Betty Bobbitt

Betty Ann Bobbitt (February 7, 1939 – November 30, 2020) was an American actress, director, singer, and playwright based in Australia, with a career that spanned over 60 years, encompassing theatre, television, and film.

Bobbitt was best known for her small screen role in TV series Prisoner (known in the UK and North America as Prisoner: Cell Block H and Caged Woman in Canada) as lesbian mother figure Judy Bryant from 1980 to 1985, through 430 episodes.

Bobbitt was the second major star actress to portray a lesbian character in the series after Carol Burns, who played original character Franky Doyle.

In the series the character of Judy was convicted of smuggling drugs so she could be with her lesbian lover Sharon Gilmore in the fictional Wentworth Detention Centre, whilst inside and out of prison she was raped, survived a murder attempt, broke out on two occasions and discovered she had a long lost daughter.

The actress who portrays Judy Bryant's lover in the series Margot Knight, as inmate Sharon Gilmore, returned to the series for a second stint as Prison Officer Terri Malone, coincidently also a lesbian character, this time to regular character Joan Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick), making Knight the only actress to portray an LGBT character as both a prisoner and warden.

On film she had cameo roles appearing opposite Paul Hogan, in several of the Crocodile Dundee series including Crocodile Dundee II (1988), Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001), and the direct-to-video The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee (2020).

Bobbitt died on 30 November 2020, aged 81, following a stroke.