Carmen Duncan

Carmen Joan Duncan (7 July 1942 – 3 February 2019) was an Australian-born stage and screen actress and activist, with a career locally and internationally in the United States that spanned over 50 years.

She was nominated for the AFI Award for Best Actress for the 1980 film Harlequin, and was also known for the film Don't Let It Get You. Her other film appearances include Touch and Go (1980) and Turkey Shoot (1982). She played Iris Wheeler in the American soap opera Another World from 1988 to 1994.

Duncan appeared in numerous theatre roles between 1970 and 2015.

Early life and career
Duncan was born in Cooma, New South Wales, in 1942. She graduated in 1961 from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney. Duncan was known to Australian audiences as a character actress in television, stage and films, as well as having appeared in television commercials. Her television roles included the series Hunter (1967) and she appeared in the evening soap opera Number 96 playing Helen Sheridan in 1973. A role on the soap Certain Women followed. She later had an ongoing role in Skyways, and guest starred in several episodes of A Country Practice as Terence Elliott's wife, Rowena. Her film roles included Turkey Shoot (1982) and its 2014 reboot.

Duncan emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, where she acted on television. From October 1988 to September 1994, she portrayed Iris Carrington Wheeler on the American daytime soap opera Another World. She succeeded Beverlee McKinsey in the role after a long absence. Many of her critics, including TV Guide Michael Logan, remarked that her accent sounded less American than her counterparts, making her seem out of place in the serial. As an actress, she generally used a Cultivated Australian accent, which is similar to Received Pronunciation.

After leaving the Another World role in the mid-1990s, Duncan returned to Australia, where she acted in guest roles on television series and lampooned her former soap opera image on television commercials. In 2000, she was diagnosed and treated for early stage breast cancer. In 2003, she appeared as Anna Denton on CrashBurn. In 2004, she returned to the United States to fill in for Eileen Fulton as Lisa Grimaldi in three episodes of As the World Turns while Fulton was on emergency medical leave. Duncan became a member of Actor's Equity in 1962 and the federal council of the Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance.

Activism
Duncan retired from acting in 2006 and became a fundraising manager for the GO Fund, a New South Wales charity associated with gynaecological cancer. She served as an ambassador for the Breast Care Centre at the Royal Hospital for Women.

Personal life
Duncan lived in Sydney. She had two children. Her younger sister is actress Paula Duncan.

Carmen Duncan died on 3 February 2019 from breast cancer, aged 76.