Joy Chambers, actor, author and wife of the late Reg Grundy, has died at age 76.
Named as the inaugural Miss Surf Girl by the Queensland Surf Life Saving Club in 1965, she was doing modelling work when she auditioned for a panellist role for Brisbane-based game show I’ve Got A Secret. She caught the eye of Grundy, the show’s producer, and stayed with the show for its entire run of almost ten years. She won Logies for Most Popular Female Personality In Queensland in 1969 and 1970.
She and Grundy formed a relationship, and were married in 1971.
Chambers went on to appear in a number of Grundy programs in the years that followed, but insisted that she be auditioned as any cast member and not given favourable treatment. She appeared in Everybody’s Talking, hosted by Philip Brady, and was one of the ensemble in the charades game show The Celebrity Game in 1976-77. She starred in the 1977 telemovie All At Sea and appeared as a panellist on Blankety Blanks.
She went on to play the scheming Rita Merrick, a brothel madam in The Restless Years, before a short stint in The Young Doctors.
In 1986 she made a guest appearance in Neighbours as Rosemary Daniels, businesswoman and step-daughter to Helen Daniels (Anne Haddy). It was a role that was to continue on a recurring basis until as recently as 2010.
Living with Grundy in Bermuda, Chambers became a key partner in his production empire and was elected to the board of Grundy Worldwide in 1985. After selling up in 1995, the couple launched media investment company RG Capital Holdings Ltd, and Chambers pursued a writing career, releasing a number of historical novels.
The couple did not have any children and Grundy died in 2016.
Source: Seven News. Reg Grundy, Reg Grundy, 2010. Super Aussie Soaps, Andrew Mercado, 2004. TV Times, 22 July 1970, 24 August 1976. Joy Chambers.
