Joy Elaine HrubyOAM (1 July 1927 – 21 February 2017) was an Australian actress and entertainer, comedian, TV presenter and interviewer, producer, film-maker, author and celebrity agent with a career spanning more than 50 years.[1]
Hruby was born in Taree, New South Wales, the fourth of five siblings to Grace Adelaide Esther Thomas, a public speaker, union woman, community worker and suffragist and Henry "Harry" James Cox, who was a station master at Dubbo during WWII, and ham radio enthusiast and maker of steel guitars. She married Czech jazz pianist Zdenek Hruby in 1954 and the couple had three children: actress Anna Hruby, Frank (a cameraman)[2] and Janette (a former film location caterer).[2][1] Hruby studied at the Whitehall Academy of Dramatic Arts and then the J.C. Williamson theatre, and appeared in a production of Othello as Desdemona.
Hruby also had a community TV program on Channel 31 (later TVS) in Sydney and Melbourne titled Joy's World. She was known for brightly-coloured feathered costumes and feather boas, and her signature sign-off line, "...and keep smiling". After Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull cancelled community television, she launched her own website and YouTube channel.[2]
Her contribution to the arts and entertainment was recognised with an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in the 2007 Queen's New Years Honours List.[3] Published in 2003, she wrote a wartime memoir, Dubbo Dazzlers, which was also the name of a dance troupe she formed in Dubbo during WWII. Hruby had previously written notes for a biography titled The Spectacular Life of Joy Hruby.[3] She won a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Half in Ernest.
