Thelma Scott
Encyclopedia
Australian television
Television in Australia began experimentally as early as 1929 in Melbourne with stations 3DB and 3UZ using the Radiovision system by Gilbert Miles and Donal McDonald, and later from other locations, such as Brisbane in 1934....
made her one of her country's most recognisable personalities.
A native of Melbourne, Thelma Scott began her career in the theatre at the age of 18 with the Gregan McMahon
Gregan McMahon
Gregan McMahon, CBE was an Australian actor and theatrical producer.McMahon was born in Sydney, elder son of John Terence McMahon, a clerk, and his wife Elizabeth, née Gregan. Both parents were emigrants from Ireland. McMahon was educated at Sydney Grammar School and St Ignatius' College, Riverview...
Players. Her first professional acting role was as Ilona Szabo in McMahon's 1931 production of The Play's the Thing at Melbourne's Comedy Theatre. She followed this with roles in productions of Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author is a play by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello.The play is a satirical tragicomedy. It was first performed in 1921 at the Teatro Valle in Rome, to a very mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" .Subsequently the play enjoyed a much...
, Too Good to Be True and Wind in the Rain. In 1932 she appeared with Coral Browne
Coral Browne
Coral Browne was an Australian-American stage and screen actress.-Career:Coral Edith Brown was the only daughter of a restaurant-owner. She and her two brothers were raised in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, where she studied at the National Gallery Art School...
in the comedy Take Two from One. In 1933 they again acted together, this time in Children in Uniform for Efftee Players.
In 1931 she appeared in her first film, The Haunted Barn, a short produced by Efftee Studios
Efftee Studios
Efftee Studios was established by F.W. Thring in 1930.In 1931 the first commercially viable Australian made sound feature film, Diggers, was produced by Efftee Films in Melbourne using optical sound equipment imported from the USA.Efftee was also the first licensee of Melbourne radio station 3XY...
and directed by Gregan McMahon. Following this came roles in feature films Diggers in Blighty and Harmony Row starring popular comedian George Wallace
George Wallace (Australian comedian)
George Wallace , was an Australian comedian, vaudevillian and film star. He was one of the most famous and successful Australian comedians on stage and screen in the twentieth century.-History:...
. The films premiered as a double bill in Melbourne in February 1933. Almost a year later she and Wallace appeared together in the film A Ticket in Tatts.
During this period Scott also acted in radio plays, and she continued her theatre work. She was critically acclaimed in her 1934 performance as Tessa in the play The Constant Nymph. Based on this, she was offered a six-year contract with J. C. Williamson
J. C. Williamson
James Cassius Williamson was an American actor and later Australia's foremost theatrical manager, founding J. C. Williamson Ltd....
's theatre company, with the intention of grooming her for musical comedy. Scott chose to move in the direction of drama, opting for a role in the thriller Ten Minute Alibi, which had a successful run, touring Sydney and Melbourne. She subsequently signed with radio 2CH, emerging as one of Australia's biggest radio stars. She attracted both popular and critical praise for her work in the medium, and acted in countless radio productions throughout the 1940s. Her radio work included runs in two ongoing radio soap operas. The first, Big Sister, in which she starred as Ruth Evans, aired nationally for five years from 1942. After it ended, she acted in the serial Crossroads of Life. She won the Macquarie Award in 1947 and, in 1949, again acted on film, playing family matriarch Jane O'Riordan in Charles Chauvel's epic Sons of Matthew.
In 1951 she travelled to London, where she was later joined by her former Sydney housemate, actress Gwen Plumb
Gwen Plumb
Gwen Plumb AM BEM was a veteran Australian performer of stage, radio and television.-Biography:Gwendoline Jean Plumb was born in 1912...
. Scott acted on the London stage, appearing in An Evening with Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Gladys "Bea" Lillie was an actress and comedic performer. Following her 1920 marriage to Sir Robert Peel in England, she was known in private life as Lady Peel.-Early career:...
at the Globe Theatre
Gielgud Theatre
The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.-History:...
, replacing the departed Constance Carpenter
Constance Carpenter
Constance Emmeline Carpenter was an English-born American film and musical theatre actress.-Biography:Born in Bath, Somerset, Carpenter was the daughter of vaudevillians and began performing at an early age....
. Scott also did her first television work in the UK, working on a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
comedy series and hosting her own show, How to Manage Men.
She returned to Australia in 1957, where her acting career continued on television. She acted in the early soap opera The Story of Peter Grey
The Story Of Peter Grey
The Story of Peter Grey was an Australian television daytime soap opera made by the Seven Network in 1961. James Condon starred in the title role as a church minister. Other cast members included Thelma Scott, Lynne Murphy, Moya O'Sullivan. The series had a run of 164 fifteen-minute episodes, and...
(1961), followed by appearances in the rural serial Bellbird and guest roles in Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is an Australian television series for children created by John McCallum, produced from 1966–1968, telling the adventures of a young boy and his intelligent pet kangaroo, in the Waratah National Park in Duffys Forest, near Sydney, New South Wales.Ninety-one 30-minute...
and Delta.
Scott also worked as a director on the opening night show of Channel Ten Sydney in 1965, titled TV Spells Magic, and did a stint as director on the daily chat show The Gwen Plumb Show. She continued to act in the theatre, performing with Ray Milland
Ray Milland
Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...
in Hostile Witness at Sydney's Tivoli Theatre in 1967, and in 1968 acted in J.C. Williamson's production of Spring and Port Wine, playing Daisy Crompton opposite Alfred Marks
Alfred Marks
Alfred Edward Marks OBE was a comic actor and comedian.-Biography:Marks was born as Ruchel Kutchinsky in Holborn, London. He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a Flight Sergeant in the Middle East where he arranged...
.
Following this came the role of imperious Point Piper socialite Claire Houghton in the television soap opera Number 96
Number 96 (TV series)
Number 96 was a popular Australian soap opera set in a Sydney apartment block. Don Cash and Bill Harmon produced the series for Network Ten, which requested a Coronation Street-type serial, and specifically one that explored adult subjects...
starting in 1972. The role of Claire had been devised by the show's creator David Sale
David Sale
David Sale is an Australian-based author and television screenwriter. He has contributed to many TV drama series, provided special material for Australia's leading entertainers, and has worked as producer, director, actor and journalist....
specifically for Thelma Scott. Claire became a popular recurring character in the serial, initially despairing at the "shabby" apartment block Number 96 that her daughter Bev Houghton
Bev Houghton
Bev Houghton was a fictional character in the 1970s Australian soap opera Number 96. She was the daughter of wealthy socialite Claire Houghton , and despite her beauty and revealing costumes was revealed to be a virgin afraid of sex...
chose to live in. She soon befriended other residents such as Don (Joe Hasham
Joe Hasham
Joseph Christopher "Joe" Hasham OAM is a Lebanese Australian actor who became famous in Australia in the 1970s through his long running role of dependable and decent gay lawyer Don Finlayson in soap opera Number 96.- Early life and education :Hasham graduated from the National Institute of...
) and Vera (Elaine Lee
Elaine Lee (actor)
Elaine Lee is an Australia-based theatre and television actor best known for her long-running role in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96....
), and formed business associations with Jack (Tom Oliver
Tom Oliver
Tom Oliver is an English television, film and theatre actor best known today for playing the role of Lou Carpenter in the Australian soap opera Neighbours.-Career:...
) and Maggie (Bettina Welch
Bettina Welch
Bettina Welch was an Australia-based theatre and television actor who became best known for her role as scheming businesswoman Maggie Cameron in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96.-Early career:...
). These associations sustained Claire's continued role in the series after the death of Bev in January 1974, and formed the basis for her inclusion in the feature film version of the series released in 1974. Though Claire's appearances diminished in the serial's middle years, she was relaunched into the show for its final few months, and was central to several key storylines during the 1977 episodes. Serena, a small black poodle
Poodle
The Poodle is a breed of dog. The poodle breed is found officially in toy, miniature, and standard sizes, with many coat colors. Originally bred as a type of water dog, the poodle is highly intelligent and skillful in many dog sports, including agility, obedience, tracking, and even herding...
owned by the actress, sometimes appeared as Claire's pet, Serena, in these final episodes. Claire's signature phrase in the series was "Allow me to be the best judge of that".
After Number 96 ended in 1977 Scott continued to act on Australian television, making a guest appearance in Glenview High
Glenview High
Glenview High is an Australian television drama series produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Seven Network between 1977 and 1978.-Story:...
(1977), and sustaining a role in the medical serial 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...
in 1980. She later played the recurring role of Mrs. Jennings in the soap opera Richmond Hill
Richmond Hill (TV series)
Richmond Hill was an Australian television soap opera made in 1988 by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Ten Network. It was devised by Reg Watson who also created Neighbours...
in 1988.
For many years Scott lived in Kirribilli, New South Wales
Kirribilli, New South Wales
Kirribilli is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located three kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area administered by North Sydney Council...
with Plumb, who died on 5 June 2002. They also had a house at Whale Beach where they hosted luncheons for show business colleagues.
Four-and-a-half years later, Thelma Scott died of a heart attack at the Royal North Shore Hospital
Royal North Shore Hospital
The Royal North Shore Hospital is a major public teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located in St Leonards. It serves as a teaching hospital for Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney and has approximately 740 beds. It is the referral hospital for Northern Sydney and the Central...
in Sydney. She was 93 years old, a fact noted by all the obituary writers who referred to her as the grand dame of Australian actors.