Wendy Blacklock


Wendy Blacklock AM is a retired Australia-based theatre, radio and television actress, comedienne, producer, writer, singer and choreographer and theatre entrepreneur, who has for appeared in numerous radio and stage roles,and has been referred to as a "Grand Dame of the Stage". She has worked with numerous performers including comedian Barry Humphries and is a theatrical entrepreneur, who founded her own theatre company "Performing Lines", that she ran for 21 years, after years working with Elizabethan Theatre Trust, to coach, produce and showcase new productions and artist's for the stage, and her theatre museum, features several alumni of entertainers and performers including Graham Kennedy, Jill Perryman and Gordon Chater
Blacklock became famous for her long-running role of comedy character dizzy Edith "Edie" MacDonald, often referred to as Mother or Mummy in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96: a suburban housewife with a fondness for gin, daytime soap operas and analgesics. After, the series was released to DVD, she provides a commentary alongside series creative and writer David Sale, and stars Sheila Kennelly Elaine Lee and Deborah Gray.

Career in radio and theatre

Blacklock's acting career began on the stage and from 1953 she spent two years in England acting in repertory theatre. She returned to Australia and had a solid career in the theatre which included stage tours of Australia and New Zealand; she was also a regular cast member of the satirical revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1960s. Prior to the role in Number 96 she had played in theatrical productions of Don's Party and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and made a few guest appearances in Australian television drama series

Television

The role in Number 96 began in January 1974. At that time the show was Australia's highest-rated television program and Blacklock's character, dizzy housewife Edith "Edie" McDonald – otherwise known as "Mummy" – along with Edie's regimented husband Reg, known as "Daddy" and their adopted daughter Marilyn, became popular and enduring comedy characters in the series. In late 1976 there were plans to spin off the characters of "Mummy and Daddy" into a new situation comedy series titled Mummy and Me and starring Blacklock and Dorsey, but the proposed series was not picked up by the network and the characters remained in Number 96. Blacklock played in the series continuously until it ended in August 1977 and was in fact the final person shown in the closing scene of the last episode.
During 1977, Blacklock appeared occasionally as a panellist on game show Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks. In the late 1970s she and her main Number 96 co-star Mike Dorsey created a stage show based on their Number 96 characters which toured clubs in New South Wales.

Honours

Blacklock was a JC Williamson Award recipient for lifetime achievement in 2003. Blacklock was awarded the Order Of Australia for her services to the arts in 1992. A pioneer and facilitator of young people wanting to enter the arts, she is also a Helpmann Award recipient

Screen roles and appearances

Theatre

Source = AusStage
For further information: see
Production
Dear Charles
Two to One
Around the Loop
The Happiest Days of Your Life
Cinderella
Phillip Street Revue
Mistress Money
The Playboy of the Western World
The Rage
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Revue at the Loo
Spring and Port Wine
Gone Potty
The Prince and the Firebird
The Hostage
Dick Whittington
An Aweful Rose
Don's Party
Bon-Bons and Roses for Dolly
Habeas Corpus
Incompletions
George and Mildred
Blood of the Lamb
Corporal Mime Theatre Workshops
Face Value