Dorothy Crawford

Dorothy Muriel Turner Crawford (23 March 1911 – 2 September 1988), other names Dorothy Balderson, Dorothy Strong and Dorothy Smith, was an Australian actress and announcer, as well as a producer in radio and television, who, with her brother Hector Crawford, co-founded the important Australian broadcasting production company Crawford Productions.

Crawford was born on 21 March 1911 at Fitzroy, Melbourne. Her father was a travelling salesperson and her mother was a musician, singer (contralto) and organist. Crawford's younger brother, Hector William Crawford (1913–1991), would also pursue a career in broadcasting.

Crawford won a scholarship to the [Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music| Albert Street Conservatorium] located in East Melbourne, where she was to study voice and piano.

Crawford began to win roles in radio dramas. In 1939 she was cast in the title role in 'Little Audrey', a successful live comedy series on the radio station 3UZ. Although aged 28, Crawford played the role of a young and naughty child.

Crawford became one of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's first three female announcers in Victoria in March 1942, though she had to keep secret her 1931 marriage and the birth of her child because of the ABC's policy not to employ married women.

Dorothy and Hector founded Crawford Productions Pty Ltd (initially called Hector Crawford Productions) in 1945. Dorothy's role for the company was largely around production matters including script-editing and casting. She served as producer on numerous radio series including a dramatisation of the life of Dame Nellie Melba which was broadcast in 1946. The siblings subsidised their productions with The Crawford School of Broadcasting, which taught skills for working in radio, from the 1940s. Noel Ferrier recounts attending the school when he was about 17 or 18 to become a radio actor.

In 1954, Dorothy Crawford founded the Crawford TV Workshop, a school aimed at teaching young people skills for developing careers in television, a medium set to be introduced to Australian airwaves in 1956. A 1956 advertisement in The Argus reads:

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