Lorna Forbes

Forbes was born in North Melbourne in 1890. Her mother was Ada Emily Windson (born Lawrence) and her father was Wilson Duff-Forbes. She was a fourth generation actress. Both of her parents were actors born in Australia,^[1] and she had a younger brother.^[2] In 1910, she married a musician named Frederick Charles Chute Chapman and they had a son.^[1]

In 1916 she joined the British actor Allan Wilkie who led George Marlow's new Grand Shakespearean Company. They first performed The Merchant of Venice in Sydney.^[3] She continued with Wilkie in 1920 when he formed the Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Company^[4] of thirty players who for eight years toured Australia giving around 14000 performances. His leading lady was his wife Miss (Frediswyde) Hunter-Watts.^[5] Forbes was able to play roles including Cleopatra, but she was generally overshadowed by the company's leading lady.^[1] Wilkie maintained a varied Shakespearean programme and no play was performed on consecutive nights.^[6]

She formed the Lorna Forbes School of Drama in Melbourne in 1924, and six years later Wilkie disbanded his troupe in October 1930^[7] at the onset of the Great Depression and the emergence of the "talkies".^[6] She and Alexander Marsh went to Tasmania with their own troupe where they performed farces and melodramas.^[1]

In 1945 theatre enthusiast Sydney Turnbull leased the Arrow Theatre and installed over two hundred tip-up seats using volunteer labour.^[8] She and Turnbull created what was called the Melbourne Repertory Theatre.^[9] The first production was School for Scandal which Forbes directed and starred in.^[10]

In 1961 the new musical play, The Sound of Music, was staged in Melbourne, and Forbes took a minor role.^[11]

Forbes died a widow in East Camberwell in 1976. Her only son had joined the RAF, and he died in 1942.^[1]