Bunney Brooke
Encyclopedia
E Street
E Street is an Australian television soap opera created by Forrest Redlich and produced by the Ten Network from 1989 to 1993.Whereas Neighbours is set in a middle-class suburb, Home and Away in a seaside town, and Richmond Hill a semi-rural ordinary community, E Street was set in a tough inner-city...
in 1990.
Brooke was adopted at an early age and had an unhappy early life. As a young adult she saw marriage as a means of escape, marrying Leonard Brooke in 1946. The union produced two children but ended after four years, with Brooke reporting that they were "wrong for marriage". Brooke switched to the carefree life of a drifter with little money and few possessions. After becoming disillusioned with this existence Brooke sought conventional employment.
In the early 1950s Brooke managed the Prompt Corner coffee lounge in Melbourne with her then girlfriend. At that time several city coffee lounges implicitly catered specifically for gay and lesbian people at a time when few other commercial venues existed for them. Prompt Corner also held poetry evenings and aside from gay and lesbian patrons it attracted the theatrical and bohemian crowd.
Brooke later found work as a typist with Melbourne-based television production company Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions is an Australian television production company founded by Hector Crawford; the present incarnation of the company, Crawfords Australia, is now a subsidiary of the WIN television corporation.-History:...
. The association with Crawfords awoke Brooke's creative side, and she became interested in scripts and joined an amateur theatrical group. A year later she travelled to the UK and within a week of arriving had secured work in the repertory theatre and doing radio and television shows. Her first Magic Circle Club
Magic Circle Club
The Magic Circle Club was an award winning Australian children's television show, produced at ATV Channel 0 from 23 January 1965 to 1967....
guest appearance, as a Southern Belle with two suitors, led to a different, recurring role in the children's television series: as Aunty Vale, an enchantress.
Brooke's acting career continued into the 1970s. She was working as director of the Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
Theatre Company when she was asked to audition for a role in Number 96. The makers of the show were having trouble filling the role of Flo, a friend and comic foil of gossip Dorrie Evans (Pat McDonald), and Brooke fit the part. Initially seen as a frequent visitor to the flat of Dorrie and her husband Herb, the writers soon burnt down Flo's offscreen apartment in a neighbouring suburb and moved Flo into Dorrie and Herb's flat permanently where she became a key character in many of the serial's comedy storylines.
The actresses, Brooke and McDonald, were likewise close friends. At the time of Number 96 they were real-life housemates and lovers living in Wahroonga in the northern suburbs of Sydney.
Brooke continued with Number 96 until the series ended in 1977, also appearing in the Number 96 film version in 1974 .After this she remained a frequent face on Australian television with roles in television programs such as soap operas The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors is an Australian early evening soap opera. The series was set in the fictional Albert Memorial hospital and primarily concerned with romances between younger members of the hospital staff, screened on the Nine Network from Monday, 8 November 1976 until Wednesday, 30 March...
and The Restless Years
The Restless Years
The Restless Years is an Australian soap opera which followed the lives of several Sydney school-leavers and young adults. It was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation for Network Ten. It debuted December 1977 and ran until late 1981. It was not renewed by the network due to declining ratings...
in the late 1970s. She also played various roles in films, miniseries and TV movies. She acted in feature film Dawn!
Dawn!
Dawn! is a 1979 Australian sports biopic about the three-time Olympic gold medallist swimmer Dawn Fraser, starring Bronwyn Mackay-Payne, written by Joy Cavill and directed by Ken Hannam.- Plot :...
, about Olympic Swimmer Dawn Fraser
Dawn Fraser
Dawn Fraser AO, MBE is an Australian champion swimmer. She is one of only two swimmers to win the same Olympic event three times – in her case the 100 meters freestyle....
, playing the role of Fraser's mother. By the early 1980s Brooke was living in Melbourne and again working for Crawford Productions, this time as a casting agent. She also made acting appearances in the Crawfords shows of the day with roles in Skyways
Skyways (TV series)
Skyways is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network.The series, which aired from 1979 to 1981, was set at the fictional Pacific International Airport and dealt with the lives of the pilots, airline staff and management team who worked there.Skyways was...
and Carson's Law
Carson's Law
Carson's Law is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for the Ten Network between 1983 and 1984. The series was a period piece set in the 1920s and starred Lorraine Bayly as progressive solicitor Jennifer Carson...
.
She later had an ongoing role in children's series Round the Twist
Round the Twist
Round the Twist is a Logie Award-winning Australian children's television series about three children and their widowed father who live in a lighthouse and become involved in many magical adventures....
(1989) as Nell Rickards, and in 1990 played the on-going role of Auntie Violet "Vi" Patchett in soap opera E Street
E Street
E Street is an Australian television soap opera created by Forrest Redlich and produced by the Ten Network from 1989 to 1993.Whereas Neighbours is set in a middle-class suburb, Home and Away in a seaside town, and Richmond Hill a semi-rural ordinary community, E Street was set in a tough inner-city...
. When she left that series in 1991 her character was written out by accepting the marriage proposal of old friend Johnny Little, played by former Number 96 actor Johnny Lockwood
Johnny Lockwood
Johnny Lockwood is an English, Australian-based actor and comedy performer, possibly best known for his role in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96, playing Hungarian Jewish deli-proprieter Aldo Godolfus.-Career:...
in a guest role. She later appeared in the television series of Round the Twist 2 (1992) and guest starred in some of the later episodes of A Country Practice
A Country Practice
A Country Practice is an Australian television drama series. One of the longest-running of its kind, produced by James Davern of JNP Productions, it ran on the Seven Network for 1,058 episodes from 18 November 1981 to 22 November 1993. It was produced in ATN-7's production facility at Epping,...
.
Brooke,, died in a Manly, New South Wales
Manly, New South Wales
Manly is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Manly is located 17 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of Manly Council, in the Northern Beaches region.-History:Manly was named...
hospital in 2000 at the age of 79 after a two-year battle with cancer. She had one daughter and one son.
On January 20, 2009 via online auction website eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, her 1974 Silver Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
was auctioned off to an anonymous bidder after a relatively short bidding campaign of just 24 hours .