Wendy Hughes

Wendy Hughes (29 July 1952 – 8 March 2014) was an Australian actress whose career spanned more than four decades across stage, film and television, earning her a reputation as one of the nation’s most respected and versatile performers. Born in Melbourne’s suburb of Alphington to English‑born parents—her father a Lancashire plasterer who had served in the RAAF during World II—she began studying ballet before turning to acting as a teenager, winning a scholarship to the National Institute of Dramatic Art and graduating in 1970. Her first television work came on the long‑running series Homicide, where she appeared in six different guest roles between 1967 and 1973, demonstrating an early talent for inhabiting diverse characters. Hughes quickly moved to the Melbourne Theatre Company and earned her first film credit in Petersen (1974), followed by a breakthrough role in the acclaimed series Power Without Glory (1976). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s she became a central figure in the “New Australian Film” renaissance, collaborating with celebrated artists such as cinematographer John Seale and writers David Williamson and Bob Ellis, and starring in classics like My Brilliant Career, Careful, He Might Hear You (for which she won the 1983 Australian Film Institute Best Lead Actress award), and He Might Hear You. Her first international exposure arrived with the role of Patricia in Lonely Hearts (1982), launching a long‑standing partnership with director Paul Cox. In 1987 she made her American debut opposite Peter Falk and Charles Durning in John G. Avildsen’s Happy New Year, and later appeared in the HBO TV movie The Heist with Pierce Brosnan. Hughes also left a memorable mark on U.S. television, playing medical examiner Dr Carol Blythe on Homicide: Life on the Street and guest‑starring as Lieutenant Commander Nella Daren in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Lessons”. Returning to Australia, she led series such as State Coroner and Snowy River: The McGregor Saga, and continued stage work including roles in The Graduate (2001) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2007). Her final screen appearance was in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries before her death from cancer in March 2014, a loss mourned by colleagues such as Bryan Brown who called for a standing ovation in her honor.