Tanya Halesworth

Tanya Halesworth (1935 – 8 October 2008) was best known as an Australian television personality, but was also a teacher, actor, public relations adviser and manager, and psychologist. She won the 1961 TV Week Logie Award for Most Popular Female in New South Wales. Tony Stephens wrote in his obituary that "during her time on television, hers was one of the most recognisable faces in Australia".

Halesworth was born in Brisbane to Iris Kemp and her insurance husband salesman, Reg Kemp. Reg left the family not long after Tanya's birth; her mother remarried and had three sons. The family moved to Sydney and Tanya went to Darlinghurst Primary School and then the selective Sydney Girls High School. In 1951, she was vice-captain of the school.

She worked as a clerk in a sheriff's office, before training as a teacher at Bathurst Teacher's College. She taught in primary schools for three years, as well as acting with small theatre companies and working on TV commercials. In 1955 she married teacher Brian Halesworth, but they were divorced in 1959.

In 1958, when she was 23 years old, she won a job as a studio announcer with the ABC, beating 200 applicants. Christine Hogan, speaking on women in the media, described her as "a school teacher with a dramatic bent". By 1961 her work for the ABC included the show Six O'Clock Rock. At the same time she was studying for an arts degree at Sydney University and performing in Clare Boothe Luce's The Women at the Independent Theatre.

Halesworth left the ABC in 1962 to join Channel Seven to host a tenpin bowling program. It was here that she met interviewer and announcer, John Bailey, who was later to become her husband. For the next two years she worked on shows such as Talking Point as well as continuing to perform on stage. One of her roles during this time was Juliet in Peter Ustinov's comedy Romanoff and Juliet.

In 1964, having graduated with a first class honours bachelor of arts degree from Sydney University, she went to England where she hosted Granada Television's program The Headliners. However, she returned to Australia in 1965 and married John Bailey in 1967, despite having once reportedly said that "it was entirely against man's instincts to be tied down to one woman". Bailey and Halesworth worked for Channel Ten in Sydney and then Melbourne.

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