of girl most parents would be horrified to have their daughters associating with". Tkautz soon became one of the show's main stars due to the popularity of her character. During this time, she attended the Australian Academy of Dramatic Art in Sydney, graduating in 1991. During that year she appeared on numerous Australian editions of magazine covers including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, TV Week, Smash Hits and Dolly. In 1991 readers of TV Hits voted her as the Hottest Woman on Earth. Tkautz also had a supporting role in the mini-series, The Girl from Tomorrow (1992). Due to her popularity, the producers of E Street decided to have Tkautz record a song, which would be used in the show as part of a dream sequence, where her character imagines she is a pop star. This resulted in a recording career for Tkautz, she later recalled "I loved singing and I had trained as a singer, but everything happened so quickly, it was just a crazy whirlwind. One minute I'm watching E Street in my lounge room, the next minute I’m starring in E Street and I've got a number one single in the charts". However, in November 1991, due to the pressures of juggling two full-time careers, and a conflict with the producer, Forrest Redlich, Tkautz left E Street to concentrate on her music career. At the TV Week-sponsored Logie Awards she was nominated for Most Popular New Talent in 1992. By November 1992 Tkautz had returned to E Street. However, the network decided to axe the series in May 1993. In 1993 and 1994, Tkautz appeared on Paradise Beach, playing Vanessa Campbell, the manipulative ex-girlfriend of Sean Hayden (played by Ingo Rademacher). Tkautz described her character "[s]he's a bit of a psycho, a real bitch ... She is nothing like Nicki in E Street. This one's a real troublemaker". In 1995, she had a role in Echo Point. In 1996, Tkautz joined the series Pacific Drive, where she played a model, Bethany Daniels. This role had a major effect on Tkautz, who played the first long-term HIV positive character on Australian TV. She described how "I did a lot of research on the role and a lot of charity work with HIV [patients], especially young kids who had contracted the disease". The series later gained a cult following. When Pacific Drive was cancelled in 1998, Tkautz joined the cast of Medivac