Vale: Coralie Condon

Veteran Perth performer, Coralie Condon, the first woman on WA television in 1959, has died, aged 99.

Blinded by macular degeneration, she died peacefully early on Christmas Eve, the West Australian reports.

A writer, actor and director, Condon was a founding producer at Channel 7 and is hailed as the grande dame of Perth theatre and the First Lady of WA television.

“I was walking down St Georges Terrace, when I ran into Brian Treasure,” she said.

“You know a bit about TV, don’t you?” he asked.

“I was a dogsbody,” she said. “When I first walked in, there were gaps in the floor.”

She helped pick the first on-air staff for Seven Perth and later hosted afternoon women’s program Televisit and produced a variety of programs for children and adults.

Before television, Condon supplemented her theatre income as a ledger machinist for the Public Works Department.

She was a lead actor and playwright at the Playhouse Theatre in the 1950s. Her 1958 Playhouse musical The Good Oil, inspired by the hysteria after oil was found in the North West, was produced on Channel 7 in 1962 and starred husband-and-wife team Jill Perryman and Kevan Johnston.

She co-founded the Dirty Dick’s theatre restaurants in 1970 with Frank Baden-Powell, where bawdy wenches and merry minstrels served “olde English” medieval merriment from Perth to the Eastern States, New Zealand and, briefly, the US.

Condon, who was sister to actor James Condon, received a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to entertainment in 1993.

Photo: WATV History