IPSWICH’S own Logie winning actress and best-selling author Joy Chambers will be remembered for her dominance in the television industry and her enduring love for the city she grew up in.
Joy died peacefully in her sleep on September 17 at the age of 76.
Born in Ipswich in 1947, she was named the inaugural Miss Surf Girl in 1965 by the Queensland Surf Life Saving Club and found a promising career as a model.
She was discovered by her future husband, television tycoon Reg Grundy and was cast as a panellist on his game show I’ve Got A Secret which she featured in for a decade, earning her two Logie Awards in 1969 and 1970 for Most Popular Female Personality.
Joy went on to feature in a number of game shows created by Grundy’s production company including Everybody’s Talking, The Celebrity Game and Blankety Blanks with Graham Kennedy.
She starred in the role of Joy in the television movie All At Sea in 1977 and played the role of Rita Merrick in TV soap opera The Restless Years from 1977-79.
She then played Robyn Porter in The Young Doctors from 1981-82 before being cast in Neighbours as Rosemary Daniels,
Joy made her debut in Neighbours in 1986 and played the role of Rosemary, the businesswoman step-daughter of the show’s matriarch Helen Daniels, until 1998, returning to the Neighbours set in 2005 and in 2010 for a guest appearance.
She married Reg Grundy in 1971 and also worked as a production assistant and writer for a number of Grundy productions and served on the board of Grundys Worldwide.
Her family said Joy was “an exceptional businesswoman” who worked alongside her husband to build one of the largest independent production companies in the world and would be remembered as a Logie award-winning actress, a best-selling author, a poet, a philanthropist.
Joy later pursued a career as an author, writing historical novels since 1990.
Her novels include The Great Deception, Mayfield, For Freedom, Vale Valhalla and The Soldier’s Choice.
Her interest in poetry and literature began in childhood, encouraged by her father.
She was the International Patron of the Ipswich Poetry Feast and often visited the city with Reg.
Members of the Poetry Feast had said both Reg and Joy had been “huge supporters” of the Ipswich Poetry Feast and that Joy was proud to be born in Ipswich.
