Darren Stark
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| Darren Stark | |||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | Todd MacDonald Scott Major |
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| First appearance | July 20, 1993 Episode 1962 |
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| Last appearance | January 30, 2008 Episode 5378 |
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| Cause/reason | Breaking up with Libby | ||||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||||
| Occupation | Electrician | ||||||||||
| Residence | Shepparton | ||||||||||
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Darren Stark was a fictional character in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, first played by Scott Major when the character's arrived in 1993. When Darren was released from prison in 1996, Todd MacDonald took over the role and remained in it until 1998. A role that since then he has returned to twice for guest stints.
Having spent time in prison with Michael Martin, Darren Stark headed to Erinsborough when he was released to meet the family of the man he despised. Michael had warned his family and friends about Darren, but little did he know that Darren was actually working his way into Debbie’s life under the assumed name of Freddo. Darren made sure to alienate Debbie from her friends and make her feel special, so that when she found out his true identity, she didn’t immediately walk away from him. Meanwhile, Darren’s mum, Cheryl, had developed a bit of an obsession with resident Lou Carpenter, so she rented number 22 and she and Darren moved in. This, of course, helped him to get closer to Debbie.
As Debbie’s ex-boyfriend, Rick Alessi was determined to get her away from Darren, but it seemed that every attempt to convince her simply made the situation worse. After a string of petty thefts, it seemed that Darren had a bigger plan to get Debbie in trouble – by robbing a service station at gun-point. When Rick then witnessed Darren kissing Louise Barker, he realised that Darren had absolutely no interest in Debbie and was stringing her along completely. Darren’s plans were coming closer and closer to fruition, so Rick was forced to visit the detention centre and help Michael to escape. In a bizarre plan, they dressed up as woman and managed to get out to rescue Debbie. Michael ended up being shot, while Darren was arrested and Debbie realised how wrong she’d been about him.
Three years later, Darren was released from prison on parole and returned to live with his mother and grandmother in Ramsay Street. However, not realising that his mother now lived at number 24, he broke into number 22, where Lou was living alone, and took some money from the fridge. He struggled to fit back in to normal society, but Cheryl was determined that her son wouldn’t stray from the straight and narrow this time. Darren had learnt some valuable carpentry skills while in prison, but couldn’t find anyone to employ him once on the outside. When Narelle Allen, the girlfriend of one of Darren’s former cellmates, visited him with an offer of illegal work for quick cash, he was very tempted. When he found out there was some cash hidden in a house that was about to be demolished, he broke in there. Unfortunately, the house was knocked down with Darren trapped inside, underneath a wardrobe, and he was lucky to walk out of the situation alive.
On the romance front, Darren found that Debbie was, unsurprisingly, very cold with him, but that another neighbour, Libby Kennedy, seemed to be more interested. The two of them got very close, despite the disapproval of her father, and she stopped him acting irrationally and trashing a building site when the foreman refused to give Darren work on account of his criminal record. After weeks of arguments with Karl Kennedy, Darren was the prime suspect when the surgery was the target of a home-made bomb. It didn’t help that Debbie saw Darren outside the surgery in the aftermath of the explosion, but it later emerged that the culprit was the father of a boy Karl had helped.
Darren seemed unable to avoid trouble, however, and, while in a record store, he found himself framed by a shoplifter, who thrust stolen CDs into Darren’s hands as the alarms went off. Because he was on parole, this brush with the law sent Darren straight back to prison, and seemed to confirm all of Karl’s beliefs that the boy was trouble. However, Libby and Cheryl were convinced by Darren’s pleas of innocence and Cheryl set out to get to the truth. Meanwhile, Darren didn’t want Libby to be burdened with him if he was going back to prison, so he told her that he no longer wanted to see her or even cared for her. Libby was devastated, but when Cheryl found a security tape that proved Darren’s innocence, he was released and immediately visited Libby to explain. They vowed to stick by each other, but it seemed that Cheryl and Karl weren’t so keen on the union, so the young couple made the decision to find a place of their own.
Only days later, as Darren realised that Libby couldn’t cope living in a bedsit during her VCE exams, he managed to patch things up with their parents. Poignantly, that same day, Cheryl was killed while trying to stop Lolly from wandering into the road. Darren was devastated, and went to see her body at the morgue, before taking his frustrations out on Karl, the man he viewed to be responsible for his mother’s death. As it emerged that Cheryl had been taking anti-depressants, which had reacted with the painkillers he had given her at the scene, it threatened Darren’s relationship with Libby, as well as his professional relationship with Mal, with whom he’d taken over the odd-job business, Handy Sam’s. Things were eased slightly when an enquiry revealed that Cheryl would have died anyway, as her injuries were so severe.
Meanwhile, the return of Lou Carpenter, in the wake of Cheryl’s death, put Darren at loggerheads with someone else. Darren was determined that Lou shouldn’t have control of the pub, as stipulated in the will, and tried to fight it. However, he eventually realised that all the arguing was doing no good, and, for the sake of Lolly, he agreed to try and get along with Lou, even moving into number 22 along with Marlene. Meanwhile, the business was also back on track when Lou offered Handy Sam’s the job of renovating the pub.
After several weeks of ups and downs, Libby and Darren’s relationship also seemed to be back on track, but that was all about to change when he offered to teach Catherine O’Brien to drive. After several arguments, including one where he left her in the middle of nowhere to get home on her own, they realised that it was less to do with a personality clash and more to do with a mutual attraction. Darren decided to pull out of the lessons and avoid Catherine at all costs, after a warning from Marlene. However, when Sarah decided she wanted a picture rail put up at number 30, Darren and Cath ended up in the house alone and gave in to their desires. Unfortunately, Marlene popped over at that moment with a message from Luke and Danni, and witnessed the whole thing. Although they heard the door closing, they didn’t know who had witnessed the kiss and a guilt-ridden Cath decided to cut her losses and confess to boyfriend, Mal. This revelation led to the end of both relationships, and a huge bust-up in the street between Darren and Mal. However, as Mal and Cath patched things up and left for Europe together, Darren fought to win Libby back.
In typical Darren style, he went in feet first and proposed marriage. Libby turned him down and told him she wouldn’t go back to him, leaving Darren devastated. With Handy Sam’s falling apart following the departure of Mal, Darren was delighted when Debbie offered him a job renovating the Coffee Shop for her. Darren also roped in his dodgy old mate, Wayne Peterson, who almost led Darren back to a life of crime. However, as dodgy Wayne began to romance Debbie and cause a great deal of trouble, Darren and Debbie got closer. With Wayne gone, Darren decided to make a move, which Debbie rejected. However, despite their history, she eventually decided to give him a go, as he insisted he was a reformed character. Their relationship was fraught with problems, not least when they tried to keep Helen entertained when she returned home after her stroke. When Libby then started getting close to Rohan Kendrick, Debbie got jealous, wondering if Darren was still interested in his ex. After a brief break up, they got back together, but quickly realised that they weren’t at all suited, and ended things for good.
When a group of Ramsay Street residents went out for dinner together, Libby and Darren ended up amongst those trapped in a lift together. When Darren climbed out the hatch in the top of the lift to try and see what was wrong, it suddenly started up again and the hatch slammed shut, with Darren about to be crushed as the lift neared the top of the shaft. Fortunately, Libby managed to rescue him and the incident made her realise that she still had strong feelings for him. Meanwhile, Libby had been neglecting her uni studies and was on the verge of failing the whole year. When Darren found out, he decided to talk to her parents about the problem – something that she deeply resented him for. Then, while putting up a banner on the side of the uni building, Libby slipped and was left hanging over the edge, before Darren rescued her. It seemed that fate had a way of always bringing the two of them together, when they most needed it.
After several more weeks of tiptoeing around each other, they were no closer to reuniting, so Darren made the surprise decision to leave town and head up to Byron Bay. However, just as he was on the bus, leaving town for good, she managed to chase it down and convince him that she loved him and wanted him to stay. For a few weeks, everything seemed fine for them. When Darren got work renovating an old house, he was less than happy to realise he’d be working for Martin Pike, an old flame of Libby’s. While working on the house, Libby and Darren began hearing mysterious noises and, convinced it was possums, Darren climbed up into the loft to take a look. However, he lost his footing and fell, landing hard on his back and leaving Libby worried that he might be paralysed. Fortunately, he was left with little more than a bruised ego.
When Martin’s sister, Sondra, took over the surveying of the renovation project, she quickly made it clear that she was interested in Darren. Though he made it clear he wasn’t interested, risking his job and livelihood in the process, he was hurt that Libby didn’t trust him more and they almost broke up once again. A few weeks later, Darren supported Libby when she messed up in her exams and decided to repeat a year. He also bought her a moped to make life easier when travelling to and from uni, though Karl was distinctly unimpressed with this mode of transport.
The next time that Darren was tempted, he didn’t do so well to resist, and it finally brought about the end of his and Libby’s relationship. When Toadie took along his new friend, Shannon, to the university ball, while Darren was there with Libby, he and Shannon both felt a little out of place. When Libby had to leave unexpectedly, Darren started chatting to Shannon and they shared a kiss. Though Darren owned up and Libby forgave him, she was shocked to witness a second kiss that had been videotaped by Caitlin for a school project. This time, she realised that despite Darren’s constant forgiveness, she couldn’t trust him and she called things off completely. With things apparently over with Libby, Darren decided once again to leave town. After a farewell dinner, he set off out of Erinsborough. By a huge coincidence, a days later Libby was on her way to Grandpa Tom’s to get over her heartbreak, when she stopped at a pub. She was shocked to find Darren there and, after a long chat about their relationship and their future, they finally said goodbye for good. Or did they?
Six years later, Darren returned to Erinsborough, where he took over Macauley’s electrician business. However, he didn’t get in touch with any of his old friends in Ramsay Street for several months. It wasn’t until the Kennedy family had problems with the wiring that he suddenly turned up at number 28, giving Libby a huge shock. It seemed that he had never gotten over Libby, and was determined to make something of his life before he tried to win her back. Libby seemed impressed with the way Darren interacted with Ben, and he explained that he knew all about her relationship with Drew, as Brett had kept him informed about everything.
Although it was obvious to everyone that they wanted to get back together, Darren and Libby both tiptoed around each other for several weeks. Darren tried to wind Libby up by pretending to go on dates with other women, while Libby met a man online and agreed to go out with him. However, when her date didn’t show up at the Coffee Shop as arranged, she was embarrassed when Darren turned up instead. As Darren chatted to her about her internet date, it wasn’t until later that she realised that she’d never told Darren who it was she was meeting. She caught Darren using the computer in the pub office and realised he’d been taking her for a ride all along. But Darren told her that he was only trying to prove to her that he’d changed, without any of their past problems prejudicing her opinion. Libby was delighted, and the pair soon picked up where they’d left off six years previously.
After a few dates had ended with Darren leaving Libby on her doorstep, she began to wonder when they were going to take things further. Darren had already spoken to Lou about the situation, who had advised him to take things much slower this time. After attending Max and Stephanie’s wedding together, they finally got the whole situation out in the open and slept together. Darren was thrilled to have won her back, but it seemed that Karl wasn’t delighted with the situation. He warned Darren not to ruin his daughter’s life all over again, but it seemed that Darren had truly changed, and wasn’t about to let anything, or anyone, spoil things.
Unfortunately, the decision was taken out of his hands, when he started working as an electrician on some of Jack Scully’s sites. Soon afterwards, corrupt police officer Olivia Mcpherson arranged with Jack to set up some robberies on the sites with her accomplices, in order to make back some money they’d used on drugs and partying. Because Darren had spent time in prison, Olivia’s partner, Stuart, immediately jumped to the conclusion that Darren was behind the robberies. This worked out well for Olivia, who allowed the investigation to continue. Libby was suddenly left confused, but Darren assured her that he was innocent, and she seemed to accept this. However, when Libby then turned up on the site, apparently innocently, Darren realised that she was checking up on him. He told her that the trust between them would never return completely. He then announced that he would be selling his business and leaving town. He told Lou of his plans, and revealed that he’d been planning to propose to Libby. When Libby found out that he’d be selling to Karen Buckley, a teacher at the school, she rushed there to stop the deal, but was too late. She begged Darren to stay, but he told her that he couldn’t. Libby was left devastated, and, as he left town, Darren made one last call to her, before leaving the ring in the telephone box and saying goodbye to Erinsborough once more.
After setting up a new life in Shepparton, Darren found that he still loved Libby and was finding it hard to live without her. After he sent her some flowers, she called him and he asked her and Ben to come and live with him. Libby decided that it was worth the risk and packed up and left Erinsborough for a new start with the love of her life.
In November 2007 Libby returned to help her mother go through her health problems but it also turned out she was going through problems of her own. Darren had cheated on her with another woman, Libby soon forgave him, but not for long, a few nights later, Darren and Janae Timmins (Eliza Taylor-Cotter) found themselves alone in a garage and because Janae was having some relationship problems of her own with Ned Parker (Daniel O'Connor, resulted in them kissing each other, and being spotted by the mother of Ned's child, Mickey Gannon (Fletcher O'Leary), Kirsten Gannon. Janae told Ned, but Darren hid it from Libby, until Janae accidentally admitted it aloud when music at a barbecue got turned off, Darren told Libby and they broke up. and after saying a teary goodbye to Libby, Lou, Harold, and Ben Kirk (now played by Blake O'Leary, brother of Flethcher O'Leary), he left Erinsborough for a third time and returned to Shepparton.
[edit] Family Tree
- Hector Kratz (grandfather) (deceased), married to Marlene Kratz (grandmother)
- Cheryl Kratz (mother) (deceased), married to Maurie Stark (father) (deceased), had relationships with Lou Carpenter and John Allen
- Janine Stark (sister)
- Darren Stark
- Danni Stark (sister)
- Brett Stark (brother)
- Louise Carpenter (half-sister)
- Patrick Kratz (uncle), married to Sarah Kratz
- Sam Kratz (cousin), married to Annalise Hartman
- Cheryl Kratz (mother) (deceased), married to Maurie Stark (father) (deceased), had relationships with Lou Carpenter and John Allen
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