Deborah Kennedy

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Deborah Kennedy is an Australian actress recognised for several television and film roles, and for her appearance in a famous advertisement.

Kennedy began her acting career on the stage, with the Marion Street Theatre, appearing in The Trojan Woman and Macbeth. She followed this with work with several other theatrical organisations including SUDS, Repertory 200, the New Theatre, and the Pegeant Theatre. For the Nimrod theatre starting in 1975 she had several roles in plays, acting in Much Ado About Nothing and Richard III. Other theatre work includes Travelling North, House of the Deaf Man, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Desert Flambe.

Starting in the 1970s she also acted in various television roles, with appearances in Certain Women, Silent Number, Waygoose, Doctor Down Under, The Restless Years, Bellamy, 1915 (miniseries). Film roles of the period include Tim (1979) which starred Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie, Dawn! (1979), Temperament Unsuited ^[1].

In the 1980s she played a brief guest role in soap opera Prisoner, and in 1991 was a regular cast member of serial Chances. She continued in that role several months until her character, nurse Connie Reynolds, was written out of the show as part of a cast revamp. In the 1990s continued television guest appearances included a recurring part in Police Rescue and roles in series Wildside and Good Guys Bad Guys. Through this period she played supporting roles in several feature films, including I Can't Get Started (1985), The Empty Beach (1985), Death in Brunswick (1991), The Sum of Us (1994), Idiot Box (1996), Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997). More recent feature film roles include My Mother Frank (2000), Matter of Life (2001), Swimming Upstream (2003).

Kennedy also appeared in the well-remembered Not Happy Jan commercial for the Yellow Pages telephone directory. In the 2000s television guest roles have included appearances series MacLeod's Daughters and Welcher & Welcher. Starting 2006 Kennedy has appeared in a recurring role in the soap opera Neighbours as Mishka Schneiderova, Lou Carpenter's Russian partner whom he met online. After completing a stint in the series Mishka made her on-air return in Australia in October 2006. These episodes will screen in the UK in January 2007.