Profile of Ruth Cracknell on Famous Like Me

Ruth Cracknell AM (6 July 1925 – 13 May 2002), Australian theatre and television actress, is one of Australia's most recognized and well-loved character actresses. She was known variously as 'Crackers', 'Dame Crackers' and 'Dame Ruth', throughout a career spanning 56 years.

Early life

Cracknell was born in 1925 in the town of Maitland, in New South Wales, daughter of Charles and Winifred Cracknell. When Ruth was four years old, the family moved to Sydney.

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

At seventeen, Cracknell was taken to the theatre by a friend. She immediately wanted to become an actor, and joined the Modern Theatre Players drama school.

Career

Cracknell's first acting jobs were in radio. By 1946, she was performing five episodes of radio plays a week. She also performed on stage with the Independent Theatre Company. In 1948, Cracknell joined the John Alden Company and had roles in King Lear, Measure for Measure and The Tempest. In 1952, at the age of twenty-seven, she left Australia to work in London for two years.

Cracknell married Eric Phillips on 25 June 1957, and together they had three children, Anna, Jane and Jonathan. Unlike many women of the time, she did not retire, and continued to act.

Cracknell appeared in many Australian film and TV productions, including the award-winning ABC-TV dramatistion of Ethele Turner's Australian children's classic Seven Little Australians, but she is probably most famous for her role in the ABC television series Mother and Son. Written by Geoffrey Atherden and loosely based on the cult Carl Reiner film Where's Poppa?, Mother and Son first screened in 1984, ran for six seasons over nine years, and was often repeated.

Cracknell played an elderly woman, Maggie Beare, who was slowly becoming senile. She was cared for by her long-suffering younger son Arthur (Garry McDonald), to whom she was often indifferent but also dependent on, and whom she often cynically played off against her self-centred older son (Henri Szeps) and daughter-in-law (Judy Morris).

Ruth appeared in over twenty films and television series, including The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), the miniseries Seven Little Australians (1973) and Play School (throughout the 1960s).

Cracknell passed away in Sydney on 13 May 2002, after suffering a respiratory illness. She was survived by her three children and seven grandchildren.

Honours

In 1980, Cracknell was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). In 1998, the National Trust of Australia named Cracknell one of 100 National Living Treasures. In 2001, she was inducted into the Gold Logie Hall of Fame.

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

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