Queenie Ashton () (11 November 190321 October 1999), was a British singer, dancer, and actress, having started her career as a soprano and theatre actress in her naive UK, she had a long career in Australia as a radio and television performer, with a career spanning over 75 years.
Ashton was born as Edith Muriel Ashton in Stoke Newington, London, from 1946 upon her marriage she legally used the name Ethel Muriel Cover.
Her best known roles where in the radio serial's The Lawsons from 1944 and 1949 as Lee Gordon (the wife of Dr. Gordon) and its sequel Blue Hills as the elderly "Granny" Emily Bishop a role she played for some 27 years from 1949 and 1976, she would also play the character in TV series Autumn Affair.
Ashton alongside her contemporaries including Gwen Plumb, Ethel Lang, Grace Gibson and Margaret Christensen, has been described as a pioneer for females in radio. Her other prominent role was as Dolly Lucas in TV series Certain Women
Ashton was born in London, England. She was an accomplished ballet dancer, and specialist in voice production and drama, who started performing when she was fourteen.
She started her career in musical comedy on the London stage, on occasion appearing with playwright Noël Coward. She left England in 1927, and performed for Dame Nellie Melba while travelling to Australia through the Suez Canal. She first appeared in Melbourne as a soprano on the concert stage, then in musical comedy, alongside such stars as Gladys Moncrieff, whom she understudied, and Strella Wilson.
Ashton featured in radio from the 1930s, she appeared in musical comedy opposite Dick Bentley in Oh! Quaite. Her first straight drama role was in 1939, a period piece playing Marie Antoinette.
She played Budge's mother in "Budge's Gang", a segment of the ABC Children's Session (c. 1941âÂÂ45, and it was so popular it was made into a comic book). Most notably, she played the wife of Dr. Gordon and the long-running role of Granny Emily Bishop (a character many years her senior) in the radio serial Blue Hills, for the entire 27 years of the serial's run (1949âÂÂ1976 â hers were the very first and last spoken parts). Ashton, as Granny Bishop, spoke: <blockquote>"We don't have to see people every day of the week/to imagine them in their surroundings or even to live their lives with them. We can still use our imagination ... they can still be in our minds. They can still be with us and so you see, and it is isn't really very hard to say goodbye. to say goodbye and God bless." </blockquote>
Ashton also played this role on Australia's first television serial Autumn Affair. In 1957 she appeared in a one-off television play called Tomorrow's Child and played in Certain Women (as "Dolly Lucas"), She was a semi-regular cast member of A Country Practice (as "Lillian Coote") and G.P. (as "Mrs Sculthorpe").
Film roles included both theatrical and telefilms Always Another Dawn in 1948 and The Farrer Story in 1949, she also had cameo's in Mama's Gone A-Hunting in 1977 and The Year My Voice Broke in 1987. She also appeared in many television commercials, most notably for Sara Lee. She was still performing in stage and cabaret plays in her nineties and was one of Australia's last great grand dames and one of the oldest entertainers still performing.
Ashton married Lionel Lawson in 1931 (who died in 1950), a violinist, who became leader of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; they had a daughter, nurse Janet Lawson, in 1933 and a son, Tony Lawson, in 1935. They divorced in 1940.
Ashton remarried in 1946 to Frederick John Cover, a theatrical agent, and founder and managing director of the actors' casting firm, Central Casting.
She died on 21 October 1999, in the Sydney suburb of Carlingford, New South Wales, aged 95.
Film
Television
In 1950 she won the Macquarie Network's award for "best performance by an actress in a supporting role" (in "Edward, My Son").
In 1980, she was appointed by her stage name Queenie Ashton a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to the performing arts.