Robina Beard

Born at Twickenham, England in 1938. When she was six years old, she took up dancing lessons with Kate Walker at Weybridge. In 1949, she migrated to Sydney, Australia with her parents, where she continued her dance training at Estelle Anderson's dance studio. 1955 saw her first dance contract with JC Williamson's musical "Can Can", which toured Australia and New Zealand for an 18 month period. Over the next few years, she appeared in many plays, including Alice in Wonderland, The Willow Pattern Plate and Hey Diddle Diddle. From around 1960, she appeared in a number of television variety specials. In 1965, she became the weather girl at GTV9. She also continued to appear in variety shows in Australia, and also in Canada in 1966. In 1964 she starred as Shirley Muggleton in "Barley Charlie" and went on to appear in television shows including Number 96, Arcade, G.P., Gotcha, Going Home, Home and Away and All Saints. 1967 saw her appear as Madge the Manicurist in a series of Palmolive detergent commercials, which made her an Aussie television icon. Beard's career has been long and varied. In 2011 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia 'For service to the arts, particularly through dance.' Also in 2011, she was honoured with a Life Time Achievement Award by the Australian Dance Awards committee.