Australian actor Lorraine Bayly, who played the beloved matriarch Grace in The Sullivans and also appeared on Play School and Carson’s Law, has died aged 89.
The multi-Logie Award winner passed away at a Sydney aged care home on Saturday morning, according to friend and 2GB reporter Craig Bennett.
Starting her career in 1962 on variety program The Bobby Limb Show, Bayly had by 1966 cemented herself onscreen by enchanting and entertaining Australia’s tiniest TV viewers as one of the original presenters on Play School.
But it was her later turn as Grace Sullivan – whom she played in almost 600 episodes – which established her as “Australia’s mum”, before her character died in a tear-jerking TV moment: killed in a London bomb blast from a German V-1 while visiting her injured son John.
While best known for her storied 62-year career on stage and screen, one of Bayly’s most impressive traits was her ability to continue learning new things, long after her retirement from acting, Bennett said.
“As a person, she was vibrant, beautiful. She was so kind and generous to so many people,” he said.
“Every decade in her life, she’d challenged herself with something new – I remember years ago she took up tennis and became this absolutely fabulous tennis player that could almost give John Newcombe a run for his ball.
“Then she’d study the saxophone… learn to ballroom dance, then go and learn French. She just kept herself absolutely active, mentally and physically.”
Bayly chose to the leave The Sullivans in 1979, having become the highest-paid series actress in Australia, according to TV Times.
She played the lead role of progressive and headstrong solicitor Jennifer Carson in Carson’s Law, also clocking up appearances in The Man From Snowy River, Neighbours and A Country Practice.
Bayly retired from acting a decade ago and faced a number of significant health challenges in her later years, including a collapsed lung due to pneumonia in 2018, and breast cancer which required a mastectomy.
Steven Tandy, who played Bayly’s onscreen son Tom in The Sullivans, said the actor captured so many hearts with her “unforgettable portrayal” of the family’s matriarch.
“She was the most giving of people – always down to earth and affectionate, yet not without a certain almost girlish vivaciousness,” he said in a post on social media.
“I truly loved and admired her and was so grateful for the close friendship we shared. Fly high, lovely lady. Your work is done.”
Bayly’s husband, journalist Steve O’Baugh, died in Los Angeles in 1996, aged just 47.
She is survived by her nephew Brad Connelly, his wife Janelle and their children Laura and Patrick.