Obituary: Sheila Kennelly

Sheila Kennelly, best known from Number 96, Kingswood Country and Home And Away, has died.

English-born in the 1930s, she came to Australia with her family when very young. She admitted that she only took up acting by chance. She’d agreed to accompany a friend to acting classes at the Independent Theatre in Sydney and got hooked. One of her first roles, at 17, was as a 55-year-old German landlady in I Am A Camera. “It was only a small role, but I thought it was marvellous,” she told TV Week in 1973.

She made her first TV appearance in the ABC play Rape Of The Belt, and continued performing in the theatre. It was touring in View From A Bridge that she met her future husband, actor Chris Christensen. After they married, they relocated from Sydney to live on a farm on the New South Wales Central Coast, commuting back to Sydney as required for acting work.

Christensen died from a heart attack only two-and-a-half years after they were married. Kennelly, admittedly a city girl when growing up, had become attached to country life and decided to keep the farm, a lifestyle she kept for the rest of her life. She continued to appear in theatre and music hall productions and early TV credits included You Can’t See Round Corners, Woobinda Animal Doctor, Division 4 and ABC mini-series Pastures Of The Blue Crane.

Her defining TV role came in 1972 when she took on the part of barmaid Norma Whittaker in Number 96. Norma was a messy character and constantly suffering at the antics of her amateur inventor and do-it-yourself fanatic husband, Les (Gordon MacDougall). But with her trademark blonde wig, she kept a cheery presence running Norma’s Bar, addressing everyone as “ducky”. Despite the popularity of Norma, it was one that Kennelly did not personally identify with. “I know she’s so practical and happy but she’s also so darn messy,” she said. “I like the character but she’s really not me.”

Although Les was killed off in the show’s bomb-blast in 1975, Kennelly stayed with Number 96 through to its final year and returned for the last episode and curtain call in 1977. She also reprised the character of Norma Whittaker in the Number 96 movie.

She went on to star in telemovies All At Sea and Puzzle, made guest appearances in Glenview High, Doctor Down Under and Daily At Dawn and featured in the short-lived children’s series Carrots.

She played Cecilia Cribbins in ABC series Secret Valley and starred in Kingswood Country as Rosa Bertolucci.

In 1988 she was one of the founding cast members of the Seven Network series Home And Away, playing the character Floss McPhee. The character was written out in the show’s second year but Kennelly would continue to return in later guest appearances, the last in 2008.

Other TV credits included Return To Eden, Anzacs, A Country Practice, Sweet And Sour, Winners, The Flying Doctors, How Wonderful!, Come In Spinner and Big Sky.

Source: Andrew Mercado, IMDB, Ausstage. TV Times, 16 December 1972, 19 March 1977. TV Week, 8 September 1973, 29 October 1988.