Actor Sheila Kennelly star of stage and TV screen dies on her beloved farm

Sheila Kennelly became a household name in the 1970s for playing the wig-wearing barmaid from Norma’s Bar who called everyone “ducky” in the TV series Number 96 . Her long career, however, also included roles in radio and theatre, and working the land on her Hunter Valley farm.

Sheila Smith was born on December 28, 1937, in West Sussex and spent her early years in Brighton, England. She has died aged 88. After moving to Australia in 1950, she began working at George Edwards’ Radio Productions, originally transcribing radio serials before moving into casting. However, she was also studying acting and soon she was getting work as a character actress, often being cast in roles much older than she really was.

Performing under her mother’s maiden name, Sheila worked for the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Arts Council, Independent Theatre, Union Repertory and Neutral Bay’s Music Hall.

She married actor Chris Christensen in 1965 but tragically, he died two-and-a-half years later from an incurable heart disease.

Having moved with him to a farm in the lower Hunter Valley, Sheila stayed on and with the help of her “wonderful” neighbours, she continued to act in TV series like Crackerjack , You Can’t See Round Corners and Division 4 . All her acting money was used to keep the farm going, where she would name cows after characters she had played, and to buy such “luxuries” as an indoor toilet.

In 1972, Sheila was cast in Number 96 as Norma, a barmaid who worked at a nearby pub and was married to madcap inventor Les Whittaker (Gordon McDougall). Having “deep-seated misgivings” about appearing in such a controversial series, Sheila wore a brassy blonde wig so no one would recognise her, and she also refused to sign a nudity clause.

To her horror, however, the Whittakers moved into the building and opened a wine bar.

In the book Number 96: 50th Anniversary Album , Sheila wrote: “Norma had to be seen without her work wig at breakfast, cigarette dangling from lips, frowsy and rather irritable, and the real Sheila was revealed in uncomfortable truth”.

Then, after Norma posed for a portrait, it was revealed to show her in the nude. Having refused to strip down to her undies and pose for the Channel 10 artist Eunice Dyer, Sheila later admitted that at least Norma was given “a beautifully tilted bosom which I much preferred to the real thing!”

On-screen husband Les was killed off in the show’s infamous bomb blast in 1975, while Norma was left critically injured and trapped underneath a cigarette machine.