Zoe Caldwell

with Diana Phoenix

The multi-purposebrick building erected in 1907 on a vacant allotment at 1-3 Armstrong Street was a welcome addition to the Middle Park shopping and entertainment precinct. Situated next to the hotel and opposite the railway station, the building accommodated two shops facing the street and a public hall at the rear, accessed via a narrow passage. Rates records show that the property was number 1-3 Armstrong Street, with the brick hall situated at number one. Fast forward more than a century later and the first owners, real estate agents Watts and Chandler, could never have imagined their building is now regarded as one of Melbourne’s theatrically iconic sites, best known as Frank Thring’s Arrow Theatre.

The new Middle Park building was first used as a post-office, savings bank, Masonic Lodge and a public hall, which Rosemary Goad, Diana Phoenix and Kay Rowan describe as soon becoming ‘the centre of Middle Park’s entertainment’. Other early tenants at 1-3 Armstrong Street included operators of a luncheon room, billiard saloon, printing business, milliner, blouse manufacturer, hairdresser and solicitors.  

Between 1909 and 1943, ‘The Hall’ housed a cinema, initially presenting biograph entertainment screened by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, using projectors illuminated by hand-cranked oxyhydrogen gas or limelight, until the installation of electricity in 1910.

Middle Park Picture Theatre c. 1920s. Rose Stereograph Company, State Library Victoria,
P. 3455. ID: 1767922.

By 1918, records show Alfred King Smith, a printer, was lessee of the brick hall and in 1920  is described as the cinema’s first owner/operator. Smith used two projectors which were at first hand-cranked, but later motor driven. His entire family was involved in the cinema business, with wife Constance the ticket-seller and usher, son Frederick the assistant projectionist and daughters Winifred and Constance were pianist and violinist. Novelty nights were popular, comprising dance and fancy dress nights. Alfred King Smith, sold the business in 1923 after patrons sought the more lavish picture palaces. New owners Basil and Jack Flae introduced sound and ‘talkie’ movies, renovated the cinema to accommodate 340 people and renamed the premises the Middle Park Picture Theatre.

The Middle Park cinema had several owners and admirably survived the Great Depression, but audience sizes diminished during World War Two, partly due to competition from newly opened nearby cinemas such as the Kinema and Park Picture Theatre in Albert Park and others in Port Melbourne. Screenings were reduced to Saturday nights only by 1943, but the final straw for the cinema operators occurred in April that year when a newly delivered film left on a seat was deliberately set alight. Damage was minimal with 4,000 feet of film destroyed and some seats ruined, but the Middle Park Picture Theatre closed after 34 years.

The hall was used intermittently for community singing before being leased in 1945 by Melbourne actress/drama teacher Lorna Forbes and amateur theatre producer/engineer Sydney Turnbull to become the Melbourne Repertory Theatre. They extensively renovated the venue, enlarging the stage and fitting 210 upholstered tip-up seats. The Melbourne Repertory Theatre Group was formed and Forbes often performed in the shows she directed,  including portraying Mrs Candour in the first production, The School For Scandal by R.B. Sheridan.

Lorna Forbes (date unknown)

Gift of Michael Lynton, 1999.  Nellie Stewart Collection. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

Lorna Forbes

Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM

A fourth-generation actor, Ada Lorna Forbes (1890-1976) first acted professionally at age fifteen in Two Little Sailor Boysin Ballarat and toured Australia as an understudy in her father’s company. Mimi Colligan writes that Forbes preferred to use her second given name, Lorna. She was invited to join Allan Wilkie’s touring Shakespearian company in 1916, and performed a wide range of Shakespearian roles. Between 1924 and 1957 Forbes owned and operated the Lorna Forbes School of Drama in Melbourne, and in 1930 when Wilkie returned to England, she established her own touring theatre company with Alexander Marsh. Forbes became a familiar voice in radio drama from 1934, performing in radio plays for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Dorothy and Hector Crawford. She also formed The Lorna Forbes Repertory Players in 1941, presenting drawing-room comedies in various venues. The Melbourne Repertory Theatre established in 1945 by Forbes and Turnbull in Middle Park aimed to encourage emerging acting talent.

Ray Lawler had studied voice with Lorna Forbes and was also a keen playwright, with his first full-length stage play, Hal’s Belles, scheduled to open in the new Middle Park theatre on September 29, 1945. Hal’s Bellestells of a reincarnated Henry VIII meeting his reincarnated wives in a contemporary London flat setting. Casting the role of Henry VIII proved challenging until someone suggested 19 year old Frank Thring Junior looked like Henry VIII, but had never been on stage before. Frank was cast in the role, Hal’s Belleswas a success in Middle Park and was transferred to the National Theatre for further performances. This was the beginning of Ray Lawler and Frank Thring Junior’s highly successful professional careers in their respective fields – Ray Lawler OBE as a playwright and Frank Thring as an international stage, screen and television actor.

In 1947, the Theatre Guild presented their inaugural production of William Shakespeare’s Othello, The Moor of Venice for a season of nine nights at the Melbourne Repertory Theatre, Middle Park. Directed by Warwick Armstrong and produced by Paul Hill, the ballet segment was choreographed by Xenia Borovansky and presented by the Borovansky Ballet Academy.

Theatre program for Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare, 10 July–19 July 1947, presented by the Theatre Guild at the Melbourne Repertory Theatre, Middle Park. Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM. View full program.

After four years, Lorna Forbes became involved in teaching projects and she and Turnbull did not renew the theatre lease when it expired in 1949. The theatre building’s freehold owner, St Kilda resident Mrs Mary Harriet Jones, stipulated the lease must be used to present drama and the written word. In October, 1951, Frank Thring Junior, now 25, decided to start his own theatre group and established the Arrow Theatre Company, opening with a highly praised double bill comprising Oscar Wilde’s Salome starring Frank as Herod with June Brunell in the title role, and Christopher Fry’s A Phoenix to Remember, directed by Irene Mitchell. Financed by his mother Mrs Olive Thring, Frank could now present plays of his own choice. Peter Fitzpatrick points out that Mrs Thring would ‘certainly have endorsed any arrangement in which Frank guaranteed himself all the best roles’. In addition to covering production costs, Mrs Thring loaned items from her glamorous wardrobe including rubies and minks, but the actors remained unpaid.

Fitzpatrick writes that the new company aimed to be ‘radical in its ambitions, and collaborative in its practice’. Frank felt the repertoire was radical because it comprised the best classics and acclaimed works from contemporary Europe, avoiding the ‘bourgeois popularism’ he viewed as dominant in Australian theatre. From another perspective, Fitzpatrick believes the repertoire was actually ‘quite conservative’. Twenty-two plays were admirably presented at the Arrow Theatre over three years, including: Oedipus Rex(Sophocles), Othello(William Shakespeare), Volpone(Ben Jonson), The Critic(Richard Brinsley Sheridan), Point of Departureand Ring Around the Moon(Jean Anouilh), Present Laughter(Noel Coward), Salomeand The Importance of Being Earnest(Oscar Wilde), A Phoenix Too Frequentand Venus Observed(Christopher Fry), Our Town(Thornton Wilder), The Letter(Somerset Maugham), The Green Bay Tree(Moredaunt Shairp), The House of Bernarda Alba(Federico Garcia Lorca), The Man Who Came to Dinnerand You Can’t Take It With You(George S. Hart and Moss Hart), Ropeand Murder Without Crime(J. Lee Thompson), the fantasy Beauty and the Beast, and the melodrama Maria Marenor The Murder in the Old Red Barn(Randall Faye). The only Australian play, Ralph Peterson’s The Square Ring, was co-produced and presented by the Arrow Theatre and Kenn Brodziak’s Aztec Services in July, 1953, before transferring to the Princess Theatre the next month.

Frank Thring Junior reportedly decorated the Arrow Theatre in flamboyant colours for opening night, featuring deep blue and chartreuse, with bright pink in the foyer. Critics such as ‘J.W.K.’ (James W. Kern) of the Port Phillip Gazettefelt the youthful colour scheme symbolized the Arrow Theatre’s ‘new lease of life’.

Actor Barry J. Gordon performed at the Middle Park Repertory Theatre in the late 1940s and also at the Arrow Theatre before transitioning to a professional career in the United Kingdom. Gordon recalls Frank Thring Junior taking over the ‘ailing’ venue as artistic director, at one time painting the venue all black, and sparing no expense on refurbishment. Gordon also remembers Thring’s delight when producing his large personal collection of chunky stage and costume jewellery to bedeck himself for the role of Herod in Salome, and later for Volpone, designed and directed by Robin Lovejoy.

Frank Thring, Arrow Theatre, Melbourne, 1952. Photograph by Helmut Newton.

Gift of the Estate of Frank Thring, 1995. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

The Arrow Theatre floor plan.

Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM

Textile designer and printer Frances Burke undertook redecoration of the venue and would later become renowned as an interior designer, receiving a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for Services to Design. The renovated Arrow Theatre comprised a small stage with minimal wing space, seating accommodation for 199 patrons and a male and female dressing room located in the basement. A passage ran from the street front past a sweet-shop-milk bar to the theatre entrance. Off this passageway was a small room used for the foyer, and upstairs a smaller room served as ‘the office’. At the alley side of the theatre was a small area designated as ‘The Wardrobe’. Scenery was constructed partially under the stage or on the tiny stage itself.

English actor-director Frederick (‘Freddie’) Farley became Thring’s resident artistic director at the Arrow Theatre, including directing Othelloin 1952 with Frank Thring in the title role, Zoe Caldwell as Desdemona and Alex Scott portrayed Iago.

The Arrow Theatre Company operated without any government assistance, generously financed by Mrs Olive Thring to ensure lavish settings and costumes. The company was, however, regarded as amateur because the actors were unpaid. Goad et al. describe shows presented by the Arrow Theatre Company under the aegis of Thring as ‘The best of contemporary and classical plays … staged in an avant-garde fashion, decidedly radical and non-mainstream in their presentation’.

Theatre directors included Robin Lovejoy, Irene Mitchell, Alan Burke and director/performer Freddie Farley, with Sheila Florance as Stage Manager for several productions. As well as the plays presented at the Arrow Theatre, a popular monthly Sunday musical evening attracted packed houses, chaired by Melbourne musician and composer Kevin McBeath, who later founded Thomas’s Record Bar.

Three years and twenty-two productions later, the Arrow Theatre Company was sadly in financial trouble. In an article in The Argus on 16 September, 1953, theatre critic Frank Doherty angrily accused Melbourne of being ‘indifferent to its own artistic talent’ and not being prepared to travel beyond the Golden Mile. Doherty wrote of Frank Thring and his staff maintaining ‘the highest standard set by any group of amateur players for many years’. Cost had been no barrier and Thring was said to have lost much of his own money. Doherty blamed Melbourne audiences for thwarting ‘the hopes, aims and ambitions of a young man willing to sacrifice his money and work hard for his goal’.

A significant impact on the Arrow Theatre Company at that time was the offer of professional work to amateur actors, including those at the Arrow Theatre, by newly arrived Englishman John Sumner. In 1953, Sumner recognised the potential of experienced amateur actors to perform in his newly established Union Theatre Repertory Theatre Company at Melbourne University, later known as the Melbourne Theatre Company. Arrow Theatre Company actors who accepted Sumner’s offer of professional work and became well known in their field included Bunny Brooke, Zoe Caldwell, Alex Scott, Michael Duffield, Frank Gatliff, June Brunell, Sheila Florance, Wyn Roberts, Ron Field, Moira Carleton and Robert Gardiner.

In October, 1954, upset at the closure of his Arrow Theatre Company and the death of his mother, Frank Thring Junior relinquished his theatre lease. Before leaving for London with Frederick Farley, Thring asked Barry J. Gordon to keep the Arrow Theatre as a ‘going concern’. At 21 years of age, Gordon took over as Manager and with actor Frank Gatliff registered the Arrow Associate Company in 1956.

The Arrow Associate Company’s first show, Sweeney Todd, was directed by Moira Carleton, with fruit pies supplied by the Four ‘n Twenty Pie Company for the audience to eat at interval. Unfortunately some patrons used the pies as missiles, with one said to have hit a distinguished guest on the back of his head.

The Arrow Theatre was now available for hire to other companies such as Spotlight Theatre Productions, the first fully professional company to perform at the Middle Park venue. John Van Druten’s comedy Bell, Book and Candlewas presented under the joint direction of Letty Craydon and John Edmund, opening on 26 April, 1954.

Program for Bell, Book and Candle by John Van Druten, opened 26 April, 1954, presented by Spotlight Theatre Productions at the Arrow Theatre, Middle Park. Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM. View full program.

Gordon and Gatliff worked hard to keep the theatre financially viable, assisted by their talented friends. Displayed for sale in the narrow foyer were ceramic tile paintings created by Gordon’s friend, an unknown artist named Arthur Boyd. Priced at £20 each, not one was sold. Arthur Boyd would become prominent in his field, as did the company’s photographer Helmut Newton, husband of actress June Brunell. Frank Thring and John Sumner resolved their differences after Thring’s success in London, and he too eventually joined Sumner’s Union Theatre Repertory Company (later to become the Melbourne Theatre Company) as a professional actor.

During rebuilding of the South Yarra-based Little Theatre in St Martin’s Lane between 1955 and 1956, the Arrow and National Theatres became temporary homes for Melbourne’s Little Theatre Movement. Plays presented at the Arrow Theatre during this time were: The Prisoner(directed by Irene Mitchell), Junior Miss(Peter Randall), The Love of Four Colonels(Irene Mitchell), The Guinea Pig(Brett Randall), Waters of the Moon(Irene Mitchell), Serious Charge(Irene Mitchell), The Lady from Edinburgh(Brett Randall), Only an Orphan Girl (Irene Mitchell), The Orchard Walls(Henry Allan), The Secret Tent(George Fairfax), The Lark(Irene Mitchell), Job for the Boy(George Fairfax), Sabrina Fair(Irene Mitchell), I am a Cameraand A Question of Fact, both directed by George Fairfax.

The Arrow Theatre was once again leased to various companies to present theatre shows, such as George and Hana Pravda’s production of Anouilh’s Point of Departure, and Peter O’Shaughnessy’s King Learin 1957, which played to capacity crowds with O’Shaughnessy in the lead role.

Poster advertising Waiting for Godot at the Arrow Theatre, 2-14 September, 1957

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

Programme cover, A Must for Dollyat the Arrow Theatre, 31 October, 1958

Waiting for Godot was presented at the Arrow Theatre from 2–14 September, 1957 starring Peter O’Shaughnessy, Phillip Stainton and Barry Humphries. In the same year, the Coburg Charity Players staged two productions at the Arrow Theatre, with profits going to the Middle Park Old Buffers, and another to assist old age pensioners.

Burning Bright, 1959, Set Design by Anne Fraser, Act 1, Scene 1. Presented in association with HSV-7 at the Arrow Theatre, Middle Park. Gift of Anne Fraser, 1996. Australian Performing Arts Collection. Arts Centre Melbourne.

On 31 October, 1958, actor/director/producer Jack Beresford Fowler hired the Arrow Theatre for his production of A Must for Dolly,a sequel to George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, presented by The Players’ and Playgoers’ Repertory Players.

Also in 1958, The Shell Company of Australia leased the theatre for eighteen months to screen 16 millimetre films three nights a week. Popular with children, the hall became known as ‘the bug house’.

In October, 1959, the Arrow Theatre was hired to stage and record Burning Bright by John Steinbeck, presented in conjunction with HSV Channel 7. The set designer was Anne Fraser.

The venue was then temporarily named the Amazu Theatre, until becoming known as ‘The New Arrow’.

Live theatre resumed at The New Arrow Theatre on 28 March, 1960 with the opening of Sons of the Morningby Catherine Duncan, presented by Delphic Productions, followed by Noel Coward’s Relative Values. Displayed in the foyer was an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by National Gallery students.

Between 1960-61, the Malvern Theatre Company was among groups hiring the New Arrow Theatre to present productions. Moral Re-Armament, an international moral and spiritual movement, presented Annie the Valiant, with free admission.

Theatre Program cover for Outrageous Fortune!, June 1962, presented at the New Arrow Theatre. View full program.

Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM

Program cover for Don’t Make Waves (1962). View full program.

Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM

Jon Finlayson and Barbara Angell hired the New Arrow Theatre to present their revue Outrageous Fortune!, a professional show, opening 28 June, 1962.

After the success of their first  revue at the New Arrow Theatre, Jon Finlayson and Barbara Angell rehired the theatre, opening on 12 October, 1962 with another revue, Don’t Make Waves.

Another professional production, the revue Christmas Crackers, was presented December 11–21, 1963 at the Arrow Theatre, directed by Peter Homewood and featuring Helen Thomas.

Cambridge Film and TV Productions leased the theatre during the 1960s with the upstairs area converted into a dance school. Seats and the stage were removed in 1965 and the next year the first floor became Greek Club Rooms, registered as The Order of the Australian Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. In 1971 while Cambridge Films still occupied the theatre, parts of the movie A City’s Child, written by Don Battye, with music by Peter Pinne and direction by Brian Kavanagh, were shot at the Arrow Theatre. The movie received an Australian Film Institute Bronze Award and actor Monica Maugham received Best Actress of the Year Award. 

In 1981, a Greek community group, the Lemnian Brothers Club, acquired the building and remain the current owner. Today, the two street front shops are available for lease and a popular gymnasium/health club, Middle Park Fitness, has operated in the rear former hall and Arrow Theatre since 1998.

Framed photographs of Frank Thring (Othello) and Zoe Caldwell (Desdemona), in the 1952 production of Othello at the Arrow Theatre, displayed on the wall of 1 Armstrong Street, Middle Park. Images courtesy of the Australian Performing Arts Museum. Framed Images Photography: Sherryn Danaher. Image enhancement: Paul Danaher.

Two framed images of Frank Thring Junior (Othello) and Zoe Caldwell (Desdemona) from the 1952 production of Othello, proudly adorn a wall of the Middle Park Fitness health club, formerly the Arrow Theatre. Accompanying these theatrically historical photos is a personal note written in 2012 by New York-based Zoe Caldwell OBE to the current health club owner/trainer Jack Reven. This note was organised by Zoe Caldwell’s niece Sherryn Danaher.

Letter (2012) from Zoe Caldwell OBE to Jack Reven, owner/trainer of Middle Park Fitness which operates in the former Arrow Theatre

The original hand-written letter is reproduced as typed text by courtesy of Sherryn Danaher

1-3 Armstrong Street, Middle Park, home of the former Arrow Theatre

Courtesy of Frank Van Straten AM

Sherryn Danaher brought the note home from New York in 2012 after visiting her now late Aunt Zoe. For clarity of reading, Sherryn has kindly reproduced the hand-written note as typed text.

The ongoing occupancy of 1–3 Armstrong Street ensures the premises retain an active presence in the Middle Park Village. The community participation enjoying health and fitness activities in the former Arrow Theatre captures ‘that dear little theatre’s joy and spirit’ described by Zoe Caldwell in her delightful message.

Tribute plaque to The Arrow Theatre at 1-3 Armstrong St., Middle Park and acknowledgement of the traditional owners, The Boon Wurrung People. Photography: Malcolm Threadgold.

A commemorative plaque supported by the Middle Park History Group and Councillor Judith Klepner was presented by the City of Port Phillip in 2010. Affixed to an exterior wall of 1-3 Armstrong Street, the plaque respectfully acknowledges the land’s traditional owners, the Boon Wurrung People. The plaque also pays tribute to the building’s colourful theatrical days from a bygone era, reminding passers-by of the iconic site’s cultural significance in Melbourne’s theatre history.

Thanks to

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Dr Mimi Colligan AM

Sherryn and Paul Danaher

Elisabeth Kumm

The Middle Park History Group

Diana Phoenix

Frank Van Straten AM

References

AusStage, Hal’s Belles 1945 (accessed 28.11.21)

AusStage, The Square Ring 1953 (accessed 27.11.21)

AusStage, Christmas Crackers 1963 (accessed 27.11.21)

Mimi Colligan, ‘Forbes, Ada Lorna (1890-1976)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1996 (accessed 28.11.2021)

Peter Fitzpatrick, The Two Frank Thrings, Monash University Publishing, Victoria, Australia, 2012, pp. 332-343

Rosemary Goad, Diana Phoenix and Kay Rowan, ‘The Heart of Middle Park’, Stories from a Suburb by the Sea, The Middle Park History Group, Middle Park Historical Series Number One, draft chapter for First Edition, 2011

Rosemary Goad, Diana Phoenix and Kay Rowan, ‘The Heart of Middle Park’, Stories from a Suburb by the Sea, The Middle Park History Group, Middle Park Historical Series Number One, 2014, pp.28–42

Barry J. Gordon, ‘Aiming the Arrow’, Victoria Theatres Trust, On Stage, Vol. 7, 2006,  pp.22-25 (accessed 28.11.21)

J.W.K. (James W. Kern), Port Phillip Gazette, volume 1, no. 1, Winter 1952, p. 33

Diana Phoenix, ‘Halls of Fame: a Hidden Past’, History News, Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Issue 343, August, 2019, p.6 (accessed 16.12.21)

‘Middle Park Picture Theatre’ (accessed 23.11.2021)

Frank Van Straten, National Treasure: The Story of Gertrude Johnson and the National Theatre, Victoria Press, Melbourne, 1994, p.95

Zoe Caldwell, 2004, a shot taken during rehearsals for Limonade Tous Les Jours, a play she was directing. Image courtesy of Charlie Whitehead.Facing melbourne easter in Covid-19 lockdown I decided to open the cream suitcase which had been lying in my study for years. It held my grandmother's considerable collection of scrapbooks, photos, programs and publications charting her daughter Zoe Caldwell’s seventy year career: a treasure chest of memorabilia and prompts for writing this account of times spent with my dear aunt. Zoe died peacefully in her home in New York in February this year.

It had been my intention to tackle the job of sorting through and documenting Old Zoe’s collection before handing it over to the Australian Performing Arts Collection. It was not only the sheer volume of the task that held me back but a large part of me hasn’t been ready to let go of this very personal material which I love to dip into from time to time.

Zoe’s parents loved theatre and, realising their daughter had talent from an early age, started her career with singing and dancing lessons. She also competed in South Street Ballarat, Bendigo and suburban elocution and calisthenics competitions. The family, though not well-off, soaked up Melbourne theatre, from their seats in ‘the gods’. When taking applause, Zoe always raised her head to patrons in the uppermost seats of the theatre. Under the tutelage of Winifred Moverley Browne, Zoe learned elocution, how to use her diaphragm to develop her voice and was exposed to the classics. At thirteen she had her own radio program as News Editress of 3DB’s ‘News and Interviews’ which she co-presented with fifteen year old News Editor, David Wittner. She was on her way to becoming an actor.

Zoe was born on the 14 September 1933 to Zoe and Edgar Caldwell when her brother, Bert (my father), was eleven years. She was doted on. Family history has revealed that the name Zoe has been handed down from Zoe’s Mauritian maternal great great grandmother whose name was Zoe. To avoid confusion, my grandmother was known as Old Zoe and her daughter was Young Zoe, with the affectionate pronunciation of Zoey. Long after, an older generation of Melbourne theatre-goers, who followed Zoe’s career from her Melbourne beginnings, would still ask me about Zoey. Old Zoe had been a singer and dancer travelling by ship to India, China and Japan in 1909 when she was thirteen and without her parents. She was part of the Bandmannchild opera company.

Zoe’s cream suitcase filled to bursting with cuttings and photographs collected by her mother.

Zoe’s parents, Zoe and Edgar Caldwell.

I started work on a timeline as I combed through the material. Just when I thought I’d completed the timeline, another production would pop up. Zoe was involved in over fifty productions before she left our shores in 1958 at the age of 24 to take up a two year scholarship to Stratford-upon-Avon to walk-on, study and play under the direction of Glen Byam Shaw.

Aunty Zoey, as I called her as a child, left Australia when I was seven. She was always full of energy and fun to be around in staid post-war Melbourne and I loved seeing her shows.

Zoe has been a constant in my life through her many trips back to Australia and mine to visit Zoe and the family in their home in New York, from 1972 until May last year. I still have the toy teddy bear she gave me when I was born. It sits in my window along with the millions of other bears sitting in windows around the world as part of the children’s teddy bear hunt distraction throughout this Covid-19 pandemic.

While Zoe was working overseas building her career, she sent gifts, postcards (few letters), material from her performances and tape recordings to her parents. I learned about the places she visited through a stream of parcels. There were Babushka dolls from Russia, a pretty French floral enamelled alarm clock, a doll’s house chair from London, rock from Gretna Green, embroidered cap from Portugal, pottery dish from Norway and a North American Native Indian beaded, chamois doll and girl’s chamois good-luck pouch enclosing a coin and which I secreted into school exams.

From New York, she sent LP recordings of Broadway shows including a favourite, an original recording of Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett. My brother and I had the skits off pat as we played the parts. Years later I discovered that the Whiteheads could all quote from the same LP at the drop of a hat. It’s now part of the family repartee.

These treasured gifts, her visits and stories have left me with a life-long passion for travel and to dive in and experience whatever it may bring.

I first visited New York in August 1972 at the end of a twelve month ‘discovering the world’ trip. Zoe had married Robert Whitehead and they had two sons, Sam born in 1969 and Charlie who was just three months old.

When I arrived at JFK a driver met me holding a board with my name and saying that he was to drive me to a restaurant in the city where I’d meet my uncle for lunch and who would then drive me up their house in Pound Ridge about an hour’s drive away. I’d never met Robert before and only knew that he was an important Broadway producer. My mother, who was living in the Netherlands with my Dutch step-father, packed a box of Dutch cigars into my suitcase which she knew would be a fitting gift for a man of his status.

The driver took me and my green vinyl suitcase and cigars to Sardi’s restaurant in Manhattan where Robert greeted me and introduced me to three luncheon companions and business associates. They were Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman. As a very naïve young Aussie traveller who’d spent the past year keeping body and soul together ‘temping’ in London to save up for a European camping trip with friends in a tiny tent, fine dining was unfamiliar to me. I had no idea who these men were. I was very polite, calling them Mr Miller, Mr Kazan and Mr Clurman. I addressed Robert as Uncle Robert, as I had always been taught.

Dressed in my best purple tie-dyed miniskirt and hand appliqued purple t-shirt I knew I looked good, although quite out of depth with the theatre conversation around the table. From the Italian menu, I managed to find a familiar dish, spaghetti bolognese, and my charming Uncle Robert bailed me out by ordering my wine. All seemed to be going well until I spilt half of the spaghetti down the front of my favourite outfit. The rest is a blur. I only know that, shortly after, Robert drove us to their house in Pound Ridge where I fell into in the arms of my dear Aunty Zoe.

While staying in Pound Ridge Arthur Miller, his wife Inge and daughter Rebecca came to the house for a barbecue and to further discuss the upcoming production of Arthur’s play, The Creation of the World and Other Businesswhich Robert was producing. After I left New York, and with some casting changes, Zoe stepped into the lead role of Eve, taking over from Barbara Harris. The play opened in the Shubert Theater on Broadway in December for a short season.

Zoe found time to show me New York City, took me to museums and galleries, shopping on Fifth Avenue, The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall and gave me a lesson in what to do if I looked like being mugged—‘Sing “The Star Spangled Banner” at the top of your voice and they’ll think you’re mad and leave you alone’. ‘That’s alright for you Zoe,’ I replied, ‘you’ve got the voice.’ We had a ball and we connected for the first time as adults.

This was my first taste of the incredible world of New York Theatre that had become my Aunt Zoe’s life. It was my first connection with the family, with whom I have had a close relationship for fifty years. Zoe and Robert welcomed me into their home for the three week stay and were interested in my life, although it was so insignificant compared with what they had achieved—it was family.

On that first trip I met another identity of New York theatre, Doris Blum (Gorelick). Doris helped me navigate her city as she answered my myriad questions. She has become a lifelong friend. Prior to being hired by Robert as his assistant and production associate from 1968 until his death in 2002, she had herself stage-managed and produced New York productions. For 33 years Doris was head of the Neighbour Playhouse School for children and teenagers. Doris, or Aunt Doe, knows New York theatre inside out and has always been considered part of the family. I have never forgotten her kindness towards a very naïve 22 year old on that first visit and we meet over dinner each time I re-visit. Today, Doris misses her daily morning phone calls with Zoe.

Grandpa Caldwell, Edgar, was also visiting on one of many annual trips to stay with the family. Old Zoe and Edgar had made their first and only overseas trip together to visit Zoe while she was working at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1965. Sadly Old Zoe died in 1969 without seeing her daughter married and with a family of her own.

In 1984 Zoe, Robert, Sam and Charlie came to Melbourne for Zoe to open the new Playhouse theatre at the Victorian Arts Centre with Robinson Jeffers’ adaptation of Euripides’ Medea. Robert directed this Melbourne Theatre Company production. At that time he was also producing Arthur Miller’s Broadway show, Death of a Salesman starring Dustin Hoffmann, about which he had concerns.

While in Melbourne, the family received a letter from their old friend and Robert’s tennis partner, Katharine Hepburn. She told Robert not to worry about being away from the production in New York. She was pleased that things were going well with Medea and in her words she said, ‘… Go to Sherbrook [sic] Forest and try to find the Lyre Bird—It is thrilling …’.

Zoe was working but I drove my uncle Robert and young cousins to Sherbrooke Forest for a picnic but we didn’t see a lyrebird that day.

When Zoe left Melbourne she gave me Kate Hepburn’s handwritten letter as a momento. I puzzled over why Kate had suggested they visit Sherbrooke. This led me to research the background. This is the story behind the letter.

In 1955, when in Australia on tour with the Old Vic theatre company, Katharine Hepburn took Robert Helpmann to Sherbrooke Forest to see the lyrebird’s mating dance on its mound. Some time after Helpmann claimed to have had a dream of seeing Hepburn dancing naked on a mound surrounded by lyrebirds. The dream inspired his fascination for the bird’s mating dance and he choreographed The Display, his first production for the Australian Ballet and performed in 1964. It is dedicated to Katharine.

The story of The Display  centred around a bush picnic in which a bunch of young footballers start drinking and fight over a girl. She is chased by the young men and left lying exhausted on the ground after having been raped. The ballet opens with the dance of a lyrebird behind gauze and the bird reappears in the final scene dancing around the girl with its tail fully displayed until he folds her in his fanned plumage.

Helpmann engaged Sidney Nolan for set design and Carlton Football Club coach, Ron Barassi, to coach the dancers’ football moves.

Katharine had visited the Dandenongs several times during that Melbourne tour where she spent hours watching the birds in the company of a Sherbrooke Forest local, a young boy, who told her of their habits and where to find them. This very Melbourne story and Katharine’s letter sent when Zoe and Robert were working on Medea, was the impetus for a poem which I later wrote and which I titled The Display.

Zoe was always a hard worker and enjoyed the challenge of taking on new roles. When she returned to Melbourne it was mainly to work. Occasionally, between productions, she would sneak home, incognito, to spend time with her Mum and Dad and the family away from the hungry gaze of the Australian press.

After a happy marriage of over thirty years, Robert died in 2002 in Pound Ridge where Zoe nursed him up until his death in their home.

A grieving, deeply sad Zoe made one last visit to Melbourne in 2003 when she was asked to perform Dürrenmatt’s The Visit at the Arts Centre to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Melbourne Theatre Company. It is a story of revenge and greed. She gave a strong performance as Claire Zacchanassian, a successful, rich woman from humble beginnings returning to save her poverty-stricken home town while exacting revenge on the now influential mayor. He had denied paternity of the child she bore when she was young and had driven her from town. Like Claire, Zoe returned to her home town, not to exact revenge, but once again, to work.

Zoe knew that I understood how vulnerable she was and I knew that it was my turn to watch out for her. After the season finished, we flew to Broome where she could rejuvenate while soaking up warm rays of the Kimberley sun and we could share new travel experiences away from Melbourne, the press and theatre. We could dag around in old clothes and an old hire car, relax, eat, drink, laugh, take camel rides, swims, massages and experience the splendour of the Kimberley landscape as shown to us by the locals. We could also chew over family stories, our lives and memories as she regaled me with the doggerel she wrote, as always.

One day, as we talked over lunch in a Broome cafe, Zoe told me that a woman was staring at her. I said that she was imagining it and that no one knew her in this town. The woman then stood up to approach our table. I forbade Zoe to open her theatre mouth and said I’d do the talking. The woman apologised for interrupting but would we mind if she asked us a question?  It transpired that this woman had an old friend who was needing help cleaning her home and she asked us if we were looking for work. After telling her that we were in Broome on holiday and not interested in work, we left the café in fits of laughter.

To complete the lesson in humility, we walked around the corner to buy a couple of kit bags for Sam and Charlie. The very helpful shopkeeper asked if we were staying at the caravan park. We drove back to our small but beautiful, garden-set resort hotel where we shared the day’s moments of mirth over glass of wine by the pool.

On the beach at Lombardina in the Kimberley, Zoe mentioned that she had one last official engagement in Melbourne before returning home to New York: she was to be presented with an honorary doctorate in law at Melbourne University for which she had to write a speech. As we tossed over ideas, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s skit about the legal profession Sitting on the Bench from Beyond the Fringe sprang to mind and from our lips. We played with the words until we finally decided that it wouldn’t pass muster and dropped the thought of sun-baked speech writing.

When I accompanied Zoe to the official ceremony at the University, I had no idea of the content of the speech she’d been writing. I saw a tiny, sad, grieving woman clad in academic robes with her face and ‘boss’ eye peering out from under a large, floppy hat, ready to accept her doctorate. She was dwarfed by very tall, handsome professors of law and words looking extremely elegant in their academic garb. They gave suitably erudite speeches.

From the moment she approached the podium, Zoe’s audience was entranced. She spoke of not having any degrees, although I knew she had lectured in theatre studies in universities across the United States, but she considered that every major production was like getting a university degree. She followed by saying how she spent her early professional theatre career at Melbourne University in the 1950s as part of the University Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre and  forerunner to the Melbourne Theatre Company. She indicated that today, through gaining this honour, she had come full circle back to the University. She enthralled the gathering with her presentation and depth of understanding of the importance of education. As always, she delivered her speech from the heart, with humour and making full use of her diaphragm.

Zoe returned to America where she continued to work on the stage in another five productions, in benefits, the feature films, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Closeand Birth and in the Lilo and Stitch animation series from which a younger generation know her as the commanding voice of Grand Councilwoman.

Zoe held a large part of Australia in her heart. It was the work opportunities that took her away from her country. Zoe’s great passion was for the stage, for the thrill of the live audience and to be part of the ensemble. She never forgot those Australians who nurtured her early career and she made a point of visiting them whenever she returned to her home country.

© Sherryn Danaher April 2020