Occupation Actress Children Lawrence Eastland Role Actress | Name Cornelia Frances Years active 1970–present Ex-spouse Michael Eastland | |
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Full Name Cornelia Frances Zulver Books And what Have You Done Lately? Nominations Logie Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series Movies and TV shows | ||
Actress profile cornelia frances
Cornelia Frances (born 7 April 1941) is an English-born Australian actress of stage, television and film, and quiz host and voice artist, best known for her acting career in Australia after emigrating there in 1970, particularly her television soap opera roles with portrayals of nasty characters such as Sister Grace Scott on Nine Network series The Young Doctors, as Barbara Hamilton on Sons and Daughters and her itinerant role of Morag Bellingham in Home and Away since its inception, both on Network Seven, as well as the film version of The Box. She was hostess of the Australian version of game show The Weakest Link
Contents
- Actress profile cornelia frances
- Cornelia frances makes first on screen appearance
- Early life and personal life
- Emigration and career in Australia
- Home and Away
- Charity
- Filmography
- References
Cornelia frances makes first on screen appearance
Early life and personal life
Born as Cornelia Frances Zulver in Liverpool, England, she was educated at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her early work was in British-made feature films as an extra and bit-part player. This included bit parts in two films directed by her uncle Michael Powell: Peeping Tom (1960), and The Queen's Guards (1961). Frances has one son, named Lawrence.
Emigration and career in Australia
Frances' acting career flourished after she had emigrated to Australia. After taking a lead role in the film version of sex-comedy soap opera The Box in 1975 she became known across Australia for her long running role of the strict and acidic Sister Grace Scott in daily soap opera The Young Doctors. After leaving that series to move to Melbourne with her husband who had been transferred there, she worked as a television reporter on "light" stories for a current affairs program hosted by Peter Couchman.
During this period she also made a brief appearance in Prisoner which was taped in the same studio as the Couchman show. Later she acted in guest starring television roles, before taking another well-remembered role, that of Barbara Armstrong (later Hamilton) in Sons and Daughters, a role she played from 1982 until 1986. She also hosted the Australian version of quiz show The Weakest Link (2001–2002) and provided the voice of Tortoise on the Australian/Chinese children's series, Magic Mountain. In the early 2000s Frances worked for a winery in the Hunter Valley when she could not get acting work. Her autobiography And what have you done lately? was published in 2003.
Home and Away
In 1988, Frances made her first appearance in Home and Away as Morag Bellingham, a judge and sister of Alf Stewart (Ray Meagher). Frances has played the recurring role of Morag for twenty-nine years. She has expressed a desire to play Morag full-time on the show and admitted that she does not like the coming and going as it is "very unsettling."
Charity
In 2011, Frances joined the Australian Orangutan Project (AOP) as its first Ambassador in an effort to raise awareness about critically endangered orangutans. Frances travelled to the island of Borneo, Indonesia on Sunday 16 October 2011 to see the first hand effect of the widespread deforestation of orangutan habitat, and how orangutans are being rehabilitated.
