Joan Bruce

Joan Olive Bruce (née Thompson; 29 February 1928 – 26 April 2014) was a British actress who appeared in theatre, radio, television and film.

Bruce was best known for her role in the television series Certain Women (1974-1977) and for voicing the Kangaroo in the children's animation live action film Dot and the Kangaroo (1977)

Bruce was born as Joan Thompson in Surrey, England to George and Olive Thompson and took her stage name after her maternal grandmother.

She trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, before launching her performance career in repertory theatre in northern England from 1948, after marrying first husband actor, director, stage manager and theatre entrepreneur Frank Baden-Powell. They immigrated the following year to Australia and toured Oceania with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in plays Separate Tables and Sleeping Prince, with her husband taking on the role of stage manager and Bruce acting.

After returning to Perth to give birth to her daughters, she appeared in plays The Anniversary, Entertaining Mr. Sloane and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Lauded for her performances, she was considered one of Perth's finest actors. In Adelaide she featured in the production of Patrick White's The Ham Funeral, and was awarded as actress of the year. Before taking the show to Sydney, she also was in the cast of Night on Bald Mountain, another play by Patrick White, before moving with her daughters to Sydney in 1968, and spending the next ten years working numerously including roles in The Entertainer, Travelling North, Heartbreak House, The Life and Times of Nicholas Appelby and Something Afoot.

Bruce was best known for her role in the television series Certain Women and for voicing the Kangaroo in the children's animation/live film Dot and the Kangaroo

She married her second husband Kenneth William in 1978, and subsequently appeared on television in guesting roles in series Chopper Squad and A Country Practice.

She retired in 1988 and died several weeks after her husband on the New South Wales Central Coast in April 2014, aged 86.

Films

TV series