Australian Biography: June Dally-Watkins

2008, 26 Minutes

Entrepreneur and deportment educator June Dally-Watkins is one of Australia’s best known models.

Born in Sydney in 1927, June grew up on a remote property at Watson’s Creek, near Tamworth. Her mother was a single parent—a great stigma at the time—and June kept the story of her birth a secret for much of her life.

When June’s mother took her to Farmers department store in Sydney to ask if she could be a model, a successful career was launched.

In 1950, June started the southern hemisphere’s first personal development school in Sydney to train young women in etiquette and deportment. A year later, she started Australia's first model agency and modelling school and later established a Business Finishing College, juggling her work interests with raising four children.

June is Ambassador-at-Large for the charity, Crossroads International, and continues to be involved personally with her students. In this interview, June muses on her daydreaming youth, successful modelling career and the glamorous Hollywood heyday, how she juggled being a mother of four children with constant work, the effect of hiding her true background most of her life, how she has run a successful business for some 55 years and the importance of keeping up a smile.

A Film Australia National Interest Program. © 2011 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

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