Australian theatre and film identity Wendy Dickson has died at age 92.
Well-known in showbiz circles Down Under for over six decades, Dickson was much admired for her costume and production designer work.
She has worked with legendary Hollywood names such as Meryl Streep and Charlton Heston in her stellar career.
Her major film credits include such classic Aussie films as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), Bliss (1985) and the award-winning drama Evil Angels (1988) in which Meryl Streep and Sam Neill co-starred as Lindy and Michael Chamberlain.
She also won praise for designing the costumes for the epic 1972 Shakespearean drama Antony and Cleopatra with Charlton Heston, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of all time.
Dickson’s passing was announced in the Sydney Morning Herald in September but no details of the cause of death have been released.
Australian theatre and film identity Wendy Dickson has died at age 92. Well-known in showbiz circles Down Under for over six decades, Dickson was much admired for her costume and production design work. Pictured: A scene from Evil Angels with Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. Dickson was the production designer
Dickson won praise for designing the costumes for the epic 1972 Shakespearean drama Antony and Cleopatra with Charlton Heston. (Pictured)
Born in 1932 in the outback city of Broken Hill in NSW, she grew up in Sydney after her father, ALP member William Dickson, began a prominent political career.
Leaving Australia for the UK after finishing her schooling at Sydney Girls High, Dickson studied design and entered the film industry as an assistant.
She worked for the Oscar winning producer and writer Carl Foreman, who s best known for the classic American western High Noon (1952).
She returned to Australia to work in theatre after having worked with famed Welsh stage and screen star Richard Burton.
Racking up an impressive list of credits in Australian theatre in the 1950s and 1960s, Dickson was in demand as a designer when Australian film production soared in the 1970s.
Her credits in this period include the romance Break of Day (1976).
She won plaudits as production designer for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), in which she had to recreate with authentic accuracy the Australia of the early 1900s.
Dickson returned to work with the same director, Fred Schepisi, ten years later on the epic production of Evil Angels (1988).
She won plaudits as production designer for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), in which she had to recreate with authentic accuracy the Australia of the early 1900s. (Pictured)
The film recreated the controversial and notorious case of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain who were charged with murder after a dingo attacked and took their baby from a camping ground at Uluru in 1980.
The couple were later cleared of all charges. Dickson and the film crew were challenged with recreating a precise replica of the camp site in a studio.
Dickson married to the late Australian film director Ken Hannam in 1968, but the pair were divorced in 1986.
A lover of adventure and travel, she trekked through the Himalayas while still in her 70s.
Settling in Sydney’s inner-west by the harbour in Balmain, Dickson spent her post-showbiz career studying French Colonial Architecture.
