Agnes Dobson

Agnes Dobson was born on 30 December 1904, at Glebe Point, New South Wales, Australia, though her birth was not registered.[1] Dobson's parents were New Zealand-born actor and theatre manager Collet Barker Dobson, and actor Harriet Agnes Thornton (née Meddings) who performed under her stage name Harrie Collet.[1] Agnes Dobson's first stage performance was as a baby in a cradle for a production by her father's theatre company.[1]

Dobson began her career-proper aged 7, in Little Lord Fauntleroy,[2] another of her father's productions,[3] before she was sent to school and left the stage again until her teenage years.[4]

She appeared in one of Australia's first silent films 1919's The Face at the Window,[5] and found success playing a damsel in distress in 1919 comedy film Barry Butts In.[3] During production of that film, a member of the public thought Dobson's kidnapping was real and attempted to save her and interrupted the filming.[6][7]

Dobson also wrote plays, and in 1936 her work Dark Brother tied for second prize in the Adelaide Advertiser's Centenary playwright competition.[3][8]

She opened her own stagecraft studio in 1935,[5] and ran the Crawford School of Broadcasting when it was founded in 1952, with fellow actor Moira Carlton.[9]

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Dobson appeared as Mrs Sharpshott on ABC Melbourne's radio serial The Village Glee Club.[10][11][7]

Dobson wrote an autobiography An Australian Speaks of Many Things, but it was never published.[12] Chapters are held by the National Film and Sound Archive.[13]

The papers of Agnes Dobson are held by the National Library of Australia.[14]

Dobson married actor and playwright Frederick Stanley Holah (also known as Ronald Riley) in 1921 when she was 19. They had a son William John also known as Bill Barclay (1921-1970).[1][2]

The marriage ended in divorce, and Dobson remarried in 1924 to salesman George Oliver Clapcott Barclay. They were divorced in 1931.[1]

Dobson remarried in 1932 to Wilfred Thornton, a business manager, but the marriage was dissolved in 1934.[1]

In her later years, Dobson lived in a nursing home in Oakleigh, Victoria, with support from the Actors' Benevolent Fund.[1]

She died in the nursing home on 26 February 1987.[1]

• The Hayseeds' Back-blocks Show (1917)
• Barry Butts In (1919)
• The Face at the Window (1919)
• Dark Brown (1957)
• As You Are (1958)
• Ruth (1959)
• Eye of the Night (1960)
• Waters of the Moon (1961)
• Quiet Night (1961)
• She'll Be Right (1962)
• Macbeth (1965)