{"id":509041,"date":"2026-02-28T05:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T05:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509041\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T05:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T05:18:11","slug":"lorraine-bayly-former-play-school-host-and-star-of-the-sullivans-dies-aged-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509041\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorraine Bayly, former Play School host and star of The Sullivans, dies aged 89"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lorraine Bayly, a former Play School host and star of long-running soap opera The Sullivans, has died aged 89.<\/p>\n

Ms Bayly had endured years of poor health and died in a Sydney nursing home on Saturday morning, her family told entertainment reporter Craig Bennett.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Lorraine Bayly played Grace in The Sullivans.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

In a post on Facebook, Mr Bennett said that Ms Bayly’s family had asked him to share the news.<\/p>\n

“Lorraine had enjoyed a stellar 62-year career on stage and screen, until her retirement 10 years ago,” he said.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Steven Tandy, who played Lorraine\u2019s son Tom on The Sullivans, shared a tribute to the actress in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n

“I have so many cherished memories of Lorraine,” Mr Tandy wrote.<\/p>\n

“She was the most giving of people \u2014 always down to earth and affectionate, yet not without a certain almost girlish vivaciousness.<\/p>\n

“I truly loved and admired her and was so grateful for the close friendship we shared. Fly high, lovely lady. Your work is done. May love and beauty surround you always.”<\/p>\n

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Play School was a fixture of Australian children’s television in the 1960s and 70s.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Familiar face on Aussie television<\/p>\n

In 1966, Bayly became an original presenter on Play School, a role she had to relinquish when she was asked to join The Sullivans.<\/p>\n

Ms Bayly was well known for playing matriarch Grace on the show in the 1970s, a long-running wartime drama that aired from 1976 to 1983.<\/p>\n

After leaving The Sullivan’s, Bayly took a role in Carson’s Law that was written specifically for her, playing solicitor Jennifer Carson.<\/p>\n

Speaking to TV Tonight, she described the demanding courtroom speeches as “hellishly difficult to do”.<\/p>\n

“It was written for me. I was very flattered,” she told TV Tonight.<\/p>\n

“I really enjoyed doing it. A lot of the court cases were paralleled in society.”<\/p>\n

When Disney went to country Victoria<\/a><\/p>\n

When Disney came to Australia to film Ride a Wild Pony in the 1970s, the crew nearly returned to America to complete filming \u2014 then they found Chiltern. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Bayly won Silver Logies for most popular actress for both The Sullivans and Carson’s Law.<\/p>\n

She also played alongside Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas in the film The Man From Snowy River and had a role in the 1975 movie Ride a Wild Pony, alongside John Meillon.<\/p>\n

On stage, she performed in productions ranging from Death of a Salesman, Travelling North and The Sound of Music, which marked her final theatre appearance in 2016.<\/p>\n

Bayly was one of the founders of Sydney’s famed Ensemble theatre in the 1950s and began her performance career playing classical piano on Sydney radio station 2UE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lorraine Bayly, a former Play School host and star of long-running soap opera The Sullivans, has died aged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9716,64,63,10851,10852,134,75619,255337,255338],"class_list":["post-509041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actor","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dead","tag-dies","tag-entertainment","tag-lorraine-bayly","tag-play-school-host","tag-the-sullivans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}