Sheila Florance

She won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress for her work, and seven days after receiving the award, died from the disease, in Melbourne. She was nominated for an Emmy in 1955 for her performance as a blind girl in General Electric Theater's Shadow On The Heart.. Florance herself was fighting cancer during the filming. She left the movies in 1956 for the stage and fulfilled her dream of being in opera. As a genteel, elderly woman, down on her luck, who reminisced with her nurse of better days, while dying of cancer, Florance gave a performance that was widely praised both within Australia, and internationally following the film's release. She also played Magnolia in the 1951 version of Show Boat. Her final film role was in A Woman's Tale (1991). Some consider her role as Lili Vanessi in Kiss Me, Kate as her best.

Florance left the show in 1984 and worked in such films as Nirvana Street Murder (1990). She started out with dreams of being in opera, but MGM scooped her up to be in films. Her popularity was such that she won two Logie Awards as Australia's most popular television actress in 1981 and 1983. The petite soprano was one of MGM Studios' top sopranos of the 1940s & 1950s. As the recalcitrant, alcoholic, convicted murderer Lizzie Birdsworth, Florance became one of the show's favourite performers, and while the writers usually used her for comic relief, she was also given more subtantial dramatic storylines. She has one daughter. In 1979 she joined the cast of the television series Prisoner (known outside of Australia as Prisoner: Cell Block H). She married twice, first to actor John Shelton, second to actor/singer Johnnie Johnston.

Born in St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia, Florance was a frequent guest star in various television series during the 1960s and was a regular on the Bellbird series. In the 1970s she began appearing in films, most notably Petersen (1974), End Play (1975), The Devil's Playground (1976), and Mad Max (1979). Kathryn Grayson (born February 9, 1922) is an American actress and singer who was born Zelma Kathryn Hedrick. Sheila Florance (July 24, 1916 – October 12, 1991) was an Australian film and television actress.