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Mary Ward Breheny is a Actor Australienne born on 6 march 1916 at Fremantle (Australie)

Mary Ward Breheny

Mary Ward Breheny
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Birth name Mary Ward Breheny
Nationality Australie
Birth 6 march 1916 (108 years) at Fremantle (Australie)

Mary Ward Breheny (born 6 March 1916), credited as Mary Ward, is an Australian actress, with a career spanning the latter half of the 20th century in radio, stage, television and film. Trained in Australia and England, Ward became one of the first female radio announcers at the ABC in Australia. She is perhaps best known for two notable roles in Australian television: garden loving inmate Jeanette "Mum" Brooks in the cult series Prisoner, and Dee Morrell in soap opera Sons and Daughters. In both roles, Ward played an elderly matriarch character.

Biography

Born to a pearler in Fremantle, Western Australia, Ward began acting professionally shortly after leaving high school and later studied at the Perth drama school. She also studied in England performing as a stage actress for several years before returning to Australia prior to World War II where she became one of the first female radio announcers for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during the war. She returned to England for a time returning to the stage and, in 1948, acted in parts for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Moving back to Australia in the early-1950s, Ward made her first television appearance as a minor character in The Vise in 1954 and in the television movie The High-Flying Head the following year. She also had starring roles in the television movies Marriage Lines and The Tower, although she began television acting full-time in the mid-1970s with appearances on the television series Rush, Homicide and, as Aunt Marian Castle in Don Chaffey's Harness Fever with Andrew McFarlane, Robert Bettles and Tom Farley in 1977; this television movie would later appear as a two-part episode, Born to Ride, on Wonderful World of Disney in 1979. She also continued in the theatre with the Melbourne Theatre Company and remained with the company until 1983, when she performed in a David Williamson stage production.

Soon after, she appeared in one of her best known roles, "Mum" Brooks, on the popular soap opera Prisoner. She portrayed an elderly institutionalized inmate who was serving an eighteen-year prison sentence after being convicted of the euthanasia of her husband. When filming for the series was raised from one to two hours per week, she and Carol Burns decided to leave the series. However, her character remained a popular one during the show's early years and she made occasional appearances after leaving the show in 1980. She also starred with a number of her fellow Prisoner co-stars in the 1981 television movie I Can Jump Puddles as a character called Mrs. Birdsworth. Coincidentally, this was the surname of Sheila Florance's character Lizzie Birdsworth in Prisoner.

After guest appearances on The Young Doctors in 1982 and A Country Practice, she starred on Sons and Daughters as Dee Morrell during 1983. She also starred on the short-lived 1985 television series The Henderson Kids and its 1987 follow-up series The Henderson Kids II. During the late-1980s, she had supporting roles in the films Jenny Kissed Me and Backstage as well as appearing on Neighbours in 1988. After starring in the 1989 television movie Darlings of the Gods, she returned to the theatre and, in 1991, appeared in Alive and Kicking.

With an exception to an appearance in the television series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh in 1994, she remained absent from Australian television for a number of years. In 1998, she made an appearance in the film Amy and, between 1999 and 2000, played recurring character Betty Withers in the police drama Blue Heelers.

Usually with

Susie Porter
Susie Porter
(2 films)
Harry Watt
Harry Watt
(1 films)
Nadia Tass
Nadia Tass
(1 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Mary Ward Breheny (6 films)

Display filmography as list

Actress

Amy
Amy (1998)
, 1h44
Directed by Nadia Tass
Origin Australie
Genres Drama, Comedy, Musical
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films, Films about disabilities
Actors Rachel Griffiths, Ben Mendelsohn, Kerry Armstrong, Sullivan Stapleton, Mary Ward Breheny, Susie Porter
Rating66% 3.3427953.3427953.3427953.3427953.342795
Amy's (Alana De Roma) father, Will Enker (Nick Barker), was a popular rock musician accidentally electrocuted while performing on stage. The psychological trauma leaves Amy mute and deaf. So the 8-year-old is brought by her mother, Tanya (Rachel Griffiths), to Melbourne to diagnose the reasons for her continued silence. Amy befriends her neighbor, Robert (Ben Mendelsohn), and while social workers try desperately to get her to speak and go to school, she makes the choice to communicate again and begins to sing along to Robert's rock songs after three years of silence. Her mother works out her own emotional issues with the help of a therapist.
Backstage
Backstage (1988)
, 1h34
Directed by Jonathan Hardy
Actors Laura Branigan, Rowena Wallace, Kym Gyngell, Mary Ward Breheny, James Condon, Ian Mune
Rating71% 3.55743.55743.55743.55743.5574
The plot centred on American pop singer Kate Lawrence (Branigan) wanting to embark on a career as an actress. The only job she can find is playing the lead role in an Australian theatre production of The Green Year Passes. The hiring of an American causes conflict with her Australian cast and crew, and the chagrin of theatre critic Robert Landau with whom she has an affair.
Jenny Kissed Me
Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith
Genres Drama
Actors Ivar Kants, Deborra-Lee Furness, Paula Duncan, Steven Grives, Mary Ward Breheny, Nicholas Eadie
Rating64% 3.233323.233323.233323.233323.23332
Jenny is the ten-year-old daughter of Carol, who lives with Lindsay. Carol has an affair and Jenny goes to live with Lindsay. Lindsay has a terminal disease.
Amy
Amy (1981)
, 1h40
Directed by Vincent McEveety
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy-drama
Themes Children's films
Actors Jenny Agutter, Barry Newman, Chris Robinson, Margaret O'Brien, Nanette Fabray, Frances Bay
Rating64% 3.2008753.2008753.2008753.2008753.200875
Amy Medford (Jenny Agutter) is a dutiful housewife of the early 1900s. But when her husband Elliot (Chris Robinson) objects to a wife with a career, Amy leaves her husband and comfortable lifestyle. She goes on to devote her life to teaching sight-and-hearing-impaired students at a tradition-bound special school. Amy teaches the impaired students how to speak, most of the students have never heard their own name. Amy's students take on a team of "normal" kids at a football game.
Eureka Stockade, 1h43
Directed by Harry Watt
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Historical
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films, Political films
Actors Chips Rafferty, Gordon Jackson, Jack Lambert, Jack Lambert, Peter Illing, Ralph Truman
Roles Lady Hotham
Rating63% 3.177963.177963.177963.177963.17796
An introductory montage establishes Australia of a hundred years ago – a place of wealth and poverty, transformed by the discovery of gold in 1851. This causes a massive drain in manpower which puts a strain on the country. The Victorian governor appoints an army officer, Reid, commissioner of the goldfields and orders him to tax the miners via licences, and to keep law and order.
I Can Jump Puddles, 48minutes
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films
Actors Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Tony Barry, Lesley Baker, Olivia Brown, Debra Lawrance, Lisa Aldenhoven
Roles Mrs. Birdsworth
Rating80% 4.048484.048484.048484.048484.04848
Based on Alan Marshall's three-part autobiography I Can Jump Puddles (1955), This is the Grass (1962) and In Mine Own Heart (1963), the film tells of Marshall's childhood growing up in rural Victoria during the turn of the century. Contracting polio soon after attending school, the story retells the obstacles he faced as a child in trying to overcome his disability. As an adult, he later encounters prejudice from his debilitating disease while looking for work in Melbourne.