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Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick

Australian model, actress and film maker (1938-2017)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ5146231
Source-derived summary

Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick (5 January 1938 – 12 August 2017) was an Australian model, actress and filmmaker.

Early life

Fitzpatrick was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and was of Irish descent. Fitzpatrick trained as an actor with American Hayes Gordon at The Ensemble Studios of Sydney's Ensemble Theatre. Later in life, she completed a Bachelor of Arts (Communications) majoring in film at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

Career

Modelling

A prominent international catwalk, television and photographic model from 1959 to 1972, Fitzpatrick appeared in over 200 commercials, on countless magazine covers, and was contracted for various campaigns including Ford cars, becoming famous for her comedic flair working with the likes of John Cleese.

Theatre

She was a company member of The Sydney Theatre Company, formerly The Old Tote Theatre Company from 1972 to 1974 appearing in productions of King Lear, Threepenny Opera, Playboy of the Western World, Richard II, Macbeth and David Williamson's What If You Died Tomorrow? opening at the Sydney Opera House in 1973. Other theatre work included Pride and Prejudice, The House of Bernarda Alba, In the Boom Boom Room, Crimes of the Heart for the Ensemble Rep, When in Rome for the Ensemble Theatre, and 'night, Mother and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg for Belvoir St Theatre.

Film and television

Film and television work includes lead roles in The Pleasure Girls made in 1965 about a model finding herself swept up in swinging sixties London, Games for Parents and Other Children, A Girl's Own Story by Jane Campion, Rebel, starring Matt Dillon, the miniseries Bodyline as Don Bradman's mother, Police Rescue, 12 episodes of the Australian series Sons and Daughters as the evil Jean Hopkins, Home and Away, Outbreak of Hostilities, The Four Minute Mile, A Country Practice, Whipping Boy and Soldier Soldier.

Personal life and death

Fitzpatrick was formerly married to actor Max Cullen from 1973 to 1987.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick” is australian model, actress and film maker (1938-2017). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Colleen, Anne and Fitzpatrick, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1938, 2017, 1959, 1972—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1938-01-05. For this dossier, Colleen, Anne and Fitzpatrick is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “australian model, actress and film maker (1938-2017)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5146231. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 2017, 1959 and 1972.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick primary sources, Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick archive and Colleen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.