Australian actress Patsy King, who was best known for the governor on the cult TV show Prisoner before becoming one of the first hosts of Playschool, has died. She was 95.
The actress reportedly died on January 19 in Melbourne after a short illness.
King, who trained as an actress before starting her career in the theatre, appeared in a raft of TV shows during television’s early years in Australia before winning the role of Governor Erica Davidson in Prisoner.
King was born in Melbourne on September 16, 1930.
She spent her early years in the UK before returning to Australia, where she began training as an actress at the Melbourne National Theatre, where she specialised in drama and Shakespeare.
By the early 1950s, she was working steadily as a stage actress in a variety of productions including, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Richard II, Half a Sixpence and Love Letters.
She received the Melbourne Newspaper Critics’ Circle Erik Kuttner memorial trophy for her role in Fourposter.
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By the early ’60s, she was appearing in teleplays aired on the ABC.
She also won roles in a number of popular TV shows from the Crawford Productions stable, including The Sullivans and The Box.
She appeared in police dramas including Matlock Police, Division 4, Bluey, Cop Shop and Homicide, before becoming a regular cast member on the TV series Bellbird, playing Kate Andrews.
In 1979, she was cast as Governor Erica Davidson, the head of the women’s prison Wentworth Detention Centre in the new series Prisoner.
King appeared in the first five episodes of the show when it aired in 1979. It also aired in the US and UK as Prisoner: Cell Block H.
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Play School presenters: Then and now
A decade later, she reprised the role in a successful stage version of the show called Prisoner: Cell Block H, that opened in London’s West End in 1989 and later toured the UK.
King became one of the first presenters on the ABC children’s show Play School when it first aired in 1966.
She also appeared on the children’s TV shows The Magic Circle Club and Adventure Island.
King was married to English-born Australian theatre director John Sumner, who founded the Melbourne National Theatre from 1959 to 1967.
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