| Lucinda Croft | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home and Away character | |||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Dee Smart | ||||||||||||||||
| Duration | 1991–1992 | ||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | 13 June 1991 | ||||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | 16 September 1992 | ||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Former, regular | ||||||||||||||||
| Introduced by | Des Monaghan | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Lucinda Claire "Lou" Croft is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Dee Smart. The character made her first screen appearance on 13 June 1991. Smart successfully auditioned for the role in her final year of drama studies and began filming in April 1991. Lucinda is characterised as a "tomboy" who rides a motorbike and has a self-assured persona. Lucinda arrives in Summer Bay to live with her uncle, Donald Fisher (Norman Coburn). Writers soon introduced her estranged brother David Croft (Guy Pearce) and set up a romance with Nick Parrish (Bruce Roberts).
Their romance was developed into a love triangle when Lucinda's ex-boyfriend Ryan Lee (Alistair MacDougall) arrived. He begins a campaign of manipulation to snare Lucinda from Nick. The story gained notoriety in Australia as Smart was verbally abused in the street by viewers and MacDougall feared for his safety. After only eight months in the role, Smart gave an interview to Australian television magazine TV Week. She criticised the show so much that producers retaliated by publicly terminating her Home and Away contract in a later interview printed in the magazine. Lucinda's final storyline portrayed her leaving both Nick and Ryan to reside in Perth.