Carol Raye

Raye was born as Kathleen Mary Corkery in London, England the daughter of a commander in the Royal Navy R. B. Corkery and his wife,[1] She trained as a ballet dancer and was discovered by choreographer Freddie Carpenter at age 16, who trained her in dance.[3]

Raye played lead roles in many musicals and television production in her native Britain. Her theatre roles included Funny Side Up, Fun and Games,[3] The Merry Widow,[4] Dear Miss Phoebe[5] and The Ticket-of-Leave Man.

Raye was a star of early British films including Song of Romance (the first British musical Technicolor film)[6] as well as in the films Strawberry Roan (1944) and Waltz Time (in which she sings) (1945) and the 1947 While I Live (1947) and Green Fingers (1948).

Raye remarried in 1951,[7] accompanying her second husband as he travelled the world with his work. She worked as producer/director for Kenya Broadcasting Corporation from 1961 to 1964.

The family emigrated to Australia in 1964 and, that same year, Raye got a job working as an assistant to the General Manager at ATN7, and devised the idea for a satirical television series. Starting in November 1964, Raye was one of the three original stars of the highly popular and influential sketch comedy television series The Mavis Bramston Show, with Gordon Chater and Barry Creyton. She also produced the pilot episode and co-produced the series (with Michael Plant), until her departure from the programme in late 1965. She resumed work on the series for the 1967 and 1968 seasons. The series ended in 1968.[8] In 2014, Raye then 91, wrote to Kerry Stokes, requesting a DVD release of the iconic series.

In the 1970s, Raye played the ongoing comedy role of much-married socialite and Baroness Amanda von Pappenburg, the aunty of Don Finlayson (played by Joe Hasham) whom she visits from Heidelberg, Germany, in the top-rated soap opera Number 96, After two substantial stints with the series in the 1973–74 period, Amanda was permanently written out of the serial, but Raye remained with the serial, switching to the role of creative director for the show's producers. That busy role involved the casting of regular characters, along with reviewing the scripts and storylines. When it was released to DVD, with Andrew Mercado, she provided a commentary for the serial alongside co-star Elisabeth Kirkby, who played series regular Lucy Sutcliffe and Michael Kirky.[9]

In 1977, Raye subsequently acted in the medical soap opera The Young Doctors, playing the guest role of Rosalie Parker. She was a regular panelist on Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks (1977–78) and on The Mike Walsh Show. She acted in television and film roles through the 1990s, and into the 2000s, with appearances in SeaChange and in commercials.

In the early 1980s, Raye had a four-year appointment with the Theatre Board of the Australia Council.[10]

She has appeared in many Australian theatre productions, including California Suite, Pleasure of His Company, Travelling North, The Merry Wives of Windsor, You Can't Take It With You, Noises Off and Hay Fever.[8] Raye was a subject of This Is Your Life.

On 3 November 1945,[1] Raye married[11] US Army Engineer Captain Clark Spencer, a "prominent Winchester and Marblehead sportsman" (Massachusetts, USA).[6]

In 1951, she married prominent veterinarian Robert Ayre Smith (1926-2006).[7] They had three children, two of whom followed their mother into theatrical roles. Her eldest child, Sally Ayre Smith, is a retired TV producer, best known for the ABC series SeaChange, but is now a director of an organic farm produce marketing business.[12] Her youngest daughter, Harriet, started her career in the Sydney Theatre Company office[10] and is also an occasional actress.[13]

• Carol Raye at IMDb