Ben Gabriel

Ben Gabriel
Born	James Vernon Gabriel 25 February 1918 Weymouth, Dorset, England, United Kingdom
Died	25 April 2012 (aged 94)
Occupations	Actor director voice artist theatre co-founder
Years active	1939-2002
Spouse(s)	Doreen Warburton (OBE) (also known as Evelyn Ward) actress, director, theatre co-founder
Family	Ethel Florence Gabriel (McConnell) (1888–1967) actress, costume designer and maker

Ben Gabriel (25 February 1918 – 25 April 2012) was an English Australian character actor, director, voice artist and theatre founder. Gabriel had numerous appearances in stage and radio roles and in film and television.

Biography

He was born as James Vernon Gabriel in Weymouth, Dorset, England. His mother Ethel Florence McConnell, was born in Kent, England and was an actress and costume designer, who was professionally known as Ethel Gabriel (31 October 1888 – 23 May 1967) Ethel came to Australia in 1919 as a war bride and worked as an actress with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, featuring in such productions as Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. and also toured in that production in the West End and on Broadway, she appeared also in the 1959 film adaptation.

Gabriel grew up in Sydney and Wollongong and saw war service as a lance-sergeant for six years with the 9th division during World War II. He officially changed his stage name to Ben Gabriel, a name he had always used on a personal basis.

His career began in theatre in the late 1930s and he appeared with his mum in touring productions of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in 1959 and 1960, continuing roles with the Sydney Theatre Company in Three Sisters and The Lower Depths and also the Ensemble Theatre as a holocaust survivor in a A Shayna Maidel. Gabriel founded the Q Theatre with his wife and others originally operating at Circular Quay and then in Penrith.

His television career spanned from the early 1960s until the late 80s. One of his early roles was as the alien leader, "the Soshun", in the ABC science fiction series The Stranger. Gabriel appeared in numerous early productions of Homicide, Matlock Police and Division 4, all part of the Crawford Productions banner, he would become best known for Contrabandits as Jim Shirley, winning the Penguin Award for Best Supporting Actor. Characters role would be a plenty in soap operas and serials from Sons and Daughters, Prisoner, Home and Away, All Saints, and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

His film repertoire extended with roles in such gems us The Office Picnic, The Mango Tree, Break of Day and Fighting Back.

Filmography

Television

• Whiplash (1960–61)
• The Stranger (1964–65) as Soshun
• Contrabandits (1967) as Jim Shirley
• Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
• Homicide
• Division 4
• Matlock Police
• Behind the Legend (1972) as John Monash
• The Far Country (1972, miniseries)
• A Touch of Reverence (1974, miniseries)
• Prisoner
• Sons and Daughters
• Fallen Angels
• Riptide
• Rush
• Chopper Squad
• Glenview High
• A Country Practice
• Home and Away
• All Saints

Film

• The Shifting Heart (1962)
• Rusty Bugles (1965, TV movie)
• The Office Picnic (1972) as Mr Johnson
• Break of Day (1976) as Mr Evans
• Let the Balloon Go (1976)
• The Mango Tree (1977) as Wilkenshaw
• The Department (1980)
• The Club (1980)
• A Hard God (1981)
• Fighting Back (1982)
• My Husband, My Killer (2001, TV movie) as Andrew Kalajzich
• Reedy River
• No Sugar
• On Our Selection as Dad Rudd

Theatre

• Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959–60) (for Elizabethan Theatre Trust)
• The One Day of the Year (1966) as Wacka (Australia/Japan)
• Three Sisters (for Sydney Theatre Company)
• The Lower Depths (for Sydney Theatre Company)
• Death of a Salesman as Willy Loman (at Old Tote)
• Tiny Alice as Julian (at Old Tote)
• Lear as Lear (at Old Tote)
• King Lear as Gloucester (1979) (for Queensland Theatre Company)
• Say Goodbye to the Past (1985) as Ghost of a Shakespearean actor (at The Stables)
• A Shayna Maidel (1991) as Holocaust survivor (at Ensemble Theatre)
• My Son The Lawyer Is Drowning as God (at Ensemble Theatre)

Personal life and legacy

In 1949, he married opera singer Rhonney Webber. Together they had one daughter but soon divorced less than ten years later. He later married actress and director Doreen Warburton (OBE), who was also born in London, England, but had emigrated to Australia in 1953 and awarded the OBE in 1972. His wife and his daughter, Laura, both survived him after his death on 25 April 2012.

Australian actor Noel Hodda, during his eulogy, described Ben Gabriel as "an old school actor – there to serve the writer, the story and the director and by doing that, serving the audience."