Patricia Lovell

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Patricia Lovell
MBE
Born
Patricia Anna Parr

1929
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died26 January 2013 (aged 83)
Other namesMiss Pat
Occupation(s)Film producer, actress
FamilyJenny Lovell (daughter), Nigel Lovell (husband, actor) (born;1916- died 2001, married 1956)[1]

Patricia Anna Lovell

Raymond Longford Award in 2004 from the Australian Film Institute
(AFI).

Her productions include 1975's Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Gallipoli, which received an AFI Award in 1982 as Best Film.

Early life and career

Lovell was born in

optometrist. During her childhood three of her five siblings died, including one who was quite ill at birth and died at 18 months, and her parents divorced. She attended Presbyterian Ladies' College, Armidale, but "didn't do well in the Leaving at all" and failed to get a university pass.[1]

She began her career in radio at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in the early 1950s, becoming a junior broadcaster in children's programs. That led to her joining the cast of the Children's Session.[4][2] Despite the pressure of live television and having no formal training, she started making weekly appearances on ABC Children's TV, and in 1960 began her most fondly-remembered role as 'Miss Pat' [a] in ABC TV's children's television program Mr. Squiggle.[2][5]

In 1964, Lovell became what she characterised as "one of the minor beauties"[1] on the panel of Beauty and the Beast. When ATN-7's early morning Sydney Today show began in 1969 she and Bruce Webster were its co-presenters,[6] and it was there as an interviewer that she met Peter Weir, the director with whom she would produce her two best-known films, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli.[1] In 1988, she and Mel Gibson formed a film production company "Lovell Gibson", but it was dissolved without making a film.[6]

Later career

Lovell worked as Head of Producing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) between 1996 and 2003.[2]

Personal life

Parr met her future husband, actor

Metropolitan Theatre in Sydney.[1] He was a widower with a daughter. They married in 1956,[7][8] and had two children, Simon Lovell, a helicopter pilot,[9] and Jenny Lovell, an actor known for her role on the soap opera Prisoner[10] (called Prisoner: Cell Block H in the UK and the USA). The couple eventually divorced.[1]

Lovell died on 26 January 2013 from liver cancer, aged 83.[9]

Filmography

Film

Television

Honours

Pat Lovell was appointed a

Member of the Order of Australia (AM).[12]

Notes

  1. ^ A sobriquet given by her puppet costar, reminiscent of the famous English stage actress 'Mrs. Pat' (Campbell).

References

External links

Further reading

General references: