Background
Ward was born as to a pearler in Fremantle, Western Australia 6 March 1914 Ward began acting professionally shortly after leaving high school and later studied at the Perth drama school.
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Mary Ward
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She also studied in England performing as a stage actress for several years, she worked in Britain in film and repertory stage theatre before returning to Australia prior to World World War II, when she became one of the first female radio announcers for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during the war as "The Forces Sweetheart".
Career
Trained in Australia and England, Ward became one of the first female radio announcers at the American Broadcasting Company in Australia. In both roles, Ward played an elderly matriarch character. She returned to the English stage and, in 1948 acted in parts for the British Broadcasting Corporation including a cameo role in the Chips Rafferty film Eureka Stockade.
Ward returned to Australia and made her first television appearance as a minor character in The Vise in 1954, and in the television movie The High-Flying Head the following year.
She had starring roles in the television movies Marriage Lincolnshire and The Tower. Harness Fever would later appear as a two-part episode, Born to Ride, on Wonderful World of Disney in 1979.
She continued her stage work in the 1970s with the Melbourne Theatre Company, remaining with the company until 1983, performing in a David Williamson stage production. In 1978, Ward first appeared in one of her best known roles, "Mum" (Jeanette) Brooks, on the popular soap opera Prisoner.
The series didn"t go to air in Australia until February 1979.
She portrayed an elderly institutionalised inmate, serving an eighteen-year prison sentence for the euthanisation of her terminally ill husband. When the filming schedule for the series increased from one to two hours per week in 1979, she and co-star Carol Burns decided to leave the series. However, her character remained a popular one during the show"s early years and she reprised her role occasionally until her character died off screen in 1983.
She starred with a number of her fellow Prisoner co-stars in the 1981 television movie I Can Jump Puddles as a character called Mistress
Birdsworth. Coincidentally, this was the surname of Sheila Florance"s character Lizzie Birdsworth in Prisoner. Ward starred in the short-lived 1985 television series The Henderson Kids and its 1987 follow-up series The Henderson Kids World War II During the late-1980s, she had supporting roles in the films Jenny Kissed Maine and Backstage as well as appearing in Neighbours in 1988.
After starring in the 1989 television movie Darlings of the Gods, she returned again to the theatre and, in 1991, appeared in "Alive and Kicking" (play). Recently
With the exception of an appearance in the television series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh in 1994, in the 1990s Ward remained largely absent from Australian television screens until 1998, appearing in the film Amy.
Between 1999 and 2000, she played recurring character Betty Withers in the police drama Blue Heelers.
Ward became a centenarian in 2014 and received numerous congratulatory messages ons social media (Facebook).
