Gwen Plumb papers

fonds

ca. 1942-1994

Textual Records, Clippings, Ephemera, Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Moving Images, Graphic Materials, Photographs, Posters

152672

0.66 metres of textual material (4 boxes)
35 audiotape reels
10 videocassettes (approximately 7 hr., 30 min.)
3 film reels

Gwen Plumb (1912-2002) began acting as an amateur in 1939 and made her professional stage debut in 1948. Her career in theatre, radio and television extended over 50 years.

Gwen Plumb trained in small theatres, firstly Chelsea and from 1939 appeared in theatres inclyding Minerva, the Old Theatre Royal and St James Hall. Her first professional appearance was in the farce ‘See How They Run’ at Sydney’s Minerva Theatre in 1940s and in London in 1950s with Beatrice Lillie’s revue company. She entertained the troops in camps and hospitals and was one of the founders of ‘Stage Door Canteen’ which entertained all services during the war.

After winning acclaim and touring Australian for role in ‘Steaming’ she went on to do some plays for Sydney’s Northside Theatre Company and Nimrod Theatre Sydney. Other notable roles include Ada Simmonds in the Australian soap opera The Young Doctors from 1978–1982. She also had roles in the mini-series The Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange in the mid 1980s. She acted in Neighbours as Mrs. Forbes in 1985. She later played the key role of Mum Foote in the serial Richmond Hill in 1988 and Doris Peters in the pilot of Home and Away. In 1982 she played Mrs. Leach in movie Ginger Meggs.

She appeared regularly on BBC radio and for 26 years had her own radio program on Sydney’s 2GB. Between 1952-1957 she toured Europe, recording interviews with celebrities and reporting on great events. On return to Sydney in 1958, she pioneered talk back radio. Fro 1958 to 1982, she ran daily radio and television programs on ABC and channel 10.

She has been awarded accolades in radio and theatre including the Macquarie Award in 1952 for best comedy performance of the year and has been nominated many times for Logies and Sammys. She was awarded Order of Australia for services to entertainment industry 1993.

References:
Compiled from the collection

SERIES 1
Newscuttings, programs and other material

SERIES 2
Motion pictures

SERIES 3
Gwen Plumb sound recordings

Copyright restrictions may apply:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder

Information upgraded as part of the Manuscripts Unprocessed eRecords Project 2012-2013