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Noeline Brown is sometimes known as the ‘ad lib queen’. The comic actress was one of the first celebrity actors of Australian television, as a member of the cast of The Mavis Bramston Show. Australian television satire was born in this variety program, but Brown recalls that at the time she strongly believed that the show would not succeed. Its biting critique of ‘tall poppies’ and advertising itself, she thought, would be the kiss of death. In spite of this, Noeline loved the original Mavis joke, and the idea of playing a bad actress from England who would be sent home, was pure joy. In addition to her comic and personality roles on television, Brown cut her acting teeth in the New Theatre Review, appeared in musical theatre in lead roles, and played in some significant dramatic roles, including The Fourth Wish, opposite John Meillon.
It was at the Neutral Bay Music Hall that Channel 7 producer Carol Raye spotted Barry Creyton, who she invited to perform in a pilot for a new television show that became The Mavis Bramston Show. At a party with Creyton, and some of the others who were to be in the show, Noeline found herself saying yes when someone suggested she play the eponymous Mavis. With minimal television experience Brown managed to sing and dance as the gormless English actress. Her rendition of the popular song ‘I could have danced all night’ with orchestral accompaniment was hilarious, and so began Noeline’s extraordinary career in comedy on television. Brown has been called ‘the Queen of Comedy’ and when she appeared in another hit situation comedy, My Name's McGooley - What's Yours?, she would put on a wig as a disguise to go outside, and still people in the street would shout out ‘Hello Possum’.
Brown left Mavis when the producers began to feature English artists in spite of the original joke of the show, joining the cast of My Name’s McGooley. The script was written by one of Brown’s favourite writers, Ralph Peterson, who had performed in the wireless drama of her childhood, Yes, What? There was no audition required and it was a hit comedy in which Brown played Wally Still’s sister Rita. Wally was played by John Meillon and Ralph Peterson played the magnificent McGooley. The show ran to 115 episodes over three years. Spike Milligan made a special appearance in one episode during a visit to Australia, playing a pest inspector who checked Rita out in case of a white ant infestation. Brown never looked back after her success in this pioneering situation comedy about a working-class family.
It was at the Neutral Bay Music Hall that Channel 7 producer Carol Raye spotted Barry Creyton, who she invited to perform in a pilot for a new television show that became The Mavis Bramston Show. At a party with Creyton, and some of the others who were to be in the show, Noeline found herself saying yes when someone suggested she play the eponymous Mavis. With minimal television experience Brown managed to sing and dance as the gormless English actress. Her rendition of the popular song ‘I could have danced all night’ with orchestral accompaniment was hilarious, and so began Noeline’s extraordinary career in comedy on television. Brown has been called ‘the Queen of Comedy’ and when she appeared in another hit situation comedy, My Name’s McGooley, What’s Yours?, she would put on a wig as a disguise to go outside, and still people in the street would shout out ‘Hello Possum’.
Brown left Mavis when the producers began to feature English artists in spite of the original joke of the show, joining the cast of My Name’s McGooley. The script was written by one of Brown’s favourite writers, Ralph Peterson, who had performed in the wireless drama of her childhood, Yes, What? There was no audition required and it was a hit comedy in which Brown played Wally Still’s sister Rita. Wally was played by John Meillon and Gordon Chater played the magnificent McGooley. The show ran to 115 episodes over three years. Spike Milligan made a special appearance in one episode during a visit to Australia, playing a pest inspector who checked Rita out in case of a white ant infestation. Brown never looked back after her success in this pioneering situation comedy about a working-class family.
Noeline Brown is an actress and singer who learned on the job. She had no formal training in a studio or drama school, and received little mentoring. The only daughter of Leo and Dyra (nee Pooley) as a young child, the young Noeline was shy; however, at the age of ten she wrote a play that was selected at her primary school for production: she also cast herself in the play in a supporting role, and was profoundly annoyed that the lead actress arrived at school in a sparkling new dress, with her hair elaborately curled, when the character was supposed to be poor and dirty. Brown’s unusually deep voice even as an infant drew many anxious comments from adults but did not worry Noeline who inherited her father’s teasing, witty sense of humour and quiet confidence. Brown grew up in Stanmore, and recalls the excitement of taking the bus from her home to Grace Brothers department store in Broadway, to see plays for children and Tivoli-style shows performed especially for them. She loved to sing and her mother offered to get her a piano: ‘I’d rather have a banjo’, said the young and forthright Noeline, who ended up with neither instrument. When she was in her last year of primary school at Stanmore Public School, Noeline’s mother became seriously ill. No-one spoke of what it was that was making her normally active mother so lethargic. At the movies with her two brothers and their friends one day, Noeline listened with astonishment to a public service announcement about how to recognise the symptoms of tuberculosis. She rushed home to tell her father that she knew what disease gripped her mother. Her father swore at her for the first time in her life and warned her not to speak of such things. But he took a year off work at the post office to care for his wife who slept in the front room and did not leave the house until she made a full recovery, and he never allowed the burden of this situation to fall on Noeline or her two brothers. Dyra was delighted when Noeline was accepted at Fort Street Girls High School, imagining a bright future for her talented and able daughter, but Noeline was disengaged and clashed with some of the teachers who she remembers were ‘Victorian era dragons’. Unhappy at Fort Street, Noeline continued her high school education at Stanmore Home Science School and recalls being much more comfortable as a ‘big fish in a small pond’
Noeline's first dance, aged 8, 1946
'As Miss Marrickville Olympics, it was Noeline’s job to raise money for local competitors in the Games.'
When she left school Noeline took a job at the Marrickville Library. It was a pleasant and stimulating place to work. The librarian in charge encouraged Noeline to read, recommending Hemingway, Steinberg, and Vladimir Nabokov. She spent her evenings at Phillip Street Theatre marvelling at the satirical revue performances of Bud Tingwell, Ruth Cracknell , Lyle O’Hara and others. Back at the library the next day Brown would re-enact the shows for her colleagues. In 1956, as Australia was preparing to host the Olympic Games Noeline was presented with a sash and a title at a local Council meeting. As Miss Marrickville Olympics, it was Noeline’s job to raise money for local competitors in the Games. A friend implored her to come along to the New Theatre where she saw Frank Hardy performing in his own play about a mining crisis, Black Diamonds. Impressed with the play, Noeline joined the New Theatre immediately and began rehearsing for a satirical revue called Fission Chips, in which the cast attempted to create a vision of a world after nuclear annihilation, with Noeline shivering in a skimpy and shabby fur bikini on stage at the Waterside Workers Federation Hall. Within a short time, Noeline performed with Frank Hardy in a production of Douglas Stewart's The Fire on the Snow: Brown narrated and Hardy played Oates.
Noeline auditioned for another amateur theatre group at the Pocket Playhouse in Sydenham, and appeared in The Sleeping Prince, at the tiny theatre that had once been a Rechabite Hall. She wore a dress made by her mother and played the lead role of Mary Morgan. The reviews were extremely encouraging, with Brown singled out for high praise. Vivien Leigh, for whom the role had been written by Terence Rattigan, came to the tiny theatre to see the play during her visit to Sydney to the delight of the amateur cast. Brown also appeared in the American musical comedy My Sister Eileen. Although Noeline wanted to play the sister with all the smart lines (based on the writer of the work, Ruth McKenney) she enjoyed the production and learned her first hard lesson: that frequently actors often are not cast in the role they want, and must make the best job of the role assigned by the director. At the Pocket Playhouse, Noeline enjoyed performing for children and mixing with them before the show began so that they would not be too frightened to come up on the stage during the performances.
Music Hall and Mavis Bramston
In 1962 Noeline seized an opportunity to audition for the Phillip Street Theatre in the city and was offered a role in What's New? staged at the new premises in Elizabeth Street. It was an important break and gave her a taste of professional, popular intimate revue theatre, allowing her to give up her library job. Noeline met the tall, elegant Barry Creyton in this production and then joined him in The Face at the Window at the Neutral Bay Music Hall. During the day, the two of them appeared in Beauty and the Beast for children at the same theatre. Noeline’s large eyes, strong facial features and energy on stage delighted the children. The two performers became close friends and worked well together, sharing a sense of humour and dry wit. Noeline particularly enjoyed his capacity to take teasing: ‘You can send Barry up gutless’, she told me with a laugh, as she recalled their long friendship. Together they wrote and recorded the first comedy spoken word LP ever produced by Festival Records in Australia called The Front and Flipside of Barry Creyton and Noeline Brown which was a popular success in spite of being banned on radio because of some of the mildly suggestive material it offered.
In addition to Mavis, Brown appeared in the Australian television play The Right Thing by Raymond Bowers in 1963, the ABC’s television play adaptation of The Recruiting Officer in 1965 with John Meillon, and in other television drama, as well as on the popular talk shows, Beauty and the Beast and Would You Believe. The latter quiz show focused on Australian history of the colonial period and Noeline revelled in it, alongside Jacki Weaver, Cyril Pearl, Len Evans, Michael Baume and her old friend from the New Theatre, the author, playwright and actor Frank Hardy. After the recording one night at the 729 Club in St Leonards (named for the three local television stations nearby), Noeline was approached by an ASIO agent who seemed to be looking to recruit her to keep tabs on the author Frank Hardy who they suspected of spying. The suspicions of left wing writers shocked Brown and she declined to be of service to the security operatives.
What's New? Starring Noeline Brown, Phillip Theatre, Sydney 1962
It’s Time and the Naked Vicar
Noeline continued to work in the theatre occasionally, appearing in Buzo’s Rooted (1972) and Williamson’s Don's Party. Cast against type, Noeline played the dowdy Jenny, with Martin Harris as Don, the teacher and would-be writer. Remembering the privations of a long tour of the play, she urges other actors never to go on long tours with a large cast. In the 1973-4 tour of Don’s Party a couple of the actresses were arrested, one actor went AWOL, and two of the other actors came to blows out of the sheer torture of close quarters in shabby accommodation, and the lack of home-cooked food.
Brown has always been a staunch Australian Labor Party supporter, participating in campaigns in various electorates. With pride, she recalled for me sitting next to Gough Whitlam for the opening of the Whitlam election campaign, and being in the audience for the recording of the It’s Time campaign advertisement in October 1972, performed at the Capitol Theatre by Alison McCallum; the video of the It’s Time live recording is now a prized record of this historic event. At the time though, Noeline’s appearance in the advertisement sitting next to Whitlam, ensured that Noeline was black-banned by the Packer network.
Brown’s appearance in Don's Party marked the beginning of a long period working on the stage. She appeared in Cowardy Custard (1974), Three Men on a Horse (1974), Hotel Paradiso (1974) and The Naked Vicar Show (1976). Gary Reilly and Tony Sattler (known as RS Productions) wrote the scripts for The Naked Vicar Show, which was performed by Noeline Brown, Ross Higgins and Kev Goldsby for a live audience in the ABC Forbes Street Studio, and broadcast on Sundays. It was also a popular stage show. The halcyon days of radio and live audiences of an earlier era revived with this popular sketch show. Channel 7 later adapted the show for television with Noeline playing in a regular sketch with Julie McGregor: two women meet at the tea trolley in a factory every day and Narelle (played by Julie) tells an extravagant, story about her adventures the night before. Noeline’s character, Lois, listens to her improbable tales and fanciful commentary about social club evenings, known as ‘Tia Maria and chop tasting’ parties, and when Narelle eventually asks Lois about her husband Kevin who she learns has ‘fallen into young Lyle’s pirana tank’ Julie says: ‘Oh that’s bad Lois’. Regardless of their conversation Lois replies ‘You’re not wrong, Narelle’. The droll expression became a familiar expression amongst ordinary Australians in conversation, and is sometimes still heard today. In 1978 Noeline Brown won a Logie Award for the most popular NSW-based female personality on television.
Brown continued to work mainly in comedy, enjoying it because of the pleasure it brought audiences. In spite of her reputation as a comic actor, Brown has appeared in numerous dramatic roles, including playing the mother of a terminally ill child in The Fourth Wish, a three-part television drama written by Michael Craig, who was both an actor and a writer. John Meillon played the father in this compelling and significant Australian television drama. Noeline has always recognised the hard work that comedy entails and is not sentimental about the discipline and commitment required. Brown has also been frequently cast in the hard-bitten, earthy, roles of the sexually experienced woman. Her deep, husky voice accounts for this and she did not allow these casting choices to worry her, although she turned down many roles that required nudity in the 1970s. One reviewer described her early on in her career in the music hall days when she played a saloon keeper, as ‘blonde, bawdy, brazen, bouncing … biting, bosomy and boisterously bedworthy’. Brown’s voice has been an important element of her success and its distinctive register has allowed her to create some extraordinary roles, particularly as her career progressed. Brown played Fay Fondle in the ‘space opera’ Chuck Chunder that ran for 200 episodes on Radio 2JJ, and brought her a considerable following.
In the footsteps of Bette Davis
With her distinctive low, sultry voice as a rare asset, Noeline’s voice is not unlike some of the great actresses of Hollywood such as Katharine Hepburn and Tallulah Bankhead. Overcoming her anxiety about the inflexibility of her voice however, is one of Brown’s most significant achievements. Invited to audition for the stage musical, Applause, Brown found herself in a crisis of self-sabotage. She appeared at the audition in old clothes, wind battered, having driven to the venue in a mini-moke with the roof down, to find every other Sydney actor ready and primed to audition for the iconic lead role. Brown proceeded to tell the director that she couldn’t possibly perform this role. Later, when he and the musical director began to try to talk her into it, and allowed her to choose the male lead (she suggested Alan Dale) she relaxed, and made the decision to take intensive singing lessons with Peter Casey, in preparation for the role.
Playing in Applause was important for Brown who sang with a 27-piece orchestra, creating the role of Margo Channing, an actor who is jealous of an up and coming rival. Applause starred Lauren Bacall on Broadway in 1970. It was based on the hugely successful film All About Eve (1950) with Bette Davis playing Channing. The drama became a musical called Applause and represented a major challenge and opportunity for Noeline Brown. She had never starred in a full-scale musical, and understood that the role was iconic. At the time, Brown explained that she could relate to the imaginary Channing character as a woman of her own age, with a similar level of experience in the ‘business’. The difference was that Brown felt she was less ambitious than her stage character. After she married the script writer Tony Sattler in 1975, Noeline retreated from the limelight for a few years, enjoying evenings with her husband rather than chasing the disrupted life of an actor. Playing Margo Channing was challenging, and Brown recalls that the set, particularly in the opening scene was unattractive and awkward to negotiate. The costumes seemed ill suited to her shape and there were horrific sound problems on the opening night. But once the cast ‘settled in, it was a joy’ recalls Brown, and she found that she could sing and carry off the role of lead in a full-scale musical.
Game Show Queen
Brown’s candour in talk and game shows have made her a favourite amongst television audiences. Her quick wit guaranteed her popularity on Blankey Blanks hosted by the ‘King’ of comedy, Graham Kennedy. The style of comic repartee required by the format, appeared to be second nature to Brown, who told me that did not find it difficult, in contrast to the demands of stage comedy, that relies on so much disciplined rehearsal and collaborative cohesion. She told me that performing on the game show Blankety Blanks was the ‘easiest job I ever had in my life’. Brown was a regular guest of Graham Kennedy on Blankety Blanks because of her reliable, sometimes gutsy comic contributions, and earthy style. During the course of this popular game show, Brown became one of Kennedy's few close friends.
Double Act
Brown returned to the stage after her appearance in Applause, appearing in Creyton’s Double Act in 1987, The Shifting Heart (1984), Barmaids (1993) and Emerald City (1995). Double Act was written by Creyton especially for he and Noeline, because he knew they worked well together in comedy. The sustained allusions to Noel Coward provide a comic sub-text in this play about two unusual people whose marriage has ended. It is a difficult two-hander however, because the two characters are frequently addressing an invisible person, the comedy demands complete and frequent solo concentration as well as some creative stage business. For example, the play opens five years after the couple’s divorce, as they meet at a restaurant. Alexandra’s bra strap breaks and her ex-husband assists her with fixing it. Noeline recalls having to work at this because it is not farce and requires a kind of dual choreography of movement to make it work, as husband number two approaches during the manoeuvre. The play explores what actually happened in the marriage, and Creyton drew on colourful, sometimes cutting expressions he had heard Brown use over the years in the script. It was not an easy rehearsal period in spite of the long friendship between Creyton and Brown, and Brown recalls the guiding hand of Sandra Bates as vital throughout. Brown recalls her feeling of exhilaration as she waited to make her entrance in the wings of the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney, as the rousing ‘March of the Gladiators’ music set the mood of combat between the characters. Even at the morning matinee, Brown felt a joyous surge of energy, as she and Creyton took their positions. It was enormously gratifying for her as a performer.
The premiere production of Double Act was an immense success and Creyton’s play went on to be produced all over the world and translated into many languages. Creyton and Brown also appeared in Glorious by Peter Quilter in 2007, once again in premiere at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney. This play portrays the singer Florence Foster Jenkins. Brown once again took singing lessons in order to play the out of tune singer. John Cargher advised her not to take the role, warning that she would ruin her voice. But Brown succeeded in singing soprano in this extraordinary play. In 2009 Brown and Creyton performed in a two-hander called Duets in which they played four characters each. Most recently Brown appeared in a stage adaptation of the 1980s television series, Mother and Son, with Darren Gilshenan as the stay at home son, and Rob Carlton in the role of the other son.
Brown has worked with her husband Tony Sattler in their own production company, continues to appear on stage, and twice ran for state parliament as an ALP candidate in her southern highlands electorate. She has published two books and is a committed historian of her paternal family and their convict past. Brown competed in Dancing with the Stars in 2006, and in 2008 she was appointed as the first Ambassador for Ageing in Australia. At 78, this Australian queen of comedy walks briskly, and is unsparing in her comic teasing and witty retorts in conversation. Her baritone voice is unchanged with age, and her rich laughter is music to the ears.
Brown has worked with her husband Tony Sattler in their own production company, continues to appear on stage, and twice ran for state parliament as an ALP candidate in her southern highlands electorate. She has published two books and is a committed historian of her paternal family and their convict past. Brown competed in Dancing with the Stars in 2006, and in 2008 she was appointed as the first Ambassador for Ageing in Australia. At 78, this Australian queen of comedy walks briskly, and is unsparing in her comic teasing and witty retorts in conversation. Her baritone voice is unchanged with age, and her rich laughter is music to the ears.
Footnotes
(1) Noeline Brown, Longterm Memoir (Sydney: Allen & Unwin 2005) 45.
(2) Brown quoted in Woman’s World 25 March 1981.
Image Credits
Header image: Noeline making up for Bell, Book and Candle at the Pocket Playhouse, Sydenham, Sydney, 1963. Courtesy of Noeline Brown.
Image one: Noeline's first dance, aged 8, 1946. Courtesy of Noeline Brown.
Image two: What's New? Starring Noeline Brown, Phillip Theatre, Sydney 1962.
Image three: Noeline (right) with Fernande Glyn in How the West was Lost by Barry Creyton at the Neutral Bay Music Hall. Courtesy Christine Little.
‘Big Fish’: Vivien Leigh Comes to Sydenham
Noeline Brown is an actress and singer who learned on the job. She had no formal training in a studio or drama school, and received little mentoring. The only daughter of Leo and Dyra (nee Pooley) as a young child, the young Noeline was shy; however, at the age of ten she wrote a play that was selected at her primary school for production: she also cast herself in the play in a supporting role, and was profoundly annoyed that the lead actress arrived at school in a sparkling new dress, with her hair elaborately curled, when the character was supposed to be poor and dirty. Brown’s unusually deep voice even as an infant drew many anxious comments from adults but did not worry Noeline who inherited her father’s teasing, witty sense of humour and quiet confidence. Brown grew up in Stanmore, and recalls the excitement of taking the bus from her home to Grace Brothers department store in Broadway, to see plays for children and Tivoli-style shows performed especially for them. She loved to sing and her mother offered to get her a piano: ‘I’d rather have a banjo’, said the young and forthright Noeline, who ended up with neither instrument. When she was in her last year of primary school at Stanmore Public School, Noeline’s mother became seriously ill. No-one spoke of what it was that was making her normally active mother so lethargic. At the movies with her two brothers and their friends one day, Noeline listened with astonishment to a public service announcement about how to recognise the symptoms of tuberculosis. She rushed home to tell her father that she knew what disease gripped her mother. Her father swore at her for the first time in her life and warned her not to speak of such things. But he took a year off work at the post office to care for his wife who slept in the front room and did not leave the house until she made a full recovery, and he never allowed the burden of this situation to fall on Noeline or her two brothers. Dyra was delighted when Noeline was accepted at Fort Street Girls High School, imagining a bright future for her talented and able daughter, but Noeline was disengaged and clashed with some of the teachers who she remembers were ‘Victorian era dragons’. Unhappy at Fort Street, Noeline continued her high school education at Stanmore Home Science School and recalls being much more comfortable as a ‘big fish in a small pond’