Madeleine Orr
| Madeleine Orr | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Madeleine Grace Orr 1914 Melbourne, Australia |
| Died | 29 June 1979(aged 65) London, England |
| Alma mater | University of Melbourne |
| Occupation | Stage, film and TV actress |
| Years active | 1937－1979 |
| Spouse(s) | John Hearly (1952.09.16－1979, her death) |
| Parent(s) | Charles Hugh-Orr Madeleine Walsh |
Madeleine Grace Orr (1914 – 29 June 1979) was an Australian-born film, stage and TV actress who worked for many years in London. She is best known as the first person to portray Madge Allsop, bridesmaid and companion to Barry Humphries' most popular and enduring comic character, Dame Edna Everage.
Born in West Melbourne in 1914, Madeleine Grace Orr was the daughter of Charles Hugh Orr (1883–1932) and his wife Madeleine, nee Walsh, (1888–1961). Charles Orr was a caterer and hotelkeeper by profession, and he and his wife ran a succession of inner city hotels in the early twentieth century including the City Court Hotel and Tattersall's Hotel, both in Russell Street, Melbourne. After Charles' death in 1932, his widow continued as licensee of the latter hotel for some years thence.
During the 1930s, Charles and Madeleine's like-named daughter maintained a high profile in Melbourne's social circles, with her name often recorded in the women's column of the daily newspapers as a guest at parties, balls and dances. The younger Madeleine Orr was reported present, for example, at a 1934 junior auxiliary dance for the District Nurses' Society, a 1935 charity ball aboard the troopship Duntroon and a 1937 German-themed beer garden party. Such connections inevitably gained her entree into Melbourne's theatrical community. In 1935, Orr was noted as one of several young women who sold programmes and sweets at a special fundraising performance that was held at Her Majesty's Theatre.
Madeleine Orr started her professional career as a singer, but soon moved into radio productions and repertory and commercial theatre. Her earliest recorded stage appearances, dating back to 1937, included a production of J. B. Priestley's Duet in Floodlight at the Tivoli Theatre and in a one act-play, Pedlar's Progress, at the Melbourne Little Theatre. In the early 1940s, she was a cast member of two radio serials, Bright Horizons and Golden Sanctuaries, produced by 2CH in Sydney. She went on to appear in the Melbourne season of Doris Fitton's Dark of the Moon, "an unusual folk play with music", which opened at the Comedy Theatre in 1952. For many years, Orr was also associated with the St Martin's Theatre, a small independent playhouse in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra. She appeared there in productions of several Australian plays including The Tower by Hal Porter (1964) and The Jabberwock (1966) by Patricia Napper, as well as the Australian premiere of The Physicists (1964) by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
...
Wikipedia