Maggie Dence

Professional career

Stage

Dence is well known to Sydney theatre audiences for the very large number of roles she has played, in particular with the Nimrod Theatre Company. She has also appeared in panto in the United Kingdom.

Television

From 1966–1968 she had played various characters in the influential Australian satirical sketch comedy program The Mavis Bramston Show. One of her characters was the title character Mavis Bramston – the joke being that Mavis appeared in only the opening segment of each episode and was not seen again thereafter. She was also a recurring guest in the popular 1980s sitcom Kingswood Country, playing the snobbish Merle Bulpitt.

Her best-known soap opera roles include the sweet Rose Sullivan in The Sullivans between 1976–1978, as evil psychopath and serial killer Bev "The Beast" Baker in Prisoner Cell Block H in 1984, and as school teacher Dorothy Burke in Neighbours in the early 1990s. Dence also had guest roles in A Country Practice, The Flying Doctors, All Saints and Heartbreak High.

Film

In 2005 she appeared in the award-winning Australian film Look Both Ways. In 2008 she appeared in the BBC/Southern Cross soap Out of the Blue.

Awards

Maggie Dence was named (on 29 September) the 2011 recipient of the Equity Awards Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding services to the performing arts – both stage and screen – and her longstanding involvement with the NSW Actors' Benevolent Fund. The award, presented by Foxtel, is from Maggie's peers and members of her union, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance Equity (Performers) Section, which Maggie joined in 1962.