Wendy Blacklock

Wendy Blacklock AM (born January 1932)^[1] is an Australia-born retired theatre, radio and television actress, comedienne, producer, writer, singer and choreographer and theatre entrepreneur, who has appeared in numerous radio and stage roles, both locally and in the United Kingdom, and has been referred to as "The Grand Dame of the Stage".

Blacklock, remains best known for her comic role in the TV soap opera Number 96 as Edie McDonald.

Biography[]

Blacklock was born in January 1932^[1]in Sydney, New South Wales to Robert Blacklock and Lillian Ava Miller^[2]

Blacklock is a noted comedienne, she also toured England and worked in TV, appearing with luminaries such as Benny Hill and Bernard Bresslaw.^[3]

She has worked alongside numerous performers including comedian Barry Humphries and is a theatrical entrepreneur, who founded the Australian Content Department, "Performing Lines", that she ran for 21 years, part of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, to coach, produce and showcase new productions and artist's for the stage, and her theatre museum, features several alumni of entertainers and performers including Graham Kennedy, Jill Perryman, Gordon Chater an her Number 96 co-star Carol Raye^[4]

Blacklock, although initially reluctant to go into a TV series, became famous for her long-running role in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96 of comedy character dizzy Edith "Edie" MacDonald, at the time the series was the highest rated drama in Australia, and she joined the series in January 1974, alongside Mike Dorsey as her regimented husband Reg McDonald, who referred to her character as "Mother" and by daughter Marilyn, played by Frances Hargreaves, who in turn referred to her as "Mummy" :

Edie, was a typical ditzy suburban housewife with a fondness for gin, daytime soap operas and analgesics,^[4] the character became such popular and enduring comedy elements, there had been plans for a spin-off series in late 1976 based on "Edie and Reg" called "Mummy and Me", the series was however not picked up by a Network, and she and Dorsey remained in Number 96, until it finished in August 1977, and she indeed spoke the final dialogue in the final episode.

Although the characters of Reg and Edie where enormously popular, much to the disappointment of fans, they never appeared in the feature film version^[5]

Umbrella Entertainment, released several DVDs of the series, showcasing several of the more iconic episodes and storylines, in which Blacklock, creator and screenwriter David Sale and co-stars Sheila Kennelly, Elaine Lee and Deborah Gray, recorded a commentary.

Blacklock's acting career began on the stage and from 1953 she spent two years in England acting in repertory theatre. She returned to Australia and had a solid career in the theatre which included stage tours of Australia and New Zealand; she was also a regular cast member of the satirical revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1960s. Prior to the role in Number 96 she had played in theatrical productions of Don's Party and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and since the late 1970s, post-Number 96 until retiring in 2001, her career has been exclusively related to theatre, including a tour of stage version of British TV series George and Mildred as an actress and theatre company entrepreneur.^[6]

Although a staple of theatre, she appeared in numerous TV roles, including guest parts in police procedural series Homicide and Boney and had been a presenter on children's show Play School and had a role on Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, she also took part opposite fellow comedian Spike Milligan in a special when he toured Australia, and took the title role in the TV musical Pardon Miss Westcott.^[7] and during 1977 occasionally featured as a panellist on the game show Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks

Honours[]

Awards[]

Screen roles and appearances[]

Theatre[]

Source = AusStage For further information: see Wendy Blacklock Theatre

References[]

External links[]

• Wendy Blacklock at IMDb
• Blacklock, Wendy (1932 - ) in The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia