Rowena Wallace

English-born Australian actress, most especially in the genre of soap opera. She is best known for her Gold Logie-winning role as Patricia "Pat the Rat" Hamilton/Morrell/Palmer in Sons and Daughters (1982-1985, 1987). An only child, Wallace moved to Australia with her parents when she was five. Initially she grew up in Cairns and later moved to Brisbane at the age of 12 years. There, she attended high school and joined the Twelfth Night Theatre. At age fifteen, having left school, Wallace decided to become an actress. She joined an advertising agency while still performing in the theatre at night. Her first television role was in Brisbane as an entertainer on the variety show Theatre Royal. She also hosted the afternoon news and weather and a childrens show. At the age of nineteen, Wallace was diagnosed with scoliosis (curvature of the spine). She has required painkillers almost continuously since then. While Wallace was working in television in Brisbane, Barry Creyton persuaded the producers of a new series to fly her down to Sydney to audition for the lead role in their show; as a result Wallace won the role of Margie Harris in You Cant See Round Corners (1967) and moved to Sydney. After completing Corners, she went on to star as the juvenile lead in a hit comedy stage production with John McCallum and Googie Withers. The show, Relatively Speaking, played to packed audiences in Melbourne. Wallace co-starred in the TV series The Rovers (1969-1970) and the film Squeeze a Flower (1970), opposite international film veteran, Walter Chiari. In 1973 she married George Assang (1927-1997), a Thursday Island-born jazz singer known professionally as Vic Sabrino. They had co-starred in the TV series Barrier Reef (1970-1972), the first series in the world to feature extensive colour underwater filming on location. The marriage lasted just over a year, and Wallace has had no long-term relationships since then. In the late 1970s she appeared frequently in Australian television, with an ongoing role in the soap opera Number 96 (1975–1976), followed by a regular role in the police drama Cop Shop (1977-1979), playing policemans wife Pamela Taylor. After leaving that series she played a mentally unbalanced remand prisoner named Anne Griffin in Prisoner for several weeks in late 1980. Wallaces most famous role was in the soap opera "Sons and Daughters," in which she played Patricia Dunne/Hamilton/Morrell/Palmer; starting in 1982. Nicknamed Pat the Rat, the character became an immensely popular bitch figure in the series; its most famous character. In 1984, Wallace won a Gold Logie for her role. Wallace left Sons and Daughters after three years, with her final scenes going to air early in 1985 just after her Gold Logie win. The popularity of her character led to it being recast, with Belinda Giblin assuming the role of a returning Patricia after extensive cosmetic surgery had altered her facial features. Late in the shows run, with ratings in decline, Wallace was returned to the series in an attempt to boost the shows popularity. With Giblin remaining in the show, Wallace now played a new character, that of Patricias long-lost identical twin sister Pamela. Between July 1999 and November 2003, Wallace was collecting a disability support pension, despite being actively employed by television series such as Water Rats, Beauty and the Beast, and Good Morning Australia. In October 2005, she was charged with social security fraud, and given a suspended sentenc Read less