Lorraine Bayly, best known from Play School and wartime drama The Sullivans, has died age 89.
The daughter of a policeman who was also an amateur magician, she had early showbusiness aspirations from a young age: “At the age of six I began writing little plays, cast myself in the leads, and put them on in the garage or backyard. I charged a penny admission for the plays and gave the money to my mother. She then made cakes for which I’d charge another penny!,” she told TV Times in 1970.
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A foundation member of Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, she performed on stage from the late 1950s and made her first TV appearances in the 1960s. Early TV credits included starring in two ABC series — Be Our Guest and The Interpretaris. She also featured in children’s show Owly’s School and on Sunday mornings presented an exercise program, Slim As You Clean — both shows for TEN10, Sydney.
She made guest appearances in dramas Homicide, Hunter, Division 4, Spyforce, The Rovers and The Link Men and became a well-known face in a series of commercials for Bushells tea.
In the late 1960s she began as a long-running presenter on ABC’s Play School. “I really enjoy entertaining the kiddies on this show,” she said in 1970. “There’s none of this talking down to children which ones finds in certain other kids’ programs. You have to talk to the kiddies like people.”
Further guest appearances followed in Silent Number and the short-lived Case For The Defence, though she had to give up her role in Play School when she took on the iconic role of Grace Sullivan in the World War II drama The Sullivans in 1976.
The Sullivans was a success in Australia, where Bayly won two TV Week Logies and two Sammys, and sold well overseas. She left the series in 1979 in one of the show’s most dramatic storylines, with Grace killed in a bomb attack in London. “When I agreed to the role, we all expected the show to run for 13 weeks. But now, three years later, there seems to be no end in sight. I can’t go in indefinitely as Grace Sullivan. What I need after three years is the challenge of creating new characters,” she told TV Week after leaving the series.
She was honoured in an episode of This Is Your Life in 1979 and was a panellist on the inventors program, What’ll They Think Of Next.
She featured in the ABC mini-series 1915 in 1982, then took on the lead role of barrister Jennifer Carson in the Network Ten drama Carson’s Law, set in Melbourne in the 1920s. The series ran for two years. She went on to star in mini-series The Challenge, as Eileen Bond, and the murder mystery Grim Pickings.
She joined the cast of Neighbours in 1991, playing the part of Faye Hudson, and made guest appearances in GP (pictured), A Country Practice, Pizza and played Lindy Chamberlain’s mother in the 2004 mini-series Through My Eyes.
Movie credits included the Disney film Ride A Wild Pony, filmed in Australia, and later Fatty Finn and The Man From Snowy River. Over six decades in the theatre included titles The Drunkard, Chase Me Comrade, The Daughter-In-Law, The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, Lipstick Dreams, Dear Liar, Death Of A Salesman, Calendar Girls and as Frau Schmidt in a 2015-16 production of The Sound Of Music.
She was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2001 for service to the community and charitable organisations through the entertainment industry.
Source: TV Tonight, IMDB, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ausstage. Sun-Herald, 29 June 1969, 5 December 1976. TV Times, 2 September 1970, 20 April 1974. TV Week, 8 March 1980, 22 March 1980, 11 October 1986.
