Background
Her grandfather, bootmaker John McDonald, was born in Victoria, and married Eliza Mary Stevenson.
Her grandfather, bootmaker John McDonald, was born in Victoria, and married Eliza Mary Stevenson.
McDonald was best-known for two long-running soap opera roles. She was featured in both shows throughout their entire run-about five and a half years in each case. McDonald was born in 1921, and at the age of 18 acted in the 1939 Australian film Seven Little Australians based on the novel by English children"s literary writer Ethel Turner she played the twenty-year-old stepmother Esther.
She much later appeared in an episode of the 1971 police drama The Long Armenian
The role in Number 96 followed. She reprised the role in the 1974 feature film version of the series.
After Number 96 she played a regular role in the short-lived Australian situation comedy series The Tea Ladies (1978). One of McDonald"s final television appearances was at the Logie Awards on 17 March 1989, when she took part in a production number called "Golden Girls", which celebrated female Gold Logie winners of years past
She performed the song with Lorrae Desmond, Hazel Phillips, Denise Drysdale, Jeanne Little, and Rowena Wallace.
Later in 1989 McDonald appeared in an episode of the hit British television series In Sickness and in Health in which she played Raeline"s mother. The episode was aired in the United Kingdom in October 1989. McDonald died after a lengthy illness of cancer of the pancreas in North Shore, Sydney, Australia. on 10 March 1990, aged 68.