Magda Szubanski

Magda Szubanski
Szubanski at Tropfest 2013
Born	Magdalene Mary Szubanski (1961-04-12) 12 April 1961 (age 55) Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
Nationality	Australian
Education	Siena College
Alma mater	University of Melbourne
Years active	1986-present
Notable work	Esme Cordelia Hoggett in Dick-King Smith's Babe (1995) and its 1998 sequel Voice of Miss Viola in Happy Feet (2006)
Television	Fast Forward (1989-1992) Kath and Kim (2002-2007)
Parent(s)	Zbigniew Szubanski (father) Margaret Szubanski (mother)
Relatives	2 siblings

Magdalene Mary "Magda" Szubanski (born 12 April 1961) is an Australian television and film actress, comedian and writer.

Szubanski's career started as a writer and performer of sketch comedy and has since progressed to production of TV, film acting and musical theatre. She starred in Kath & Kim where she played Sharon Strzelecki, and in the films Babe (1995) and Babe: Pig in the City (1998) as Esme Hoggett.

In 2015 she released her memoir Reckoning.

She has twice been polled as Australia’s most recognized and trusted personality.

Szubanski was born 12 April 1961 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Her mother Margaret is Scottish-Irish and came from a poor family. Her father, Zbigniew Szubanski, came from a well-off Polish family and, as recorded in the Official Archives of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, was an assassin in a counter-intelligence branch of the Polish resistance movement in World War II. She attended high school at Siena College, Melbourne, and later studied fine arts and philosophy at the University of Melbourne.

In 1976, as a year 10 student, she captained a team on the television quiz It's Academic.

In 1985, while performing in a University of Melbourne Law Revue of Too Cool for Sandals, with Michael Veitch and Tom Gleisner, Szubanski was talent-spotted by producers from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network, who convinced her to join up with some other university friends in creating a television sketch comedy show, The D-Generation.