1. Ethel Muriel Ashton, known professionally as Queenie Ashton, was a singer, dancer, and character actress, born in England, who had a long career in Australia as a theatre performer and radio personality, best known for her radio and television soap opera roles, although she did feature briefly in films.
Queenie Ashton's best known role was in the long-running Gwen Meredith radio serial Blue Hills, as Lee Gordon and later Grannie Emily Bishop a role she would later reprise for television, with the first Australian-produced soap opera Autumn Affair.
Queenie Ashton was an accomplished ballet dancer, and specialist in voice production and drama, who started performing when she was fourteen.
Queenie Ashton appeared in musical comedy on the London stage, on occasion appearing with playwright Noel Coward.
Queenie Ashton left England in 1927, and performed for Dame Nellie Melba while travelling to Australia through the Suez Canal.
Queenie Ashton first appeared in Melbourne as a soprano on the concert stage, then in musical comedy, alongside such stars as Gladys Moncrieff, whom she understudied, and Strella Wilson.
Queenie Ashton played this role on Australia's first television serial Autumn Affair.
Queenie Ashton appeared in many television commercials, most notably for Sara Lee.
Queenie Ashton was still performing in stage and cabaret plays in her nineties and was one of Australia's last great grand dames and one of the oldest entertainers still performing.
Queenie Ashton married Lionel Lawson in 1931, a violinist, who became leader of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; they had a daughter, nurse Janet Lawson, in 1933 and a son, Tony Lawson, in 1935.
Queenie Ashton remarried in 1946 to Frederick John Cover, a theatrical agent, and founder and managing director of the actors' casting firm, Central Casting.
Queenie Ashton died on 21 October 1999, in Carlingford, New South Wales, aged 95.