June Bronhill OBE 1929-2005

And she was always ready to try something new, the more controversial the better! When the diminutive Ronnie Corbett toured Australia she joined him on television for a spoof of La Traviata, made all the funnier by the fact that she, too, was short, only 150 centimetres. This led to the plum ‘Mrs Slocombe’ role in the 1980 Australian version of the campy British TV romp Are You Being Served? in a cast that included the original ‘Mr Humphries’, John Inman.

After that it was back to London for a new production of The Sound of Music. This time Bronhill was not Maria – that honour went to Petula Clark – but as the Mother Abbess it was Bronhill who stopped the show every night with her soaring rendition of ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’.

At home there was still more Gilbert and Sullivan – Ruth in the Victoria State Opera’s The Pirates of Penzance in 1984. The following year she was a rumbustious Sally Adams in Call Me Madam in Canberra and at Sydney’s Footbridge Theatre she cavorted with Judi Connelli and Maria Venuti in the rauncly spoof Women Behind Bars. More sedately she featured in a 1988 revival of the Australian musical The Sentimental Bloke at Parramatta Theatre Centre, and then played Mrs Higgins in Rodney Fisher’s production of My Fair Lady at Her Majesty’s in Sydney. Fisher also directed her as the impresario of an outback opera company in the TV mini series Melba.

During the late 1980s Bronhill’s health began to deteriorate. She survived breast cancer, but increasing deafness began to curtail her singing. In 1990 she appeared in the comedy musical Nunsense and the following year, at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre, she and her old friend Gwen Plumb romped through Peter Williams’ revival of Arsenic and Old Lace, which went on to tour nationally. There was just one more musical: the starry 1993 Gordon/Frost production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, in which Bronhill played alongside Tom Burlinson, Georgie Parker, Noel Ferrier, John Gregg, Bruce Spence, Garth Welch and Robyn Arthur. This opened at the Footbridge and was later seen in Brisbane and Perth.

In 1994 Bronhill played a naïve mother in Peter Williams’ production of Straight and Narrow, a gay-themed British comedy. It was her last stage role. Tragically, Bronhill’s deafness not only destroyed her career, it precluded her from enjoying her most treasured pastime: the company of friends. Her last years were difficult and lonely.

June Bronhill died in Sydney on 24 January 2005. The opening night of Opera Australia’s Tosca was dedicated to her, and her daughter, Caroline Finny, attended as guest of honour. Her funeral was held in the June Bronhill Auditorium of the Broken Hill Entertainment Centre and the city observed a minute’s silence. ‘She is very special to us,’ said Mayor Ron Page. ‘If you ask every householder in Broken Hill they’ll be able to say, yes, they are proud of June Bronhill.’

Bronhill’s artistry survives on her recordings: more than 30 albums of shows, arias, ballads, hymns, concert favourites, even some ebullient old British music hall songs, all displaying that warmly familiar voice, with its perfect diction and its rich, bell-like purity.

Frank Van Straten, 2007