, Gypsy found herself developing romantic feelings for Shelley. When Shelley told her she would have been experimenting with her sexuality if she felt like that, she went out with another college student, Desiree Upton, but one kiss was enough to convince her she was not gay and although real her feelings for Shelley were not physical ones.

When Shelley commented that she considered her husband Rhys her best friend Gypsy wondered if that was where she was going wrong. She tried being friends with Will, which meant getting on with Dani. Things seemed to be going well until Dani learned Will had lied about spending time with Gypsy. Will and Gypsy then ended up sleeping together but she decided against pursuing a relationship, thinking Will still loved Dani.

Although she had initially balked at the idea, when Vinnie married Leah Gypsy ended up taking over her old room at Sally and Shauna's place. Soon after, she discovered she was pregnant with Will's child. Not wanting to trap him into being a father, she went out with one of her lecturers, Andrew Moffat, and let Vinnie think they had slept together so everyone would think he was the father. However, both Sally and Tom (paying a brief visit) quickly realised the truth.

Left in charge of the Drop-In Centre in Shelley's absence, Gypsy became involved with the case of Jodie Harrington, a young girl who was apparently being abused. Even though it appeared her bruises were the results of accidents caused by her ADHD, Gypsy asked for a full investigation and when Shelley and DOCS turned up nothing she started hanging around outside Jodie's home and school looking for evidence. She eventually realised Jodie was making stories up to try to get her dad to come home but the incident caused her to fall out with Shelley and be suspended from the Drop-In Centre, having to take a job at the Diner to earn money. The two women eventually made up when Gypsy was slightly injured protecting Shelley from a violent parent.

Five months into Gypsy's pregnancy, Will finally realised he was the father. Gypsy considering leaving town but eventually accepted he had a right to choose what he wanted to do. With the information common knowledge, Gypsy complained that Will was causing her unnecessary stress and even when he broke up with Dani she was worried he did not love her. He eventually won her round and the pair reunited, with Gypsy moving in with Will and his family.

Gypsy's water broke in the middle of the kitchen and she ended up giving birth to her daughter Lily by the roadside, with Will supporting her. He promptly proposed to her and she accepted. Soon after, Will was offered a job in Queensland, meaning they would be near to Gypsy's family, but they did not have time to arrange a marriage license before they left. The pair married anyway in a purely symbolic ceremony before marrying for real in Queensland. Gypsy did not accompany Will on any of his return trips to the Bay. A few years later, Will reveals Rachel McGregor, who had been staying with him and Gypsy, had asked them to adopt her. On his return to the Bay in 2010, Will revealed he had cheated on Gypsy and they had separated.

Nine years after she left the Bay, Gypsy returns to see Irene, following her breast cancer diagnosis. Gypsy and Lily (Charlie Rose Maclennan) move in with Irene, Bianca (Lisa Gormley) and April Scott (Rhiannon Fish). Gypsy tells Irene she is dating a man named Mark (Shane Emmett), but he and Lily do not get on well. Gypsy tries to help care for Irene and she gets on Bianca's nerves. Gypsy is attracted to Liam Murphy (Axle Whitehead) and she organises a gig for him at the restaurant. Mark comes to visit Gypsy and he and Lily clash. Mark later suggests sending Lily to boarding school, but Gypsy disagrees with the idea. She later has sex with Liam on the beach, but they are interrupted by Bianca. Lily tells Mark and he and Gypsy break up. Irene tells Gypsy to leave and she and Lily pack up and go home.

Reception [link]

At the 41st Logie Awards Cooper won the "Most Popular New Female Talent" award for her portrayal of Gypsy,^[7] she was the first ever recipient of the award.^[8] Gypsy's kidnapping was nominated for "Most Dramatic Storyline" at the 1999 Inside Soap Awards.^[9] The following year, Cooper won an award in the "Best Aussie actress" category.^[10]

In 2002, Chris Middendorp of The Age said Gypsy was a "schoolgirl tart" who dominated the 2000 season of Home and Away as "she explored romantic opportunity in all the wrong places - rich playboys, schoolboys, older men. She finally embraced true love with young Will, one of her first boyfriends."^[11] Soap opera reporting website Holy Soap included Gypsy on their list of "Sexiest Home and Away girls ever" list.^[12] They also brand her most memorable moments as being "being kidnapped and having a baby with Will Smith".^[12] The Courier-Mail include Cooper on their list of sexiest ever Home and Away characters.^[13] In his book Super Aussie Soaps, author Andrew Mercado criticised the Nash family because of their Hong Kong origin, stating: "Was Summer Bay finally turning multicultural and getting an Asian family? Fat Chance. They were middle-class Causasians just like everyone else in the Bay (and Neighbours' Ramsay Street)."^[1]

Jon Horsley of Yahoo! was happy that Gypsy was returning to the serial and said "It’s always nice to have a nostalgic favourite return."^[14]

References [link]