Talk:Sheila Florance

Lead
In the lead, She lost a stoically-born battle with cancer in 1991, just a week after receiving the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her last film. "Stoically-born"? I have no clue what that is supposed to mean. Kinda baffles me on this type of writing being used. Like a puff piece. GamerPro64 04:26, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Point taken - reworded.Poltair (talk) 06:23, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Little Theatre
Florance rejoined Melbourne's Little Theatre and in August 1951 appeared in Guy Bolton's Larger than Life. This was followed in April – May 1952 with what was described as "a remarkable performance...as the lay preacher's wife...an exceptionally fine piece of acting" in Denis Cannan's comedy, Captain Carvallo. In February – March 1953 Florance toured Victoria with the Arrow theatre's well-received production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Playing Mrs Gibbs, Florance clocked up 63 performances over the eight weeks the company was on tour. Later that year, in July, the Little Theatre began a festival of Australian works and she played old hag Koura in Douglas Stewart's verse play, The Golden Lover. Continuing with the Australian Festival, Florance was next cast as an elderly grandmother in Leslie Rees' adaptation of Ruth Park's novel The Harp in the South, and she quipped at the time, "I seem to be making a collection of ancient character roles", a comment that anticipated her most famous roles. Florance's 1953 theatrical year ended with a very well received double bill at the Arrow Theatre of Sheridan's The Critic and Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

Further theatre work and first television role
Noel Coward's Relative Values (March 1957) at the Little Theatre came next, followed by Albert Hackett's dramatisation of The Diary of Anne Frank (September 1957) with Gabor Baraker at the Princess Theatre, and Edwin O. Marsh's translation of Jean Anouilh's Dinner With the Family (6 September 1958 – 27 September 1958) with Moira Carleton at the Little Theatre.

1960s
A string of performances at the Union Theatre followed: Ferenc Molnár's comedy The Guardsman (4 September 1961 – 23 September 1961), William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (25 September 1961 – 14 October 1961), Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros (16 October 1961 – 4 November 1961), Malcolm Robertson's Thataway the Kings Go (6 November 1961 – 25 November 1961), Peter Ustinov's comedy satire Romanoff and Juliet (27 November 1961 – 23 December 1961), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (8 January 1962 – 3 February 1962) with Neil Fitzpatrick and Patsy King (who appeared with Florance, as governor Erica Davidson, in many episodes of Prisoner).

Further theatre productions, early television and film
Florance appeared in three more plays in 1962. Fritz Hochwälder's The Public Prosecutor (12 April 1962 – 5 May 1962) with Peter Adams, at the Little Theatre, Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (4 June 1962 – July 1962) with Carol Armstrong, Bunney Brooke and Syd Conabere at Russell Street Theatre, and Michael Redgrave's adaptation of Henry James' The Aspern Papers (24 September 1962 – 13 October 1962) with Gina Curtis, Marion Edward and Reg Livermore at the Union Theatre. A further foray into television came at the end of 1962 and early 1963, when Florance played defendants Laura Radford and Jocelyn Matthews in two episodes of Seven Network's semi-improvisational courtroom television series Consider Your Verdict.

In March 1963, Florance toured across Victoria in the Union Theatre Repertory Company's double bill of George Bernard Shaw's Balkan satire Arms and the Man and Peter Batey's bush-life farce The No-Hopers (6 March 1963 – 10 April 1963). At the renamed St Martin's Theatre (formerly the Little Theatre), Florance appeared in her last play for a few years; Fay and Michael Kanin's adaptation of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's Rashomon (5 February 1964 – 29 February 1964).

In the middle of the decade, Florance took her first step into cinema. She appeared as a deaf mute in Giorgio Mangiamele's art film Clay, and in post-production, dubbed the voice of lead actor Janina Lebedew, who played Margot. Florance also made her first appearance in popular police procedural television series Homicide, as well as Dangerous Corner, a television movie written by J. B. Priestley, an episode ("The Stand-In") of children's series The Magic Boomerang, and in Patrick Barton's television adaptation of Peter Ustinov's Romanoff and Juliet.

In 1967 Florance started to appear on and off as Dossie Rumsey in long-running soap opera Bellbird. The intermittent nature of Bellbird allowed Florance to continue with her theatrical work and she was a founder member of the short-lived Melbourne Independent Theatre Company. The company managed to stage one production, Brain Faull's Life for the Living (15 May 1967 – 27 May 1967) at the Emerald Hill Theatre, before disbanding. Later the same year, Florance was at St Martin's Theatre in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party (1 November 1967 – 25 November 1967) alongside Peter Adams. In February 1968, Florance crossed the country to appear, with the St Martin's Theatre company in Thomas Keneally's Halloran's Little Boat (5 February 1968 – 17 February 1968) alongside Terence Donovan at the Playhouse Theatre in Perth, as part of the Festival of Perth, and then again, back home, at St Martin's Theatre. Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (22 May 1968 – 15 June 1968) alongside Syd Conabere at St Martin's Theatre was Florance's last play of the 1960s.  Mini  apolis  01:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC) Baffle gab1978 (talk) 01:14, 10 July 2015 (UTC)