Bellbird is an Australian soap opera serial broadcast by the ABC set in the small fictional Victorian rural township of the show's title. The series was produced at the networks Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne. The opening title sequence was filmed at Daylesford, Victoria.
Prisoner is an Australian television soap opera, which broadcast on Network Ten from February 27 (Melbourne) February 26 (Sydney) 1979 to December 1986 (Melbourne), though the series finale would not screen until September 1987 in Sydney, where it aired as a three-hour film that was split into three one-hour episodes at the much-later time-slot of 10:30 p.m., running eight seasons and 692 episodes.
Sigrid Madeline Thornton is an Australian film and television actress. Her television work includes Prisoner (1979–80), All the Rivers Run (1983), SeaChange (1998–2019) and Wentworth (2016–2018). She also starred in the American Western series Paradise (1988–91). Her film appearances include Snapshot (1979), The Man from Snowy River (1982), Street Hero (1984) and Face to Face (2011). She won the AACTA Award for Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama for the 2015 miniseries Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door.
Gerda Maureen Nicolson was an Australian actress, who worked across all major forms of media, including theatre and television actress and films, she was best known for several long-running television roles, including in rural series Bellbird police detective series Bluey and as Governor Ann Reynolds of the Wentworth Detention Centre in soap opera Prisoner and briefly as Robyn Taylor in Neighbours
Sheila Mary Florance was an Australian theatre, television and film actress. She played numerous roles in the Crawford Productions before playing Dossie Rumsay in the rural series Bellbird but became best known internationally for her performance as elderly, alcoholic convict Lizzie Birdsworth in the television series Prisoner.
Anne Charleston is an Australian actress, notable for her career locally and in the United Kingdom and Ireland in theatre and television. Charleston started her career in theatre in the mid 1950's, and has been a staple of the small screen since the early 1960s, starting with roles in telemovies, before making appearance's in the various Crawford Productions series starting from the latter 1960s and 1970s, before becoming known for her three different recurring roles in cult classic series Prisoner
Colette Mann is an Australian actress, singer, TV and radio presenter, choreographer and author/writer and media personality, she has been in the entertainment industry for over 50 years.
Anne Mary Phelan was an Australian actress of stage and screen who appeared in many theatre, television and film productions as well as radio and voice-over.
Elspeth Ballantyne is an Australian retired actress, who appeared in productions in theatre, television and films over a career that spanned nearly 60 years, a veteran of the industry having started her career as a child actor and becoming a staple of the theatre starting from in 1947, in a production of Macbeth and by the age of 15 in 1954 had turned pro., performing in stage roles for the next 37 years, including a stage play tour of the United Kingdom of her iconic "Prisoner" role at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham.
Betty Ann Bobbitt was an American actress, director, singer, and playwright based in Australia, with a career that spanned over 60 years, encompassing theatre, television, and film.
Fiona Spence is an Australian stage and television actress and drama teacher. She is known for her television roles including Prisoner (1979–81) as Gestapo-like prison officer Vera Bennett and Home and Away as the unlucky-in-love spinster Celia Stewart (1988–90).
Mary Lorraine Ward, also known as Mary Ward Breheny, was an Australian actress of stage, television, and film and radio announcer. Her career spanned seven decades. Ward trained in England and Australia, and worked in both countries.
Gerard Maguire also credited as Gerard McGuire, is an Australian actor, producer and screenwriter best known for his role in Prisoner as Deputy Governor, Jim Fletcher. Often appearing on Australian television police dramas and soap operas throughout the 1970s and 80s, he is also one of Australia's top voice actors, voicing numerous commercials and narrations during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Joy Westmore was an Australian actress on radio, stage and television, and in voice-over. She was best known to local and international television viewers for her long-running role in Prisoner as the friendly but highly ineffectual bespectacled officer Joyce Barry, appearing from the first season in 1979 until the final episode in 1986 and smaller roles in Neighbours in 1991 and 2003.
Anne Shirley Lucas billed also as Annie Lucas, is an Australian actress and TV screenwriter and script editor, best known for her roles on television including Bellbird as Glenda Chan, The Young Doctors from 1977 to 1980 as Eve Turner (Steele) and in Prisoner for two stints in 1982 and 1983 as prison bookie Faye Quinn.
Pamela Rabe is a Canadian–Australian actress and theatre director. A graduate of the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver, Rabe is best known for her appearances in the Australian films Sirens, Cosi and Paradise Road, and for starring as Joan Ferguson in the television drama series Wentworth.
Celia Ireland is an Australian actress. She is best known for her role as Regina Butcher on the television series All Saints and her Logie award winning role as Liz Birdsworth on the prison drama series Wentworth.
Lynette Curran is an Australian actress known for many roles in Australian television series and films, including the soap opera Bellbird, and the films Country Town (1971) and Bliss (1985).
Elizabeth Harris is an Australian retired stage and television actress who appeared on a number of popular television series and films from the mid-1960s up until her retirement in 1993. She is best known for her role as Liza in the 1960s children's television series Adventure Island but also for playing recurring characters Sally Dempster in Prisoner and Clover Owen-Jones in A Country Practice in her later career. She was also the wife of longtime Australian television and radio star Leonard Teale. They married on 18 December 1968.
Georgia Flood is an Australian film, television and theatre actress. After studying at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and the 16th Street Actors Studio in Melbourne, Flood made her stage debut in a production of Blackbird. She made a guest appearance in City Homicide in 2008, before she was cast as Charlotte Barker in Tangle. Flood went on to join the casts of House Husbands and Wentworth. In 2013, she was a runner-up for the Heath Ledger Scholarship Award. The following year, Flood starred in ANZAC Girls as Alice Ross-King. The role led to a nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries at the Golden Nymph Awards.
