Muriel Steinbeck

Radio

Steinbeck was appearing in a production of Beverley Nichols' Where the Crash Comes at Sydney Players' Club, when she was spotted by Lawrence H. Cecil of the ABC. He hired her to do radio drama and her career was launched.^[2] Her first radio play was The Silver Cord and her first serial lead was The Three Diggers (1938). She was later briefly under contract to James Raglan while he was producing at Colombia where she starred in Soldier of Fortune.^[4]

Steinbeck appeared in numerous radio serials in the 1950s and 1960s, including Blue Hills, Portia Faces Life, Gabrielle^[5][2] and Cattleman.^[6]

Film

Steinbeck made her film debut in the wartime propaganda short, Eleventh Hour (1942), directed by Ken G. Hall. Hall then used her in another short, South West Pacific (1943).^[7] She made her feature film debut in A Son Is Born (1946), a melodrama where she played the lead role, of an unhappily married woman, alongside Peter Finch, and Ron Randell,^[8] who both went on to become major names.^[7]

The release of A Son is Born was delayed, to take advantage of publicity for her second film, Smithy, a biopic about Charles Kingsford Smith (played by Randell), in which Steinbeck played his wife.^[9] The film was a commercial success, but Steinbeck said this initially hurt her theatre career, as producers assumed she would be too expensive to hire.^[10] She resisted heading overseas to further her career, electing to stay home with her daughter, as her marriage was breaking up. Australia made few films at the time, so Steinbeck focused on radio and theatre work.^[10] She was sufficiently famous that she was able to command paid endorsements, for chocolate and lipstick.^[7]

In 1949, Steinbeck played the role of Laura in horse-racing melodrama Into the Straight^[11] and in 1951, she featured in biopic Wherever She Goes, playing the mother of the character played by Eileen Joyce.^[12] She was then in 1954 film Long John Silver.^[7]

Steinbeck's final film role before her retirement was 1966 comedy They’re a Weird Mob, in which she played Mrs. Kelly, wife of Chips Rafferty’s character Harry.^[7]

Television

Steinbeck appeared in 1954 series The Adventures of Long John Silver, playing the governor's wife.^[7] She went on to star in the lead role in Australia's first TV soap opera, Autumn Affair (1958), playing Julia Parrish, a middle-aged widowed mother who wrote popular novels.^[7]

In 1960, Steinbeck was in two TV plays – Thunder on Sycamore Street and Reflections in Dark Glasses, the latter of which was met with rave reviews. She also had a recurring role in the serial, Stormy Petrel, playing the wife of Captain Bligh.^[7][13]

From 1963, Steinbeck was a compere on the ABC's English for New Australians series, Making Friends. She also compered the 1963–1964 series Woman's World, focused on women's issues.^[7]

Theatre

Steinbeck began appearing on the stage regularly at the Minerva Theatre in Sydney's Kings Cross. She was in such productions as Spring Tide (1941), Claudia (1942), Watch on the Rhine (1942), Janie (1943), and The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse (1943).^[14]

In between film engagements, Steinbeck continued to work in theatre, appearing in Dangerous Corner (1946), The Third Visitor (1946), Clutterbuck (1947), and I Have Been Here Before (1948).

In 1950, Steinbeck starred as Portia in The Merchant of Venice with John Alden Company.^[15] In 1961, she was in another production of The Merchant of Venice with the Elizabethan Theatre Trust.^[16] She was in Heartbreak House (1964) at Sydney's Old Tote Theatre.^[17]

In the 1960s, after relocating to Orange, Steinbeck worked in amateur theatricals in the area.^[7]

Film

Television