Sheila Florance - on the Inside

By Helen Martineau

SHEILA FLORANCE ON THE INSIDE an Intimate Portrait

Sheila Florance said with her characteristic irony, I set out aged nineteen with every intention of becoming the worlds greatest Shakespearean actress and ended up as Lizzie Birdsworth, the shearers poisoner! This much-loved character in the cult TV soapie Prisoner brought Sheila worldwide fame after fifty years of hard work during the formative years of the Australian performing arts. It culminated just days before her death at seventy-five with an Australian Film Institute Leading Actress award for her last film A Womans Tale.

Onstage and off her life was theatre on a grand scale. Everything was extravagant about Sheila in the parties she threw, her humour and tall tales, her friendships, her anger and loves. As a fighter for justice, her approach was eccentric and front-on. She wouldnt have called herself a feminist yet she always battled for and supported women.

She suffered a difficult childhood, war in England, the tragic inexplicable death of her eighteen-year-old daughter, two drama-filled marriages and a constant tension between her main passions family and acting. It was quite a journey yet Sheilas courage and determination to be true to herself never faltered. In this very personal biography, her daughter-in-law and confidante, Helen Martineau, reveals the fascinating public career and behind-the-scenes upheavals of a memorable and inspiring woman, who in her final illness found the peace that long eluded her.

I bought the book as a kind of duty to the memory of Sheila. But I simply couldnt put it down. You captured her in all her moods and complexity. Elspeth Ballantyne; warder Meg Morris in Prisoner and Sheilas long-time friend

Second updated edition first published 2005 as On the inside an Intimate Portrait of Sheila Florance

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514497067

Helen Martineau

Helen Martineau met the indomitable actress Sheila Florance as an impressionable seventeen-year-old. Her subsequent marriage to Sheila’s son Peter Oyston began a long friendship that would lead to her writing the biography Sheila Florance - On the Inside. Helen’s qualifications include art and dance training and a Bachelor of Arts from England’s Open University. She enjoyed a varied and fruitful career as a performer, choreographer, and English and humanities teacher. Becoming an author was a culmination, the re-emergence of youthful talents and a new creative adventure. She continues to write both fiction and non-fiction on themes close to her heart.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Helen Martineau.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016910121

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-9708-1

                Softcover       978-1-5144-9707-4

                eBook           978-1-5144-9706-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/30/2016

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Preface

Preface to the 2016 Edition

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements − Illustrations

Prologue: In the Wake of Sheila

Act 1: A Lively Girl

Act 2: The Years Abroad

Act 3: Sunshine and Some Storms

Act 4: A Time of Consolidation and Change

Act 5: The Fickle Glory of Fame

Act 6: A Kind of Merry Widow

Finale: Death is a Beautiful Thing

Bibliography

Sheila Florance – Chronological List of Performances

OTHER BOOKS BY HELEN MARTINEAU

Prodigal Daughters:

Spirituality and the Inner Histories of the Arts (2015)

Marriages of the Magdalene:

Visions of a Lost Christianity (2016)

PREFACE

Sheila Florance was a multi-award winning actress, much loved for her role as mischievous old Lizzie Birdsworth in the long-running and later cult television series Prisoner. She was also an unforgettable individual. In the words of her friend Fiona Spence she was ‘a big character, a life force, one of a dying breed. There was nothing grey about Sheila in her loves and hates, or in her beliefs.’

I met Sheila some twenty years before she became a celebrity when my new boyfriend Peter Oyston took me to meet his mother. I was nervous. From Peter’s descriptions I expected someone formidable, yet it was her laughter that made the first strong impression on me. She had an irresistible laugh that bubbled up like a hidden spring and opened into a Niagara Falls of delight. She laughed often, as I was to discover.

In writing Sheila’s story, I wanted to give an account of her acting career and her place in the development of professional theatre, film and television in Australia. I also wanted to look ‘behind the scenes’ to the uninhibited fun she invoked wherever she was, but especially as the star of her parties where friends say that only Frank Thring and Barry Humphries, both of whom came along, managed to outshine her.

When I married her son and became part of her family, I was confronted with another more private side of Sheila. Her personal life was tumultuous. Those closest to her were caught in its tidal wave. I felt it was important to delve into the complexities of her close relationships, because there were always two major themes running through Sheila’s life—her acting work and her family. And they frequently clashed as she struggled to forge a career in a time when few opportunities existed for women beyond the home.

Sheila encountered more than her fair share of restriction and suffering. And I wanted to pay tribute to this courageous and indomitable woman, a survivor who committed herself to living every aspect of her life to the hilt. She did not allow old age to stop her. Even in her dying Sheila’s unquenchable spirit shone through. Her many friends still talk about Sheila with love and laughingly recall her sometimes outrageous antics.

The idea of a biography came several years after her death, so the images of Sheila have been drawn from press clippings, acting reviews and so on, from interviews with her colleagues, friends and family, including their recollections of her own amazing anecdotes. Someone did persuade her to write her memoirs. She jotted down some tantalising headings in her large unruly handwriting. It was typical of Sheila that it never went any further. She was too busy ‘being’. Some things she didn’t speak about, perhaps because they were too painful for her. In any case, she rarely paused to reflect. She spent her energy trying to change the world around her.

I recognise that I have created my portrait of Sheila, and as such it has no claim to being a complete ‘life’. My aim was to enter imaginatively into her world. At times I have attempted to portray how she experienced and interpreted events. I have where possible verified the stories she told. Some came in a range of versions. Others may have been born from her fertile imagination alone. I have given them credence because they allow her voice to be heard and shed light on the meaning of Sheila. And I have reconstructed some events the way they could have happened when all she left were intriguing hints. I have tried to discover too the hidden Sheila, including the bruised but gutsy girl who dwelt in her heart until the last, but who was so willing to walk onto the world stage and play her part without looking back.

Helen Martineau, February 2005

PREFACE TO THE 2016 EDITION

In deciding to reissue Sheila’s biography I considered whether new information would change the story in any substantial way.

There is a new TV series called Wentworth, a contemporary reimagining of Prisoner. Lara Radulovich and David Hannam developed the series from Reg Watson’s original concept. In part the new version came about because of the good storytelling in the first one. It is also due to Prisoner’s enduring cult status.

Some disturbing information, possibly genuine, about Sheila’s daughter Susan’s death has emerged. And now there are seven great-grandchildren who Sheila would have adored and cherished if she had lived to a ‘ripe old age’: six boys—Liam, born 1996; Dante, born 2000; Luka, born 2004; Ethan, born 2005; Noah, born 2006; Riley, born 2008; and one girl—Lauren, born 2002.

But the substance of her story hasn’t changed and consequently I changed very little. And I’m sure her life still matters. I looked again at how she faced the challenges of a woman living in a male dominated world. Sheila would not have called herself a feminist, yet she did find her way round and through the restrictions. This reaffirmed for me that her journey has a valuable lesson, for females especially.

Of course she was far from being an angel, yet her zest for life still resonates. And the trials she faced, the sadness, heartache, disappointment, and the search for wisdom, as before connect with the struggles that are part of the human condition. In this lies her story’s universality.

www.helenmartineau.com.au

March 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Sheila’s son Philip Oyston and her granddaughter Dominique Oyston who undertook and recorded many of the interviews after I had to surrender the project for some time. They also read through early drafts. Dominique offered a wealth of insightful comments and Philip his accurate memory for detail. Thus they were major collaborators on this biography, which could not have happened without their enthusiasm and effort.

As well, Philip gave me Sheila’s collection of photos, letters, theatre reviews and various press clippings. These were an invaluable resource. Other photos came from a range of sources and these have been acknowledged individually. I am grateful for the many more people who helped in tracking down copyright.

Thanks also to the staff at Melbourne Arts Centre’s Performing Arts Collection for helping to sift through the Sheila Florance collection and other relevant source material concerning theatre history. And to Frank Van Straten for recordings of Sheila’s radio interviews, and listings of her films from the National Film and Sound Archive.

I would like to thank Trina Lucas for her help in unravelling Sheila’s motivations and Barbara Harvey of Lark Research for her efforts to uncover information about Sheila’s baby daughter and other family members in England. I also acknowledge the generous patronage of Wal and Lorna Cugley and the encouragement and valuable criticism given me by my husband Stephen Cugley.

Because family was so central to Sheila, the interviews with family members have been especially helpful: from her brother Peter Florance, assisted by his wife Gwen, came much of the information about Sheila’s childhood; while her sons Philip and Peter Oyston, her grandchildren Dominique, Stephen and Benjamin Oyston, and her niece Pamela Florance contributed many intriguing, humorous and sometimes painfully honest insights and memories.

It was a wonderful treasure-house that so many of Sheila’s friends and co-workers made time to be interviewed, offer remembrances and agree to the use of photos in which they appear, and that they were willing to be open and balanced regarding her gifts and contradictions.

Thanks to Peter Adams, Elspeth Ballantyne, Peter Batey, Julia Blake, Ernie Bourne, Pearl Britton, Geoff Brook, Kirsty Child, Paul Cox, Betty Druitt, Wendy Dunne, Sister Edwardine, Adam Frydman, Ida Frydman, Jack Gay, Mary-Lou Jelbart, Joan Harris, Peter Homewood, Alan Hopgood, Betty Irvine, Greg Irvine, Gordon Jones, Lesley Jones, Josephine Kelly, Patricia Kennedy, Noreen Kershaw, Margie King, Lesley Lanigan, Val Lehman, Reg Livermore, Fenella Maguire, Colette Mann, Monica Maughan, Esme Melville, Elaine Miller, Denise Morgan, Sue Nattrass, Charles Norman, Pat Norman, Terry Norris, Frederick Parslow, Marie Pinne, John Powers, Malcolm Robertson, Roland Rocchiccioli, Otto Sedelies, Joe Segal, Jentah Sobott, Fiona Spence, Garry Stewart, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Beris Underhill, Roz Vecsey, Don Webster and Muriel Webster.

No doubt there could have been more, so apologies to those we did not reach due to our own limitations of time and space.

Finally, there are the friends we wished to speak to, but who sadly passed on too soon. They were integral to Sheila’s story as well as to the history of cultural life in Australia: Ray Angell, Patrick Barton, Kevin Colebrook, Carmel Dunn, George Fairfax, Bill King, Jack Lanigan, Irene Mitchell, Frank Thring, Hal Todd, John Truscott, and Myrtle Woods.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS − ILLUSTRATIONS

Unless attributed below, illustrations come from Sheila Florance’s personal collection compiled by her immediate family and the author.

The Victorian Arts Centre made the Sheila Florance archive in the Performing Arts Collection (PAC) freely available for use in the biography.

The author is grateful to the photographers whose work is included in this book. Every effort has been made to trace them and the copyright holders. The author would be pleased to hear from anyone who has been inadvertently overlooked.

PROLOGUE

Sheila in front of Luna Park: courtesy of the Herald and Weekly Times Pty. Ltd.; photo The Sun 25/6/86

ACT THREE

3-5. Publicity photo c. 1952: courtesy of the Victorian Arts Centre Performing Arts Collection (PAC)

3-6. Irene Mitchell and John Tyrell discussing costumes: St Martins Theatre photo, courtesy of PAC

3-7. Frank Thring – theatre co-worker and party sparring partner: Arrow Theatre photo; courtesy of PAC

3-9. Our Town, CAE tour: Little Theatre photo; courtesy of PAC

3-13. Tiger at the Gates – Sheila as Cassandra: St Martins Theatre photo; courtesy of PAC

3-14. Sheila at work at ABV2, the ABC Television channel: reprinted by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, all rights reserved; from PAC

3-17. Shadow of Heroes: St Martins Theatre photo; courtesy PAC

3-18. Thataway the Kings Go: courtesy of Melbourne Theatre Company; photo Talbot and Newton

3-19. Macbeth − Sheila as Lady Macbeth, 1962: courtesy of Melbourne Theatre Company; photo Talbot and Newton

3-20. The Public Prosecutor: St Martins Theatre photo, courtesy of PAC

3-21 & 22. Stills from The Kings, courtesy of Peter Oyston

ACT FOUR

4-5. As the archbishop in Romanoff and Juliet: reprinted by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, all rights reserved; from PAC

4-6. The Little Foxes: St Martins Theatre photo; courtesy of PAC

4-9. Twelve Angry Women: St Martins Theatre; photo by Geoffrey Harris; courtesy of PAC

4-12. The Crucible − directed by son Peter Oyston: courtesy Playbox Theatre; photo by David Parker

4-13. The Dreamers: courtesy of Aranda Films; photo by Sylvia Stephens

4-14. Mad Max: Sheila Florance Directed by George Miller; © photos 12/Alamy stock photo, licensed by Alamy Pty. Ltd.

ACT FIVE

5-1. Waving to the crowds: courtesy of The Courier, Ballarat

5-2, 3, 4, 5 & 6: Prisoner photos: courtesy of Network Ten Television

5-8. Australian commemorative stamp 2004 − Barry Humphries as Edna Everage, 1969: © Neftali /Alamy stock photo; licensed by Alamy Pty Ltd

5-10. Helping to save the Franklin River: photo courtesy David Parker, Cascade Films; from PAC

5-11. At the Logies: photo from Sheila’s collection donated to the PAC

ACT SIX

6-7. Photo courtesy of Luzio Grossi; Luzio Grossi photography

6-8. On the set of Ruby Rose − courtesy of Roger Scholes, Edward Street Films

6-9. Uncle Vanya – a laugh before going on stage: Anthill Theatre photo; courtesy of PAC

6-10. The Imposter − courtesy of Playbox Theatre; photo by Jeff Busby

6-14, 15, 16 & 18; FINALE 7-4 & 6.

Scenes from the film A Woman’s Tale: courtesy of Paul Cox and Oliver Streeton, Illumination Films

PROLOGUE

IN THE WAKE OF SHEILA

1.%20two%20local%20celebrities.jpg

Two local celebrities – Sheila Florance and Luna Park

A Celebration—Wednesday 16 October, 1991

A grey day, typical of Melbourne’s springtime—umbrellas ready, showers on and off, traffic swishing along Grey Street St Kilda, rain running down the gutters outside the old Sacred Heart Church. It is a large church, and just as well. Outside the crowds are arriving. They are coming because this is the funeral day, a celebration of the life of Sheila Mary Florance.

Sheila died on the previous Saturday, 12 October, aged seventy-five. She had been acting since the age of seventeen and was known as a matriarch and grand lady of the Australian theatre world. It was only near the end of her career that she gained a cult following internationally as Lizzie Birdsworth in Prisoner. Because of this television fame, and the Australian Film Institute Award just days before she died for her leading role in Paul Cox’s film A Woman’s Tale, Sheila’s passing is newsworthy. Obituaries have appeared in the local and overseas press and the television crews are here to record the occasion for the evening news.

I have been given the job of handing out programs. Among the many people I don’t know, I pick out friends from Robe Street where she lived and from Acland Street where she shopped extravagantly, friends from the Jewish community, her children’s friends who became her friends, young people whose careers she encouraged and fostered, old folk she kept provided with nutritious soup—will anyone feed them now?—and theatre and television colleagues. The cameramen focus on those who are well-known from TV. Yes, there is Colette Mann. The camera follows her across the road and into the church foyer. Jane Clifton, Fiona Spence, Gerard Maguire and Patsy King walk past. Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell is filmed signing the guest register. Lizzie fans, and children from the local primary school, stand in small groups and point out the television stars to one another.

The program has a photo of a smiling, young, beautiful, very blonde Sheila. Most people stare for a moment, trying to take her in. ‘Wasn’t she lovely,’ they say, and, ‘You wouldn’t recognise her, would you.’ So many only know her incredibly lined face, without makeup, from her appearance in Prisoner. Her wrinkles made her look older than her years.

‘Even in her fifties she joked about the young men who would whistle at her from behind. She had such a good figure,’ a woman whispers.

‘Until she turned around,’ replies her friend. They laugh, discreetly. Sheila would recount this with gusto and act out the antics of the men trying to appear invisible. The laughter was uproarious then.

Sacred Heart is an airy church, with stained-glass windows, fresh off-white walls and lightly coloured decorative mouldings. There are round arches between nave and aisles and the whole is covered by a spacious barrel vault. Inside, Father Earnie Smith is greeting the invited speakers in the front row. Overall the mood is thoughtful. People speak softly to one another. Soon the church is packed—a full house for Sheila’s farewell performance, with standing room only for the later arrivals. Father Earnie steps forward and invites everyone to stand as the pallbearers bring in the coffin to Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary. The spacious church lends itself to the soaring sounds of organ and trumpet. People watch the coffin as it passes as if to catch a last glimpse of Sheila, and they become quiet. Sheila’s family follows: her brother Peter and his wife Gwen, her sons Peter and Philip Oyston, and her grandchildren Dominique, Stephen and Ben.

The pallbearers place the coffin between four large candles. It has a single white rose in a spray of gypsophila on its lid—Sheila loved white flowers. Father Earnie begins the formal service. Although not a churchgoer, Sheila developed a friendship with Father Earnie through their concern for the community. The Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Grey Street is a haven for many of the disadvantaged people in the area—homeless people, lonely old folk, as well as alcoholics and drug addicts. Sheila, in her own way, was a haven too. She was not a person to stand back from commitment.

The Catholics present cross themselves as Father Earnie begins to pray. He speaks without expression. But his tone warms when he describes his last moments with Sheila. He speaks as both priest and friend. ‘I was privileged on Saturday morning to be with her in hospital for the sacrament of anointing. She was so very weak she had decided to fade away. Her eyes were still very alert. I was beside the bed saying the prayers and holding her hands. She certainly knew what was happening. When we came to the Our Father, her lips moved but no sound came. Moving her lips was as much as she could do. I held her hands very gently, but it was firm in its own way.’ He gives a small smile. ‘She wouldn’t let go, so I couldn’t make the sign of the cross. So, she was very aware of every part of her life, of dying, and also of her trust in God. She lived her life to the full, and she died also with tremendous strength and trust.’

Now Sheila’s elder son Peter comes forward to begin the tributes. He flew from England to see Sheila before she died, missing her by minutes. They had a problematic relationship but today he wants to say something positive that will add to the occasion. His diction is clear and controlled as if he is holding his feelings within himself. ‘To me her death would be meaningless if she hadn’t passed on some power, some understanding. Pretty well all of us here have shared that. We lived in England and my father was killed in the war against Germany, and about the same time as Sheila lost her husband, my younger sister Bridget was blown out of her arms in the Blitz. You’d think it would lead to some bitterness, especially directed towards Germany. I was really impressed later on in my life when we came to Australia and we lived in Raleigh Place, which in a lot of people’s imaginations will be there forever. It was open house and we used to have parties every night.’

The grandchildren smile. They’ve heard about these nights so often. A few old friends who had been there smile too. ‘Everyone came,’ says Peter. ‘And I remember one night somebody brought a man called Hans to the party. He was ex-German army. And he was overwhelmed that my stepfather John, who had been a Polish airman, had such warmth and openness. And Sheila loved Hans as much as anybody. It was a great lesson to me in terms of being rid of any prejudice. It informed the rest of my life.’

Sheila designed her funeral. She knew what she wanted. Her granddaughter had been ordered to sing and told what to sing. Dominique is classically trained and her voice has a haunting quality which opens the listener’s heart. Sheila with her performer’s intuition understood the way it would enrich her farewell. Dominique slips off her coat and comes forward. She is wearing a black silk dress covered in red roses and wears her long hair loose. She looks very much like the young Sheila, although she has brown hair not blonde. And as the pure notes of ‘Panis Angelicus’ rise, many people instinctively look up to the vaults as if to follow them to where Sheila is overseeing her show. I think they must have a sense that she is there, listening, making sure that all goes well. In her long career Sheila stage managed almost as much as she performed up front and she knew the craft inside out.

Mary-Lou Jelbart is next. She became a St Kilda councillor, in part because of Sheila’s driving will. She tells how it happened. ‘I was elected to the St Kilda Council, largely as a result of Sheila’s determination that I would not lose. It was very little to do with me because I was terrified. I’d met Sheila and her friends at a residents’ meeting. We were having a lot of difficulties with…’ She pauses to find the right word. ‘Traffic.’ Many in the audience laugh, knowing she is referring to the gutter-crawlers who prowl the streets of St Kilda to pick up prostitutes. ‘Sheila was determined that this was going to stop, and when I was dragooned into running for the council she decided I was going to do it.’

Mary-Lou’s voice becomes tender as she says, ‘She was a magical person. She is a magical person. I find it hard to accept that I won’t talk to her again and I won’t hear her telling me what to do. I also think that she is an example to everyone about how you grow old, in that she didn’t grow old. For me she was never old, even when she was ill. She was the youngest person I knew, the most enthusiastic. She threw herself into everything.’

Two long-time friends speak, Peter Batey and Fenella Maguire. They describe the early days of Melbourne professional theatre when Sheila took them under her wing. Peter Batey says, ‘I was invited to her house, a young boy from the country, and my lessons in life began. This was one of the wonderful things about Sheila—extending the arm of friendship, particularly to young people.’ Fenella speaks about the beginnings of her friendship with Sheila as one of the first ‘adopted daughters’, which meant Sheila saw it as her duty to oversee their careers and romances. There were many of these ‘daughters’.

Dominique sings again. ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess. Sheila loved this song and often performed it at her parties in her strong tuneful voice.

Jentah Sobott is a more recent adopted daughter, and a fellow actor in Prisoner. She comes forward, girlish and exuberant, and speaks with a flourish of gestures. ‘Sheila always taught me. We were rehearsing a scene on the set one day. I’d just said my lines when we had to stop because there was a technical problem. Sheila gave me one of her loaded looks and said, Come with me. She took me aside and said, Jentah, whatever, ever you do it has to come from your heart. You have to have honesty, not only in acting but in life.’

Jentah’s voice becomes breathy and emotional. ‘I had a little tragedy and Sheila said to me, Well then, you’ll come and live with me. I announced this to some friends and they said, Why are you going to live with an old lady? But I could have more fun with Sheila and we’d get up to more tricks than I’ve known in whole groups of young people. I think this grand woman deserves a standing ovation when she departs this church, and I invite you to do that.’

The audience stands and applauds right there and then. It is spontaneous and premature but I think Sheila might be enjoying that.

Hal Todd and Nurse Roslyn Byrne focus on her final days. Hal hobbles up on crutches. He became a friend in part through his midnight-to-dawn program on radio station 3AW. In her later years Sheila was a talkback fanatic and the radio was usually on in the background even when she had visitors. She rang Hal regularly. He says, ‘I went up to Cabrini Hospital to see Sheila. I sat with her and she held my hand and talked about the afterlife. But I didn’t quite know how to talk this way with her.’

Hal then describes how Sheila’s humour broke the ice for him. She had become bone thin and with this in mind she gave him a wry smile and said in the most beautiful Shakespearean voice, ‘Toddy. I have no bum.’ Then she swung to Lizzie Birdsworth and said in the character’s broad Australian twang, ‘Ooh, get me another bloody cigarette.’

Roslyn tells a moving story of a very special patient. ‘Understandably, terminally ill patients go through a time when people around them become less significant. But Sheila Florance was an extraordinary person. Without exception the staff spoke of her genuine care and concern for others. She touched us all. We admired her determination to retain her independence and dignity even though the body was failing her. Whatever her internal battles were she never succumbed to self-centredness. Just the day before she died Bill from maintenance came up with some home-grown white orchids for Lizzie. Sheila made a supreme effort to admire the flowers and to thank Bill. Love was a word she used frequently. One of the night nurses came in to see if she needed anything. Just love, Sheila replied. This relationship was not just the normal rapport between patient and nurse. It was much more.’

Actor Peter Adams speaks next, remembering her enthusiasm for youthful talent. ‘I first worked with Sheila in the late 1960s in a Harold Pinter play called The Birthday Party. It was directed by a young uncompromising man called Jim Sharman. We all turned up in fear and trepidation of what his new techniques were going to be. Not Sheila. She listened, absorbed, dived in at the deep end, tried everything he asked and told him if it didn’t work. He was a very young man and she was a very experienced actress, but that was the way Sheila was, all her life. Youth and talent she adored. Fools she couldn’t stand. People without talent she would tell to do something else. Sheila worked endlessly for Australian theatre. She fought tirelessly for an Australian film industry and was part of its renaissance. And she had only a little time in television, which gave her the largest audience she ever had, and they loved Sheila, all over the world. They won’t forget her.’

Philip, Sheila’s younger son follows. He is light and humorous, smiling as he remembers. He tells this story. ‘Nobody in the world can upstage Sheila and no one will for generations. I’ll tell you my favourite story. A couple of months ago Paul Cox came into the hospital and said, Sheila you’ve been nominated for an Australian Film Institute award. And it was only two hours after her serious operation. She put her head up, flared her roller-door nostrils and said, Darling; I hope that wasn’t for a supporting role.’

Then Philip changes the mood. He reads a poem and tribute by sixteen-year-old Eve, daughter of Sandi Post, Sheila’s assistant on A Woman’s Tale. It sets some tears flowing.

And so it is time for Sheila’s exit. Grandson Ben has been given the task of holding the big brass cross at the foot of the coffin as Father Earnie blesses it with holy water and incense, brought to him by a little old woman wearing her Sunday scarf—one of Sheila’s neighbourhood friends. Sheila chose Parry’s familiar setting of Blake’s poem ‘Jerusalem’ for everyone to sing as the coffin is borne out, simply because she adored its stirring words and idealistic vision.

‘Jerusalem’ begins, the audience stands, and as Ben leads the pallbearers out of the church more people are dabbing their eyes with tissues. And soon clapping drowns out the singing, the organ and even the trumpet. Sheila is getting her standing ovation. We all applaud this remarkable woman as she departs her worldly stage.

Out in the street friends surround the family. Philip had the most to do with his mother in recent years and he knows nearly everyone. Older son Peter embraces Irene Mitchell, former director of St Martin’s Theatre and Sheila’s co-worker on and off for fifty years. Ben sees his sister Dominique’s tears and gives her a hug. He gives Peter his dad a hug too. That picture will appear in the Herald-Sun newspaper.

Meanwhile television people seek out some celebrities for comments to be included in the news items that night.

Media personality Roland Rocchiccioli: ‘She was an extraordinary lady to work with. This was a fantastic send-off for her. But there was one thing she would have hated. It was ten minutes late starting. In her fifty-seven years in the theatre she was never, never late. She wouldn’t have approved of that.’

Patsy King, Governor Erica Davidson from Prisoner: ‘She always used to make me laugh inside and outside work. I think my favourite scenes were with Lizzie. Sheila had a tremendous feeling for what she was doing and you always felt the person she was playing was real.’

Ernie Bourne, actor: ‘I mostly worked with her at St Martin’s Theatre doing plays. She was very generous as an actress and a person. She never held back in anything. She asked me one day if I was a Leo, and I said yes, so apparently that was good. We used to go back to her house after shows and party on. It was wonderful. Today’s send-off did her justice.’

Joy Westmore, Officer Joyce Barry from Prisoner: ‘Mostly I remember the TV series of course, but I met her at her house when I was an aspiring actress of sixteen. I was amazed at the sophistication of this woman because I’d never heard anyone swearing in mixed company. Sheila did it with a great deal of élan. I will miss her a lot. My whole family will miss her. She was very funny and caring. As an actress she was absolutely top. If you’ve seen A Woman’s Tale you’ll know what I am talking about.’

Sheila’s celebration isn’t finished yet. The St Kilda police, who were also part of her network of friends, provide an escort out of their district. Policemen on motorcycles lead the way, followed by two hearses—one with the coffin in it, both full of flowers—and the line of slow cars. So she processes like the star she was to the Brighton Cemetery to be interred alongside her darling father Jim, her mother Frances and her daughter Susan.

There are not so many here. It is raining. I feel that is appropriate for a film star’s burial because it often seems to rain at this point in movies. The funeral director intones the final sombre prayers. The coffin descends. We move forward one by one to throw a flower into the deep cavern.

Then we make our way to St Martin’s Theatre in South Yarra for the wake. Sheila frequently performed in this theatre near Melbourne’s beautiful Botanic Gardens when it housed a professional company. The mood lifts again. This is largely a theatrical crowd, and an event celebrating larger-than-life Sheila, so it is an exuberant gathering. The walls are lined with Sheila Florance memorabilia, the alcohol flows and friends from many eras and occupations make reconnections as they do at these occasions and reminisce about their lives and times with Sheila.

The majority of fans worldwide got to know Sheila Florance as Lizzie Birdsworth, and no doubt that was part of her personality. The friends who gathered after her funeral exchanged stories of a more complex woman, a wonderful, memorable yet contradictory individual— entertaining, funny, flamboyant, committed, courageous, compassionate, open-minded, loving, warm-hearted and generous, but also fiery, cantankerous, argumentative, judgemental, manipulative and controlling. Sheila was all of these things and more.

She was a true professional and worked hard at her craft and yet some say she could be undisciplined. She thrived on being the centre of attention but gave her time and energy to others unstintingly. She was loud and opinionated yet the softest person to a friend in trouble. She had a life as dramatic and filled with tragedy as a Shakespearean play, yet although she sometimes raged at the world, she never gave up or let herself develop a victim mentality.

What was the essence of Sheila that caused so many people to love her despite the more difficult side of her nature? And beyond the immediate celebrity, what inner quality and charisma enabled her to become so memorable when only one of her roles reached a major audience?

When I began to explore her life, those questions kept emerging. Her friends, and also many of her fans, might also ask the question in this way: What is the spirit of Sheila Florance? The story that follows is an attempt to discover that spirit, which during her life imbued the many roles she played on stage and off, yet which also endures and touches upon eternity.

ACT ONE

A LIVELY GIRL

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1-1. World – here I come!

Beginnings

The Florances and the Lalors

Sheila Mary Florance was born into a troubled world. It was 1916, well into the horrors of the Great War, and the ANZACS who survived Gallipoli were off dying in the trenches on the Western Front.

On the day of her birth, 24 July, Melbourne’s newspapers the Age and Argus filled their tightly packed small print columns with reports of the hard fighting in Europe. They also covered the controversy over conscription, a government proposal so hot it split the Australian nation, and even families. Fortunately, Sheila’s parents felt complete harmony over the issue. As a teacher Jim Florance was needed at home. That was a relief because he was a pacifist and definitely against conscription. His wife Frances agreed. A Catholic, she followed her church’s line which opposed the compulsory drafting of young men into the war effort. Such harmony could not last through Sheila’s childhood. Beyond the early flush of romance, Sheila’s parents were unsuited in temperament and needs.

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1-2. Sheila’s parents Jim and Frances Florance in 1936, Swanston Street, Melbourne

James Horn Florance