Pamela Rabe

Pamela Rabe
Rabe at the 2015 Helpmann Awards
Born	Pamela June Koropatnick (1959-04-30) 30 April 1959 (age 57) Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian - Australian
Occupation	Actress, Director
Years active	1981–present (film, theatre & television)
Notable work	Sirens (1994) Così (1996) Paradise Road (1997) The Well (1997) Wentworth (TV 2014–)
Height	183 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Spouse(s)	Roger Hodgman
Awards	AACTA Award — The Well AACTA Award — Wentworth See all awards

Pamela Rabe (born 30 April 1959) is a Canadian / Australian stage, television and film actor and theatre director. A graduate from the Playhouse Acting School, in Vancouver, Pamela Rabe is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and awarded actors. She is best known for her appearances in the films Sirens, Così, Paradise Road and starring as Joan Ferguson in the award winning television series Wentworth.

Rabe was born Pamela June Koropatnick in Oakville, Ontario, Canada in 1959. The seventh of eight children, she graduated from the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver. Rabe relocated to Australia in 1983 with Australian director, Roger Hodgman. They were married in 1984.

Rabe is a prolific contributor to theatrical life in her adopted country in acting and directing, across a wide range of genres - musicals, comedy and drama. With the works of Shakespeare, Moliere, Chekhov, Brecht, Noel Coward, Patrick White and David Mamet forming just a part of her theatrical CV, Rabe has played leading roles on the Australian stage in some of the greatest stage plays of our time. She is a long-standing collaborator with the Sydney Theatre Company and the Melbourne Theatre Company. Rabe was once described by Melbourne theatre critic Alison Croggon as having the sort of presence that "makes shy people swallow hard and lesser mortals involuntarily bow".

Some of her other high-profile acting roles include Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie at Belvoir, for which she won a Helpmann Award, Nora Boyle in Patrick White's The Season At Sarsaparilla, for which she won a Green Room Award for Best Actress,Richard III in the Sydney Theatre Company production of The War Of The Roses, which also starred Cate Blanchett as Richard II. and Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Hampton play) along side Hugo Weaving.