Joy Hruby

Joy Elaine Hruby OAM (1 July 1927 – 21 February 2017) was an Australian actress and entertainer, comedian, TV presenter and interviewer, producer, film-maker, author and celebrity agent with a career spanning more than 50 years. she appeared in theatre roles, as well as television soap operas including, Sons and Daughters and Home and Away and the mini-series Brides of Christ, she also appeared in numerous films and entered films into Tropfest.

Between 2004 and 2014, Hruby was the presenter and producer of her own program, Joy's World, which was screened weekly on community television in Melbourne and Sydney, initially Channel 31, later TVS (Television Sydney), she was known for her brightly coloured feathered costumes and feather boas, as well as her signature sign off line ....and keep on smiling. She fought with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who shut down community television, but found a new audience launching her program online to her website and Youtube

She was born in Taree, NSW, the fourth of five siblings to Grace Adelaide Esther Thomas, a public speaker, union women, community worker and suffragist and Henry "Harry" James Cox , who was a station master at Dubbo during WWII, and ham radio enthusiast and maker of steel guitars, she married Czech jazz pianist Zdenek Hruby in 1954; the couple had three children: actress Anna, Frank and Janette. She studied at the Whitehall Academy of Dramatic Arts and then the J.C. Williamson theatre, and appeared in a production of Othello as Desdemona.

Her contribution to the arts and entertainment was recognised with an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in the 2007 Queen's New Years Honours List. She wrote a wartime memoir, Dubbo Dazzlers, published in 2003, the namesake of a dance troupe she formed in Dubbo during WWII and had previously wrote notes for a biographic titled "The Spectacular Life of Joy Hruby" She won a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for "Half in Ernest"

Joy Hruby died, aged 89 on 21 February 2017. her service was held at Wild Street Anglican Church at Maroubra, NSW.