Maggie Kirkpatrick

Maggie Kirkpatrick
Kirkpatrick at the opening of Driving Miss Daisy at Theatre Royal, Sydney, 2013
Born	Margaret Ann Downs (1941-01-29) 29 January 1941 (age 76) Albury, New South Wales
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1960–present (theatre) 1971–present (film & television)
Notable work	Prisoner
Spouse(s)	Norman Kirkpatrick (1963–1979) (divorced)
Children	1

Margaret Anne "Maggie" Kirkpatrick (née Downs; born 29 January 1941) is an Australian actress who is best known for her portrayal of the character Joan Ferguson, a sinister and cold lesbian prison officer, nicknamed "The Freak", in the popular Australian television soap opera Prisoner. She performed as Madame Morrible in an Australian production of the musical Wicked. Kirkpatrick has appeared in such popular series as Water Rats, Home and Away and All Saints.

Margaret Anne Downs was born in Albury, New South Wales, to James and Crissie Downs. When she was seven months old her father was killed while on active national service as a soldier in North Africa. Her mother brought her up alone. Her mother later married John Anderson and had a son, Adrian. The family moved to Newcastle, New South Wales, where Kirkpatrick grew up. She had had an interest in acting from an early age and appeared in several school plays. By November 1955 she became fed up with school and left. Her mother sent her to drama lessons.

In 1960, at the age of 19, Kirkpatrick took her first professional acting job, with the theatre impresario John Alden (theatre) with his John Alden Shakespeare Company. After this initial production she promptly gave up acting. Kirkpatrick subsequently took various jobs, working in dress shop, as a medical receptionist, compère of fashion parades, and also had jobs in bars, restaurants and hotels.

Downs married Norman Kirkpatrick, a merchant seaman of the Shankill Road in Belfast, in September 1963. Five years later they moved to Sydney where Kirkpatrick decided to resume her acting career. After appearing in two plays she put her acting career on hold once again, this time due to the arrival of her daughter Caitlin. Kirkpatrick resumed theatre work as Caitlin got older, and eventually moved on to television and cinema.