Joanne Samuel is an actress who remains best known for her role as the screen wife of Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

 in the 1979 film Mad Max

Mad Max

Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and revised by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland. The film stars Mel Gibson, who was unknown at the time. Its narrative based around the traditional western genre, Mad Max tells a story...

.

Prior to her appearance in the film, Samuel had made guest appearances in police procedural

Police procedural

The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...

s
Matlock Police

Matlock Police

Matlock Police was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the 0-10 Network between 1971 and 1975....

and Homicide. She was then a regular cast member in television soap operas Class of '74, The Sullivans

The Sullivans

The Sullivans is an Australian drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983. The series told the story of an average middle-classMelbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives...

and The Young Doctors

The Young Doctors

The Young Doctors is an Australian early evening soap opera. The series was set in the fictional Albert Memorial hospital and primarily concerned with romances between younger members of the hospital staff, screened on the Nine Network from Monday, 8 November 1976 until Wednesday, 30 March...

. She left The Young Doctors very suddenly – the producers kindly wrote her out of the show quickly as she was offered the Mad Max role after a fellow Young Doctors actress who had been due to take the role fell ill. Samuel later returned to television in the regular role of Kelly Morgan-Young in Skyways

Skyways (TV series)

Skyways is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network.The series, which aired from 1979 to 1981, was set at the fictional Pacific International Airport and dealt with the lives of the pilots, airline staff and management team who worked there.Skyways was...

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Samuel later guest starred in Hey Dad! as Jeanette Taylor and All Saints

All Saints (TV series)

All Saints is an Australian medical drama which first screened on the Seven Network. The series debuted on 24 February 1998 and concluded its run on 27 October 2009...

, and played the school principal in The Wiggles

The Wiggles

The Wiggles are a children's group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group after their first album...

in their film The Wiggles Movie

The Wiggles Movie

The Wiggles Movie is a 1997 children's movie/musical by 20th Century Fox and Gladusaurus Productions. This is the first and only theatrical feature-length film starring The Wiggles...

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Samuel is married to Tony Ahern. They have several children. They live in the Blue Mountains suburb of Blackheath and Samuel has retired from acting. Samuel is active in the local Baptist church.

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