Agnes May Dobson (30 December 1904 – 26 February 1987) was an Australian actress.
Career
Agnes Dobson was born on 30 December 1904, at Glebe Point, in Sydney, Australia, though her birth was not registered.[1] Dobson's parents were New Zealand-born actor and theatre manager Collet Barker Dobson, and actor Harriet Agnes Thornton (née Meddings) who performed under her stage name Harrie Collet.[1] Agnes Dobson's first stage performance was as a baby in a cradle for a production by her father's theatre company.[1]
Dobson began her career-proper aged 7 in Little Lord Fauntleroy,[2] another of her father's productions,[3] before she was sent to school and left the stage again until her teenage years.[4]
She appeared in one of Australia's first silent films, 1919's The Face at the Window,[5] and found success playing a damsel in distress in 1919 comedy film Barry Butts In.[3] During production of that film, a member of the public thought Dobson's kidnapping was real and attempted to save her and interrupted the filming.[6][7]
Dobson also wrote plays, and in 1936 her work Dark Brother tied for second prize in the Adelaide Advertiser's Centenary playwright competition.[3][8]
Dobson wrote an autobiography, An Australian Speaks of Many Things, but it was never published.[12] Chapters are held by the National Film and Sound Archive.[13]
Dobson married actor and playwright Frederick Stanley Holah (also known as Ronald Riley) in 1921 when she was 19. They had a son William John also known as Bill Barclay (1921-1970).[1][2]
The marriage ended in divorce, and Dobson remarried in 1924 to salesman George Oliver Clapcott Barclay. They were divorced in 1931.[1]
Dobson remarried in 1932 to Wilfred Thornton, a business manager, but the marriage was dissolved in 1934.[1]
^ abcdefghWilson, Rose, "Dobson, Agnes (1904–1987)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 18 August 2023