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Jo Kennedy

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For the British civil engineer, see Joanna Kennedy.

Jo Kennedy
Born (1962-08-05) 5 August 1962 (age 62)[1]
Warburton, Victoria, Australia[1]
OccupationActress
Years active1982-2003

Josephine Marghrite Kennedy (born 5 August 1962),[1] known professionally as Jo Kennedy or Joey Kennedy, is an Australian actress, singer, film director, and screenwriter. Her best-known role is her feature debut as Jackie Mullins in the 1982 musical film Starstruck. She then took roles in dramatic independent films, including Wrong World and Tender Hooks, while also starring in various TV and theatre productions, directing a number of short films herself and pursuing music. In recent years, she has retreated from public life to work as a therapist.

Career

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Kennedy grew up in regional New South Wales and in Warburton, Victoria. At age 19, Kennedy was living in a warehouse in Warburton when she got her big break in the 1982 musical film Starstruck. She was cast by director Gillian Armstrong in the lead role of Jackie Mullens despite having no prior acting experience outside of a children's puppet show. During the audition, Kennedy and co-star Ross O'Donovan improvised a sketch in which they pretended the building was on fire, involving Kennedy hanging from a firehose out a window. Specific accounts of the stunt vary, but in any case, it was outlandish enough to win the roles for them both.[2][3] The soundtrack album spawned a hit single for Kennedy, "Body and Soul". Following a gruelling American publicity tour for Starstruck with frequent interviews, Kennedy decided she disliked the experience of "non-stop talking about (herself)".[4] Ever since then, she has avoided the pursuit of major stardom to focus on smaller, independent projects and creative pursuits. She also had to put her singing career on hold for three years because of "a dud contract with a recording company... it all came down to 'artistic differences'".[5]

In 1983, she appeared as Snake in a Sydney production of The Kid with the Nimrod Theatre Company.[6][7] Her next feature film role was in 1985's Wrong World, a dramatic film in which she played a young woman with a drug addiction who befriends a disillusioned doctor and embarks on a road trip from Melbourne to Nhill. Kennedy was drawn to the role because it was completely different to Starstruck[8] and because she wished to humanise people with a drug addiction.[9] While her performance was not nominated for a local AFI Award, it did win her Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.[10]

In 1986, she starred in the feminist cabaret TV special The Pack of Women which aired on the ABC. A soundtrack album was released, and Kennedy sang lead vocals on "Is That Me?" which was also released as a single.[11] That same year, she appeared in the play Slow Love at Sydney's Performance Space[7][12] and also Binge, a play about bulimia, at the Griffin Theatre.[13] In 1987, she appeared in No Worries at the Q Theatre in Penrith.[14] In 1988, she appeared alongside Helen Jones in a Sydney production of the Wendy Kesselman play My Sister in This House at the Seymour Centre, based on the true story of two women employed as maids in 1930s France who ended up murdering their oppressive employer and her daughter.[15][16] In 1989, she appeared in Tender Hooks with co-star Nique Needles, a social realist film about a turbulent but loving relationship set in the then-grungy Sydney neighbourhood of Kings Cross.[17]

Throughout the 1990s she appeared in a number of other films and theatre productions, and directed many films of her own. In 1990, she played Solveig in a Melbourne production of Peer Gynt[18] and appeared in The Heidi Chronicles.[19] In 1993 she appeared alongside Paul Chubb in "And a Fire Engine to Go With the Dog", an episode of the SBS series Thirty-Minute Theatre. The episode told the story of an unlikely friendship between a priest who has recently left the church, played by Chubb, and a young homeless woman who aspires to be a rock star, played by Kennedy.[20] She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts' Film and Television School in 1997, and there produced the short film The Bridge[21] which went on to win Best Film by a Student and the SBS Eat Carpet Award at the St. Kilda Film Festival.[22] In 2000, she appeared in the telemovie Waiting at the Royal about four different women who meet in the maternity ward of Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital. Kennedy played a lesbian, with her partner being played by Noni Hazelhurst.[23] That year she also won the Cinemedia Erwin Rade Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival for her short film Lost.[24] In 2001, she appeared in Mallboy and also worked on the production as a dramaturg.[25]

Between 2000 and 2011, she took small roles in various films and TV shows while credited under the name "Joey Kennedy", a name she has used intermittently since the early 1990s. Her last known appearance to date was in 2011's Red Dog.

Personal life

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At one stage in the 1980s, Kennedy dated Needles before starring with him in Tender Hooks.[26] Kennedy had a son with "a former partner" in 1994.[25] In 2000, she discovered the Focusing method of psychotherapy and soon began training as a therapist. She has practiced Focusing full-time since 2008, and has mostly kept out of the public eye to concentrate on this work.[27][28]

Awards

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Kennedy won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in the 1985 film Wrong World.[29]

In 1987, she was nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Female Artist.[30]

In 1988, she was nominated for an AFI Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the film Tender Hooks.[citation needed]

In 2000, she was nominated for an AFI Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Telefeature or Mini Series for Waiting at the Royal.[citation needed]

Discography

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Singles

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List of singles, with selected chart positions
Year Title Peak chart
positions 		Album
AUS
[31]
1982 "Body and Soul" 5 Star Struck (soundtrack)
1982 "Monkey in Me" 72 Star Struck (soundtrack)
1986 "Is That Me?" - The Pack of Women (soundtrack)

Filmography

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As actor

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Film

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Feature films
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Short films
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  • Sharky's Party (1987)
  • Fishing (1993)
  • Nailed (1999)
  • Vamphyri (2008) as Maroussia

Television

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As director

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Short films

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Television

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  • Short Cuts (2002)
  • The Forest (2003) TV movie

References

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  1. ^ a b c Wyatt, Hugh (14 April 1982). "Aussie singer shoots for 'Starstruck' success". Daily News (New York, NY). Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  2. ^ Goldstein, Patrick (6 April 1983). "'Starstruck''s Star on Disneyland: 'Gosh, This is Weird'". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  3. ^ Flynn, Greg (15 July 1981). "Star strikes it lucky". The Australian Women's Weekly. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
  4. ^ "Australian Actress Making Waves". Daily Gleaner. 6 September 1985. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  5. ^ Fabian-Reinstein, Anthony (28 October 1985). "Hazelhurst, Kennedy and McQuade Speak". UCLA Daily Bruin. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  6. ^ Hoad, Brian (11 October 1983). "Nimrod finds the lost generation". The Bulletin. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
  7. ^ a b Pollak, Alex (28 February 1985). "All's right with the world for starstruck Jo". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  8. ^ McGregor, Alex (9 May 1986). "Jo Kennedy fights the star backlash". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  9. ^ Beeby, Rosslyn (13 April 1985). "Now the world is starstruck over Jo Kennedy". The Age. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference berlinale was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Steinhauer, Yvette (20 October 1986). "Five aces and a right royal flush in Archer's glittering 'Pack'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  12. ^ Glover, Richard (9 February 1985). "Blackouts punctuate the language of Slow Love". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  13. ^ Casimir, Jon (13 May 1987). "Binge: Calling all bulimics". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  14. ^ Carpenter, Alisa (29 July 1987). "Actors avoid schmaltz in a sensitive performance". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  15. ^ "Theatre listing". The Sydney Morning Herald. 27 February 1988. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  16. ^ Eccles, Jeremy (27 January 1988). "Rejecting the sins of typecasting". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  17. ^ Charlton, Susan (24 February 1989). "Caught in the Tender Trap". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  18. ^ Larkin, John (25 November 1990). "Ibsen's theatrical surrealism a challenge boldly met". The Age. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  19. ^ Bernstein, David (1 June 1990). "Feminist comedy a winner". The Australian Jewish News. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
  20. ^ a b Stewart, Alison (2 August 1993). "Stretch of imagination". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  21. ^ a b Schembri, Jim (12 December 1997). "Check your baggage". The Age. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  22. ^ "Putting a kick into awards night". The Age. 6 June 2000. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  23. ^ Courtis, Brian (13 August 2000). "Fixing it the family way". The Age. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  24. ^ a b Martin, Adrian (7 August 2000). "Crowd pleasers". The Age. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  25. ^ a b Tuohy, Wendy (28 May 2000). "Starstruck teen never seduced by fame game". The Age. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  26. ^ Barnett, Ross (15 January 1987). "A veteran of mad times". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  27. ^ "Jo Kennedy". Wholebody Focusing. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  28. ^ "Focusing Practitioners". Focusing Australia. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  29. ^ "Berlinale: 1985 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 13 January 2011.
  30. ^ "ARIA Awards 1987.mov". 13 November 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2017 – via YouTube. ARIA Official YouTube Account.
  31. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 165. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  32. ^ Warneke, Ross (31 October 1991). "Children's time-travel series is a real find". The Age. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
  33. ^ "Stop the traffic, it's funny film time again". The Age. 31 March 1997. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  34. ^ Kennedy, Jo. "Quill". State Library of Victoria. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  35. ^ Oliver, Robin (27 November 2000). "Short and sweet". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  36. ^ Phelan, Brendan (1 August 2003). "SPARK: firing on all cylinders". RealTime. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
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