Dinah Hilary Shearing (12 February 1926 â 14 June 2021) was an Australian actress, active in all facets of the industry, in particular theatre.
Dinah Hilary Shearing was born on 12 February 1926 in Sydney, to English parents, while they were visiting Australia. Growing up alongside two sisters, she attended school in Birmingham in the UK, before the family permanently relocated to Australia when Shearing was twelve, where she attended a public school in Sydney.
With a talent for art, at the age of 15, Shearing gained a scholarship at the East Sydney Technical College. At the end of her third year, she worked at a Sydney department store during a three month break from school. Upon seeing some of her art, her manager offered her a position as a sketch artist for the store. Having fallen behind in her art studies, Shearing opted not to complete them. During this time, she was also studying singing at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she attained honours in exams to A.Mus.A in 1945.
Shearing appeared on stage, radio, television and films in a career that spanned more than 60 years.
After graduating from her studies, Shearing performed in a small musical comedy group, touring army camps. She then began acting with May Hollinworth's Metropolitan Theatre in Sydney, landing her first role in the play Winterset.
After further roles with the Metropolitan Theatre, Shearing's "distinctively mellifluous voice" led to her being recruited into radio during its so-called "Golden Era". Her first broadcast was on the Macquarie Network in a play entitled The Mariners. She soon became a national favourite in Grace Gibson Productions serials such as Dr Paul (in which she played the leading character for ten years), Tudor Princess and Tudor Queen, as well as Dossier on Dumetrius. Other radio serials and programmes included The Colgate Hour, Macquarie Radio Theatre, Lux Radio Theatre and most notably, work with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
From there, Shearing was drafted into the Elizabethan Theatre Trust and later, the Old Tote Theatre Company and gave performances that "transcended her young years", touring nationally from her Sydney base. Most memorably, she gave what critics called "the definitive" performance of Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. She also worked with the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Independent Theatre. Her performances drew admiring reviews from Sydney critics, including Lindsay Brown, Harry Kippax, and Geoffrey Thomas.
Shearing also appeared in some of Australia's earliest television dramas. making her TV debut in the ABC play A Phoenix Too Frequent in 1957. She also starred as Lady Macbeth in 1960 TV production of Macbeth. After taking a hiatus from performing to raise a family, Shearing returned to the small screen in 1970, with a guest appearance in the drama series Delta.
Further television credits included TV Spells Magic, Catwalk, The Sullivans, All The Rivers Run, Five Mile Creek, The Harp in the South, E Street, A Country Practice, G.P., All Saints and the TV movie Man of Letters. She also had a regular role in soap opera Family and Friends. Her final television appearance was in the sci-fi series Farscape in 2002.
Shearing became a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 1993.
Shearing met playwright and painter Rodney Milgate in London and 18 months later, on 9 May 1960 they were married in Woollahra, Sydney at All Saints Church â the same church in which her parents were married. The couple had two sons.
Shearing was a speaker for Heart Research Institute from 1993 to 1999, and a volunteer reader for Royal Society for the Blind in the 1960s.
In later life Shearing resided at Erina, New South Wales, on the Central Coast, and was active in community arts programmes, volunteer work, and had also branched into directing not long before her death.
She died on 14 June 2021, aged 95. She was survived by her two sons and four grandchildren. Her husband, Milgate died in 2014.
See also "National Library of Australia Collection". Papers of Shearing, Dinah. (Ref: MS 5186) National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT.