Thalia Welch wearing a fisherman's sweater at Wimbledon, photograph by Keystone Press Agency

P1/2377

fonds

23 May 1954

Graphic Materials, Photographs

9669354

1 photographic print - gelatin silver - 26 x 21 cm

Thalia Welch (née Lawson) had been a Sydney kindergarten teacher before becoming the stand-in for Jean Simmons in the film Blue Lagoon, cast in Australia, and filmed on location in Fiji in 1948. She married Sydney businessman Bill Welch in December 1950 at Port Augusta, where she worked on the film Kangaroo.

Thalia's attire at Wimbledon attracted a great deal of attention and it was reported that 'immediately she entered the gates she was mobbed by cameramen for fashion pictures, journalists for interviews and small boys for autographs’.

References:
'Dining and Dancing', Truth, 11 February 1951, page 36. Accessed 5 December 2022.http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168035716

'One who crashed at Wimbledon'. The Sun, 28 June 1954, page 3, Accessed 5 December 2022. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229711050

Library acquisition file

Photograph of Thalia Welch wearing a large, loose coarse-knit fisherman’s sweater, a pencil skirt and gold triangular earrings at the 1954 Wimbledon tennis championships.

Out of copyright:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Title devised by cataloguer based

Typescript caption to verso dated 23 June 1954: 'Strange attire for Wimbledon visitor/ Australian with her "Fishermens" Sweater ....' and 'Mrs Thali[a] Welch of Sydney, Australia wears a huge fishermen’s sweater... This Wimbledon "style" caused a minor sensation among the fashion experts'

Stamps to verso for Keystone Press Agency, London and New York.