27 Facts About Ruth Cracknell

Ruth Winifred Cracknell AM was an Australian character and comic actress, comedienne and author.

Ruth Cracknell's career encompassed all genres, including radio, theatre, television, and film.

Ruth Cracknell appeared in many dramatic as well as comedy roles throughout a career spanning some 56 years.

Ruth Winifred Cracknell was born on 6 July 1925 in Maitland, New South Wales to Charles and Winifred Goddard.

Ruth Cracknell was educated at North Sydney Girls High School and, after graduating, worked at the Ku-ring-gai Council as a stenographer.

Ruth Cracknell resigned from the council in 1945 to become a professional actress.

Ruth Cracknell performed on stage with the Sydney-based companies the Independent Theatre and the Mercury Theatre.

Ruth Cracknell appeared in many TV serial productions, and made-for-TV films.

Ruth Cracknell was a hostess of children television series Play School in the mid to late 1960s.

Ruth Cracknell played in the 1973 award-winning ABC-TV dramatisation of Ethel Turner's Australian children's classic Seven Little Australians.

Ruth Cracknell is best known for her role in the ABC television series Mother and Son.

Ruth Cracknell played an elderly woman, Maggie Beare, who was slowly becoming senile.

Ruth Cracknell was cared for by her long-suffering younger son Arthur, to whom she was often indifferent but on whom she was dependent and whom she often cynically played off against her self-centred older son Robert and daughter-in-law Liz.

Ruth Cracknell appeared in film productions including opposite Chips Rafferty in the 1958 classic Smiley Gets a Gun, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, the 1983 The Night the Prowler, and The Dismissal as Margaret Whitlam.

Ruth Cracknell acted for most of the major Australian theatre companies, especially the Sydney Theatre Company.

Ruth Cracknell performed many different roles; Elaine in David Williamson's Emerald City, Grandma Kurnitz in Lost in Yonkers, and Shafer's Lettice and Lovage.

Ruth Cracknell was Patron of the Australian Theatre for Young People.

Ruth Cracknell married Eric Phillips in 1957 and they had three children.

In 1997 Ruth Cracknell published her autobiography, A Biased Memoir, which was a bestseller in Australia.

Ruth Cracknell did not speak a word of Italian but she had to organise medical treatment for him and have him returned to Australia in the face of significant obstacles.

Ruth Cracknell died of a respiratory illness in a Sydney nursing home on 13 May 2002, aged 76.

Ruth Cracknell's children had visited her a short time before.

Ruth Cracknell received honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and the Queensland University of Technology.

In 1995, Ruth Cracknell received a lifetime achievement award at the Glugs Theatrical Awards in Sydney.

In 2001, Ruth Cracknell received the JC Williamson Award, the LPA's highest honour, for their life's work in live performance.

In 2001, Ruth Cracknell was awarded the TV Week Logie Hall of Fame for her services to Australian television.

Ruth Cracknell was the first only woman to be inducted.