Monica Cresswell Maughan was an Australian actor with roles in theatre, radio, television, film and ballet over a career spanning 52 years.
15 Facts About Monica Maughan
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Monica Maughan was born Monica Cresswell Wood in Tonga to Australian missionaries Rev Dr A Harold Wood and medical doctor Olive Wood.
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Monica Maughan had 5 brothers and sisters, including Dr Elizabeth Wood-Ellem and Rev Dr H D'Arcy Wood.
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Monica Maughan attended MLC, where she received her only formal drama training with speech teacher Dorothy Dwyer, and went on to study French at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1959 with a BA.
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Monica Maughan made her stage debut opposite Barry Humphries in Ben Hecht's fast-paced satire The Front Page in April 1954.
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Monica Maughan launched her professional career with the Union Theatre Repertory Company in 1957 playing Capulat in Jean Anouilh's romantic comedy Ring Round the Moon at Union Theatre, Parkville.
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Monica Maughan appeared in more plays for that flagship company than any other actor.
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Barry Humphries 8.
Monica Maughan appeared in at least 7 plays in her first year back in Australia, most of them lead roles, and throughout the late sixties was hailed for her stage performances, such at the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, directed by MTC founder, John Sumner.
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Coincidentally, Monica Maughan was three months pregnant at the end of the play's run.
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Monica Maughan worked with almost every major theatre company in Australia, including Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus for the Queensland Theatre Company in 1978, and the role of Aggie in A Hard God produced by the State Theatre Company of South Australia and Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Sydney Theatre Company, both in 1981.
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Monica Maughan did not live to play the title role in Belvoir Company B's Gwen in Purgatory in 2010, a part written for her by Tommy Murphy and directed by Neil Armfield.
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Monica Maughan extended her repertoire to include non-dancing roles with the Australian Ballet, namely Doreen's mother in The Sentimental Bloke and Effie's mother in La Sylphide.
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Monica Maughan was always coy about her age and many sources gave her year of birth as 1938.
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When celebrating 50 years of professional acting in 2007, Monica Maughan said she was "20 or 21" in 1954 and admitted she "always lied about my age".
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Monica Maughan died of complications from cancer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne on 8 January 2010.