Dropping the Mask

An icon. A household name. One of our best-loved actors. Noni Hazlehurst is finally telling a story of her own. A fourth-generation performer, Noni Hazlehurst has storytelling in her blood. She has graced our screens, stages and airwaves for fifty years - and won our hearts and respect in the process. She's had a remarkably diverse career. From presenting Play School for more than two decades, acting in films such as June Again, Ladies in Black, Candy, Little Fish and Monkey Grip, and ten years hosting and writing for Better Homes and Gardens to playing lead roles in series like A Place to Call Home, Nancy Wake and The Shiralee, recently presenting the SBS documentary series Every Family Has a Secret, and of course her numerous theatre roles, including her award-winning one-woman play Mother, Noni continues to display her incredible versatility, range and incisive ability to get to the core of a character and script. Noni is more than an actor, though. She is also a director, writer, teacher and public speaker, and her time on Play School has led to decades of committed advocacy for children. Offscreen, she has served on several film and television industry boards and acted as a patron and ambassador for numerous children's welfare organisations. Brave, open and unafraid to be vulnerable, Noni is in many ways an ordinary woman - a single mother of two boys, and a freelance worker, she knows about the challenges of constant juggling and being stretched to the limit. Yet she is also an extraordinary woman and a trailblazer - she was only the second woman to be inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame in thirty-two years. And despite opportunities to live and work overseas, she ultimately chose to pursue her career in Australia. This is no ordinary memoir. Noni Hazlehurst is funny, fierce, thoughtful and clear-eyed about the world. Her story is full, rich, lively, opinionated - and a testament to her grit, willpower and talent. She has always been committed to telling Australian stories - and this memoir is an impressive addition to her remarkable opus. 'There is no denying the cosiness and charm of Hazlehurst's writing, the intimate sense that these are anecdotes she is sharing with you over a glass of wine ... Hazlehurst, as both performer and advocate, has always been consummately honest with her audience. Her prodigious body of work is its own proof that she is driven, as she says, not by money and fame, but by the urge to tell stories and, without exception, to tell them truthfully.' Australian Book Review