Ida Elizabeth Osbourne
Encyclopedia
Ida Elizabeth Osbourne was an actor and broadcaster born in Brighton, Victoria
, the only daughter of Mr and Mrs W. L. Osbourne and educated at Firbank Grammar School.
from 1929 to 1935. It was at the 1934 Melbourne Elocutionary Championships she was spotted by ABC drama producer Frank Clewlow
, who was acting adjudicator, and invited to act in radio plays.
Her first major part was as Juliet opposite Harry Traynor's Romeo. Over the next two years she played most of Shakespeare's younger women. In 1938 she started at 3LO hosting the Victorian Children's Program as "Elizabeth".
In 1939, ABC General Manager Charles Moses
decided to amalgamate all children's programs, emanating from Sydney. Frank Clewlow, by now in Sydney himself, made sure she was appointed to head it. At first she was reluctant, as it was only a one-year contract and she was keen to visit Britain. After being promised an introduction to the BBC at the end of the year, she agreed.
Time and her contract allowed her to continue to act starring parts in:
She developed a new segment for the Children's Session that was to go down in Australian radio history: The Argonauts Club
. The idea and much of the format had been formulated by Nina Murdoch
, but hers was the wording on the membership certificate and the words for the opening and closing themes for both the Children's Session and the Argonauts Club. And as "Elizabeth", she compered (later with co-comperes "Mac" (Atholl Fleming
) and "Joe" (Albert Collins
). She enlisted Ruth Park
to write a dramatised series The Wide-Awake Bunyip, and played "Mouse" to Joe's Bunyip. This was later developed by Ruth Park into the famous Muddle-Headed Wombat radio series and books for children.
She cajoled leading writers, musicians, adventurers, sportsmen and artists into appearing on the show. She did not want anything but the best for 'her' children.
In 1946 she spent some time on a scholarship in London with the BBC to study children's programs in the UK. She remembers BBC productions as highly polished but inward-looking and ossified in the 1930s, as compared with her bright and innovative Australian program. In 1949 she married prominent piano accompanist and organist Idwal Jenkins and as a married woman she was obliged under Public Service regulations to quit her post with the ABC. Her husband died two years later on 24 April 1951.
She was to return to ABC radio in 1953 as (now widowed) Ida Elizabeth Jenkins, presenting the ABC Women's Session until 1960. She was selected as a national commentator for the high-profile 1954 Royal Visit.
She returned again to run a more personal (and at times controversial) program At Home with Ida Elizabeth Jenkins.
She married again, and as Ida Elizabeth Lea she was awarded the MBE
in 1977.
Brighton, Victoria
Brighton is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Bayside. At the 2006 Census, Brighton had a population of 20,651...
, the only daughter of Mr and Mrs W. L. Osbourne and educated at Firbank Grammar School.
Career
As a young girl, she studied elocution with Ruth Conabere, sister of Sydney Conabere, making successful entries in "South Street Competitions" at Ballarat, VictoriaBallarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
from 1929 to 1935. It was at the 1934 Melbourne Elocutionary Championships she was spotted by ABC drama producer Frank Clewlow
Frank Clewlow
Frank Dawson Clewlow was an English actor-director who in 1936 became Federal Controller of Productions for the Australian Broadcasting Commission....
, who was acting adjudicator, and invited to act in radio plays.
Her first major part was as Juliet opposite Harry Traynor's Romeo. Over the next two years she played most of Shakespeare's younger women. In 1938 she started at 3LO hosting the Victorian Children's Program as "Elizabeth".
In 1939, ABC General Manager Charles Moses
Charles Moses
Sir Charles Moses CBE headed the Australian Broadcasting Commission from 1935 until 1965....
decided to amalgamate all children's programs, emanating from Sydney. Frank Clewlow, by now in Sydney himself, made sure she was appointed to head it. At first she was reluctant, as it was only a one-year contract and she was keen to visit Britain. After being promised an introduction to the BBC at the end of the year, she agreed.
Time and her contract allowed her to continue to act starring parts in:
- Saint JoanSaint Joan (play)Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
by G B Shaw 1939 - Romeo and JulietRomeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
again, with Nigel Lovell playing Romeo and Peter FinchPeter FinchPeter Finch was a British-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a...
as Mercutio. - MartineJean-Jacques BernardJean-Jacques Bernard was born in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise and died in Paris.French playwright and chief representative of what became known as l’école du silence or, as some critics called it, the art of the unexpressed, in which the dialogue does not express the characters’ real attitudes...
(adapted for radio by Max Afford) with Neva Carr Glynn and John TateJohn TateJohn Torrence Tate Jr. is an American mathematician, distinguished for many fundamental contributions in algebraic number theory, arithmetic geometry and related areas in algebraic geometry.-Biography:... - Alcestis of EuripidesAlcestis (play)Alcestis is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was first produced at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BCE. Euripides presented it as the final part of a tetralogy of unconnected plays in the competition of tragedies, for which he won second prize; this arrangement...
, produced by Lawrence H. Cecil with Peter FinchPeter FinchPeter Finch was a British-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a... - Night Must FallNight Must FallNight Must Fall is a play, a psychological thriller, by Emlyn Williams, first performed in 1935.-Play:Mrs Bramson, a bitter, fussy, self-pitying elderly woman, resides in a remote part of Essex, with her intelligent yet subdued niece, Olivia...
with Lloyd LambleLloyd LambleLloyd Nelson Lamble was an Australian actor who worked in theatre, television, radio and film. He lived and worked two-thirds of his life in the United Kingdom .- Personal life :...
and Winifred Green - The Fire on the SnowThe Fire on the SnowThe Fire on the Snow is a verse play by Douglas Stewart about the Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica by Robert Falcon Scott. It premiered on ABC radio on 6 June 1941 to great acclaim.....
as Narrator with Frank HarveyFrank Harvey (Australian screenwriter)Frank Harvey was an English-born actor, producer and writer best known for his work in Australia.-Biography:...
as Robert Falcon ScottRobert Falcon ScottCaptain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...
in 1941, its premiere. - The Fortunes of Richard MahonyThe Fortunes of Richard MahonyThe Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a three-part novel by Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson. It consists of Australia Felix , The Way Home , and Ultima Thule . It was collected in 1930 under the title by which it is now best known...
(adapted for radio by Frank HarveyFrank HarveyFrank Harvey was an English screenwriter who jointly won a BAFTA Award with John Boulting and Alan Hackney for I'm All Right Jack in 1960. He was born 11 August 1912 in Manchester. During his career he was nominated for a second BAFTA for Private's Progress. He died 6 November 1981 in Ottery St...
) with Howard Craven in 1950
She developed a new segment for the Children's Session that was to go down in Australian radio history: The Argonauts Club
Argonauts Club
The Argonauts Club was an Australian children's radio program, first broadcast in 1933 on ABC Radio in Melbourne. Its format was devised by Nina Murdoch who had run the station's Children's Hour on 3LO and stayed on when that station was taken over by the Australian Broadcasting Commission...
. The idea and much of the format had been formulated by Nina Murdoch
Nina Murdoch
Nina Murdoch was an Australian traveller, journalist, author and broadcaster. She was born Madoline Nina Murdoch, daughter of John Andrew Murdoch, a law clerk, in North Carlton, Victoria, Australia]]...
, but hers was the wording on the membership certificate and the words for the opening and closing themes for both the Children's Session and the Argonauts Club. And as "Elizabeth", she compered (later with co-comperes "Mac" (Atholl Fleming
Atholl Fleming
Atholl Fleming was a British actor and an Australian radio personality.He was the third of nine children of R. S. Fleming, a Scottish Baptist minister of Beckenham in Kent. After a fall as a child, he became deaf in his right ear...
) and "Joe" (Albert Collins
Albert Collins (painter)
Albert E. Collins was an Australian painter, teacher and actor born in New Zealand. After a successful career in painting and teaching he joined ABC radio, where he gave pleasure to a generation of children as "Joe" of the Children's Session and the main character in the long-running serial...
). She enlisted Ruth Park
Ruth Park
Ruth Park, AM was a New Zealand-born author, who spent most of her life in Australia. Her best known works are the novels The Harp in the South and Playing Beatie Bow , and the children's radio serial The Muddle-Headed Wombat , which also spawned a book series .-Personal history:Park was born in...
to write a dramatised series The Wide-Awake Bunyip, and played "Mouse" to Joe's Bunyip. This was later developed by Ruth Park into the famous Muddle-Headed Wombat radio series and books for children.
She cajoled leading writers, musicians, adventurers, sportsmen and artists into appearing on the show. She did not want anything but the best for 'her' children.
In 1946 she spent some time on a scholarship in London with the BBC to study children's programs in the UK. She remembers BBC productions as highly polished but inward-looking and ossified in the 1930s, as compared with her bright and innovative Australian program. In 1949 she married prominent piano accompanist and organist Idwal Jenkins and as a married woman she was obliged under Public Service regulations to quit her post with the ABC. Her husband died two years later on 24 April 1951.
She was to return to ABC radio in 1953 as (now widowed) Ida Elizabeth Jenkins, presenting the ABC Women's Session until 1960. She was selected as a national commentator for the high-profile 1954 Royal Visit.
She returned again to run a more personal (and at times controversial) program At Home with Ida Elizabeth Jenkins.
She married again, and as Ida Elizabeth Lea she was awarded the MBE
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
in 1977.