Muriel Steinbeck
Muriel Myee Steinbeck[1] (21 July 1913 – 20 July 1982) was an Australian actress who worked extensively in radio, theatre, television and film. She is best known for her performance as the wife of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in Smithy (1946) and for playing the lead role in Autumn Affair (1958–59), Australia's first television serial.
Biography
The youngest of the four children of William Martin Steinbeck and Lily Clarissa (née Batten), Muriel Steinbeck was born in Broken Hill, New South Wales, where her father was working as a headmaster. She was educated at Newcastle and Sydney Girls High, and when the family moved to Sydney she became involved in amateur theatre, appearing in plays such as The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream and becoming renowned for her performances in comedy and drama.
She worked regularly on radio, including station 2GB and 2UE after being noticed by Lawrence H. Cecil of the ABC, and appeared in numerous radio serials in the 1950s including Blue Hills, Portia Faces Life and Gabrielle.[2][3] She became best known as Julia in the Australian television soap opera Autumn Affair, by Gwen Meredith.
After appearing in the short film South West Pacific in 1943, she made her feature film debut in A Son Is Born (1946), before appearing in her most famous film role as Charles Kingsford-Smith's wife in Smithy.
She was married to her first husband, a journalist, from 7 July 1934 until their divorce in 1949.[4] She then married company manager and engineer Brian Dudley Nicholson in 1951. Retiring from acting in 1966, she accompanied him to Orange, New South Wales, and became a teacher of the arts, including running a drama school and authoring a book titled On Stage: A Practical Guide To the Actor's Craft. She died of cancer on 20 July 1982, a day before her 69th birthday.
Selected filmography
- South West Pacific (1943) – short
- Australia Is Like This (1944) – shorter
- Smithy (1946)
- A Son Is Born (1946)
- Into the Straight (1949)
- Wherever She Goes (1951)
- Long John Silver (1954)
- Autumn Affair (1958-1959) – TV series
- Reflections in Dark Glasses (1960) – Episode of Shell Presents series
- They're a Weird Mob (1966)
References
External links
- Muriel Steinbeck at the Internet Movie Database
- Muriel Steinbeck Australian theatre credits at AusStage
- Muriel Steinbeck at the National Film and Sound Archive
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