Actor Maggie Dence, Event Cinemas chairman Alan Rydge and the late David Leckie, former chief executive of Seven and Nine, were among the screen industry professionals to receive Queen’s Birthday Honours over the long weekend.
Dence, who has been a fixture of Australian television for six decades, was named a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AM) for her significant service to the performing arts as an actor.
After appearing sketch comedy show The Mavis Bramston Show in the mid-60s, she moved onto drama with The Sullivans, followed by classic series such as Neighbours, Prisoner, All Saints, Stingers, Water Rats, Blue Heelers, A Country Practice and The Flying Doctors. She has been most recently seen in the ABC’s Frayed, and will star in Netflix’s Heartbreak High reboot and ABC’s recently announced The Messenger.
Also named an AM yesterday was Dence’s colleague Carol Raye, for her significant service to the performing arts as an actor and producer. Raye was the creator, producer and lead actor of The Mavis Bramston Show. In addition, she made regular appearances on Graham Kennedy’s Blankety Blanks and Mike Walsh’s Midday
Show, and both starred in and was casting director for ground-breaking ’70s drama Number 96.
Leckie, who died last July, received a posthumous AM for his significant service to the broadcast media through executive roles, recognising the “giant of television”‘s extensive work across both the Seven and Nine networks over decades.
Rydge, who has been Event’s chairman since 1980, was also named an AM for significant service to event hospitality and to the entertainment industry.
Across his career, the executive has also been a director of Village Roadshow, a board member of the National Film and Sound Archive, and is a former national president of Australian Cinema Pioneers. In addition, he is a patron and benefactor of the Motion Picture Industry Benevolent Society.
Other AMs include South Australian Film Corporation board member Miriam Silva, who was recognised for significant service to the multicultural community of South Australia and to women, and stage actor and former Play School presenter Phillip Quast, for significant service to the arts as a performer, mentor and educator.
Indigenous screen executive and screenwriter Dot West; costume designer Anna Senior, former manager of the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace Paul Dravet; stills photographer Jimmy Pozarik; composer and pianist Joe Chindamo, Food Safari creator, presenter and producer Maeve O’Meara were among those to receive a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).
West a Noongar woman from the south west of Western Australia, was recognised for her service to First Nations media and communications. She is director of Goolarri Media Enterprises and Ramu Productions, and currently serves on the SBS board as a non-executive director. Over her career she has also served on the boards of NITV as vice chair, Screenwest, the Australian International Documentary Conference, the National Indigenous Radio Service and as chairperson of the national peak body, First Nations Media Australia. West is also a screenwriter, having won an AWGIE for her work on The Circuit, and other credits including Little J and Big Cuz and the upcoming Disney+ series Last Days of the Space Age.
Senior was nominated for an Academy Award for her costume design on Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career in 1981. She won an AFI Award for her work on the film, as well as Breaker Morant. Her other credits include films such as Phar Lap and The Getting of Wisdom. She was honoured with an OAM for her service to the visual arts through costume design.
Dravet earned his OAM for his service to theatre administration, having run the Orpheum from 1986 to 2019. One of Australia’s most respected exhibitors, he won Best Suburban Cinema at the Australian International Movie Convention twice, in 2007 and 2014.
Pozarik, who shot stills for series such as Love My Way and East West 101 and is now the photographer-in-residence at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation, was recognised for service to photography.
O’Meara, who also was creator and co-presenter of 5 series of Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia, and a former food presenter for Better Homes and Gardens, was recognised for service to the food media industry.
Chindamo, who has been a studio pianist on more than 60 film soundtracks, including Pharlap, Babe, The Man From Snowy River II, Evil Angels, Warlock, and Missing in Action II, was recognised for service to music, and to the performing arts. The composer also was the musical director for ABC’s Coast To Coast, and composed the theme..
Other arts professionals to receive honours included actor and playwright Raymond Lawler, best known for The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, who was named an Officer to the Order of Australia (AO). Chefs Matt Moran and Donna Hay, both common fixtures of TV, were awarded with an AM and a OAM respectively.