Patricia Lovell

Patricia Anna "Pat" Lovell (née Parr), AM MBE (1929 – 26 January 2013)[1] was an Australian film producer and actress, whose work within that country's film industry led her to receive the Raymond Longford Award in 2004 from the Australian Film Institute (AFI). Her productions include 1975's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Gallipoli, which received an AFI Award in 1982 as Best Film.

Early life and career

Patricia Anna Parr[2] says she was born in either Artarmon or Willoughby,[3] the second child and first daughter of Luticia Evelyn née Forsythe and Harold George Parr.[3] During her childhood, three of her siblings died, including one who was quite ill at birth and died at 18 months old, and her parents divorced.[3] She attended Presbyterian Ladies' College, Armidale, but "didn't do well in the Leaving at all" and failed to get a university pass.[3]

She began her career in radio at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in the early 1950s, becoming a junior broadcaster in children's programs. That led to her joining the cast of the Argonauts Club.[1] Despite the pressure of live television and having no formal training, she started making weekly appearances on ABC Children's TV, and in 1960 began her most fondly-remembered role as 'Miss Pat' in ABC TV's children's television program Mr. Squiggle.[1]

In 1964 Lovell became what she characterised as "one of the minor beauties"[3] on the panel of Beauty and the Beast. For a time she ran a film co-production company with Mel Gibson. When The Today Show began in 1969 (which pre-dated the current show by over a decade), she joined the team, and it was there as an interviewer that she met Peter Weir, the director with whom she would produce her two best-known films, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli.[3]

Later career

Lovell worked as Head of Producing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) between 1996 and 2003.[1]

Personal life

Lovell met her husband, actor Nigel Lovell, through the Metropolitan Theatre in Sydney.[3] He was a widower with a daughter. They married in 1956[4] and had two children, Simon Lovell, a helicopter pilot,[5] and Jenny Lovell, an actress known for her role on the soap opera Prisoner[6] (called Prisoner: Cell Block H in the UK and the USA). The couple eventually divorced.[3]

Lovell died in January 2013 from liver cancer, aged 83.[5]

Filmography

Honours

Pat Lovell was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1978 New Year's Honours.[7] In the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).[8]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 McLeod, Kathryn. "Lovell, Patricia". The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Australian Women's Archives Project 2014. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  2. ↑ Inglis, K.S. (2006). This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932–83. Black Inc. / Schwartz Publishing. ISBN 978-1863951814.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Transcripts: Patricia Lovell". Talking Heads with Peter Thompson. Australia. 24 April 2006. Archived from the original on 10 March 2013. I'm quite unsure as to actually where I first came into the world. I think it was either Artarmon or Willoughby. I never found I discussed it with my parents at all.
  4. ↑ McGinness, Mark (4 February 2013). "Grande dame of film, TV". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 5 May 2014. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  5. 1 2 Fife-Yeomans, Janet (27 January 2013). "Mr Squiggle's Pat Lovell dies aged 83". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 27 January 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  6. ↑ "Jenny Lovell". IMDb. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  7. ↑ It's an Honour: MBE
  8. ↑ It's an Honour:AM

Further reading

General references:



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