Elspeth Ballantyne
Birthday: Born in 1939-04-20 in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Deathday: Alive
Elspeth Ballantyne (born 20 April 1939) is an Australian retired actress, who appeared in productions in theatre, television and films over a career that spanned nearly 60 years, a veteran of the industry having started her career as a child actor and becoming a staple of the theatre starting from in 1947 and by the age of 15 in 1954 had turned professional. She became best known for her role in the TV cult series Prisoner from 1979 to 1986 as original character of but fair Prison Officer Meg Jackson (later Morris). Ballantyne's parents were actors and she is the sister of film producer Jane Ballantyne. She was married to actor Dennis Miller from 1968 to 1977.
TV Credits
SeaChange
Character: Coral Kiss
SeaChange is a popular Australian television show that ran for 39 episodes from 1998 to 2000 on the ABC. It was created by Andrew Knight and Deborah Cox and starred Sigrid Thornton, David Wenham, William McInnes, John Howard, Tom Long and Kerry Armstrong. The director was Michael Carson. Filming was based at Barwon Heads, Victoria and St Leonards, Victoria, both locations being on the Bellarine Peninsula. A number of streets in the St Leonards Sea Change Estate have since been named to acknowle...
Prisoner: Cell Block H
Character: Meg Morris / Meg Jackson
Prisoner is an Australian soap opera that is set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison....
The Flying Doctors
Character: Barbara Freeman
The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, p...
The Flying Doctors
Character: Wendy Ross
The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, p...
The Flying Doctors
Character: Alice Franklin
The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, p...
Homicide
Character: Maureen Davis
Homicide was an Australian television police drama series The series dealt with the homicide squad of the Victorian Police force and the various crimes and cases the detectives are called upon to investigate. Many episodes were based on real life crime cases....
City Homicide
Character: Miss Evelyn Purcell
City Homicide follows a group of detectives in the Homicide department of Melbourne's Metropolitan Police Headquarters....
Rush
Character: Edie
They are trained to be smarter, tactically superior and technologically advantaged - Melbourne's answer for a cutting edge trend in policing worldwide. Rush was an Australian television police drama that first screened on Network Ten in September 2008. Set in Melbourne, Victoria, it focuses on the members of a Police Tactical Response team. It is produced by John Edwards and Southern Star. On 10 November 2011, as with Network Ten setting out DVD promotions for the finale of season 4, David Kno...
Movie Credits
Life in Australia: Melbourne
Character:
This film shows an idyllic picture of life in the Victorian capital of Melbourne in the mid 1960s....
Three Dollars
Character: Eddie's Mother
Eddie is a principled man, with a wife, a daughter and a mortgage and leads a seemingly stable and happy life as a government land assessor. Yet when the forces of economic and social change threaten this, he realises just how fragile his reality and security is. After losing his job, he checks his bank balance and finds he has only 'three dollars' to his name....
Blue Fin
Character: Mrs. Pascoe
Based on the children's novel by celebrated South Australian author 'Colin Thiele' , this is an emotional father and son story about tuna fishing of Southern Blue Fin tuna in South Australia's Port Lincoln fishing district. Accident prone son Snook is forever making mistakes much to the chagrin of his father Pascoe. But when tragedy strikes the fishing boat during a deep sea fishing trek in the Southern Ocean, the boy is called on to become a man in a rites of sea passage to reconcile is past mi...
Blowing Hot and Cold
Character: Shelagh MacBean
The story of two men from opposite backgrounds and social structures who become friends. Jack Phillips is a laid-back, wry service station proprietor in a small Australian country town. His world is disrupted when a fast talking, gesticulating, vocal Italian, Nino Patrovita bursts upon the scene....
Mondo Maniacs
Character: Desma
The adventures of two punk maniacs on the run after they have escaped from a psychiatric ward....
Captain Johnno
Character: Mrs. Greenwood
A young deaf boy who calls himself "Captain Johnno" befriends Tony, an Italian fisherman in the small Australian fishing town they live in. Both feel outcast by the town and both share a great love of the sea. When Johnno's beloved sister leaves to go to boarding school, he is so upset he runs away to an island hiding place, causing much distress in the town. His friend Tony helps him understand how much he is loved and missed by the townsfolk and his family....
Boronia Boys
Character: Maxine
Kane and Darren are two 'rag and bone men' who have lived in the outer suburb of Boronia all their lives. Now as they approach their early thirties, they decide that it is time to leave their comfortable suburb and travel the world for the first time. In order to do so the 'boronia boys' follow hard rubbish collections and help themselves to discarded rubbish and sell them overpriced at trash & treasure markets....
Boronia Backpackers
Character: Maxine Daniels
Picks up on the journey of the 'Boronia Boys' gang from sleepy Boronia to the big wide world....
The Caterpillar Wish
Character: Mrs. Woodbridge
A young girl's view on belonging and loss....
Breakfast in Paris
Character: Millie
Fashion executive Jackie Wyatt discovers her boyfriend has been cheating on her. She flies to Paris and bumps into photographer Michael who she at first dislikes but grows to love....
One Way Ticket
Character: Elizabeth
Based on a true story, One Way Ticket is about a criminal named Webb. He has been arrested for murder and looks like he will be spending the rest of his days behind bars before he has an affair with a female guard. She helps him escape and they spend the next few days on the run. Can they make it?...
Selkie
Character: Loopy Laura
Teenager Jamie moves with his mother, sister and grandfather to an island off the South Australian coast where mum has a job running a marine research station. To his discomfort, Jamie discovers he's a "selkie" - half human, half seal - that explains the webbing on his hands and also why he changes completely into a seal as soon as he hits water....