Josephine O'Neill

Josephine O'Neill (15 December 1905 – 28 February 1968) was an Australian film critic, journalist and poet.

Josephine O'Neill
Born	(1905-12-15)15 December 1905 Dunedin, New Zealand
Died	28 February 1968(1968-02-28) (aged 62) Sydney, New South Wales
Education	St Dominic's College
Alma mater	University of Otago
Occupation(s)	Film critic and poet
Years active	1932–1968

Early life and education

O'Neill was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on 15 December 1905. She was the first-born child of Josephine (née Monaghan) and doctor Eugene Joseph O'Neill. She completed her secondary schooling at St Dominic's College and graduated from the University of Otago in 1927 with a BA.^[1]

Career

O'Neill moved to Sydney in 1928 and, with her sister Helen O'Neill, she established Aunt Ann's Aid, based on a London business known as Universal Aunts and the Useful Women. Jobs undertaken included mending clothes, visiting patients, accompanying children and shopping.^[2] They advertised in The Sun^[3] and The Sydney Morning Herald^[4] for two months and in June 1928 The Land announced that it would publish "Aunt Ann", a column answering women's questions on shopping and domestic issues.^[5] Aunt Ann's Aid advertised in The Land in 1928^[6] (but no column appeared), and in 1929 in The Muswellbrook Chronicle^[7] and The Canberra Times.^[8]

O'Neill's short stories and poems appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald,^[9][10] The Sun^[11] and the Sydney Mail^[12] from 1929.

A short story by O'Neill was included in the 1932 inaugural issue of Ink, published to raise funds to enable the Society of Women Writers of New South Wales to provide assistance to members in need.^[1]

An early film review by O'Neill of Dracula and of the making of Frankenstein appeared in The Sun in December 1931.^[13] Two months earlier The Daily Telegraph had published her review of the play Street Scene, produced by Doris Fitton for the Independent Theatre.^[14] From May 1932 her reviews were published regularly in "The Daily Telegraph Talkie Section", This Week's Films and other film columns in that paper.^[15] She also wrote a chat column, "life-lines" for a year from mid-1939^[16][17] but her main focus remained on film reviews.

O'Neill appeared on radio in Harry Dearth's "Leave it to the Girls" alongside fellow journalist Elizabeth Riddell and two others from 1951 to 1955.^[1]

From 1957 she wrote film and theatre reviews for The Sydney Morning Herald and the "Show Business" column for the Sun-Herald.^[1]

O'Neill died suddenly in Sydney of a heart attack on 28 February 1968.^[1] In an obituary of fellow critic Sylvia Lawson, Tom O'Regan wrote referred to O'Neill as "the doyenne of Australian film reviewers from the 1940s to her early death in 1968",^[18] while ... named her as one of "Australia’s first wave of significant film critics, who came to prominence in the 1930s" along with Beatrice Tildeseley, Erle Cox and Kenneth Slessor.^[19]

References

1. Horne, Julia, "Josephine O'Neill (1905–1968)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 29 November 2023
2. "Aunt Ann's Aid". The Sun. No. 1308. New South Wales, Australia. 22 April 1928. p. 1 (The Sun Sunday). Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
3. "Advertising". The Sun. No. 1308. New South Wales, Australia. 22 April 1928. p. 23. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
4. "Advertising". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 28, 194. New South Wales, Australia. 16 May 1928. p. 1. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
5. "The "Land" Shopping". The Land. Vol. XVIII, no. 908. New South Wales, Australia. 15 June 1928. p. 18. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
6. "Advertising". The Land. Vol. XVIII, no. 925. New South Wales, Australia. 12 October 1928. p. 18. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
7. "Advertising". The Muswellbrook Chronicle. Vol. 8, no. 41. New South Wales, Australia. 24 May 1929. p. 11. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
8. "Display Advertising". The Canberra Times. Vol. 4, no. 616. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 9 October 1929. p. 5. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
9. "Omar". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 28, 478. New South Wales, Australia. 13 April 1929. p. 13. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
10. "For the Children". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 28, 508. New South Wales, Australia. 18 May 1929. p. 13. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
11. "One to Two". The Sun. No. 1367. New South Wales, Australia. 9 June 1929. p. 7 (Supplement to The Sun). Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
12. "Spring-Cleaning". Sydney Mail. Vol. XXXVI, no. 915. New South Wales, Australia. 9 October 1929. p. 29. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
13. "–Gives Us HORROR!". The Sun. No. 1498. New South Wales, Australia. 13 December 1931. p. 24. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
14. "Grim Realism". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. 1, no. 211. New South Wales, Australia. 19 October 1931. p. 9. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
15. ""The Daily Telegraph" Talkie Section". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. 2, no. 78. New South Wales, Australia. 16 May 1932. p. 7. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
16. "life – lines". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. IV, no. 81. New South Wales, Australia. 24 June 1939. p. 6. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
17. "life – lines". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. V, no. 61. New South Wales, Australia. 1 June 1940. p. 7. Retrieved 30 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
18. O'Regan, Tom (8 November 2017). "Demanding the impossible". Inside Story. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
19. Walmsley-Evans, Huw; O'Regan, Tom; Mead, Philip (August 2015). "Kenneth Slessor and the Sound Cinema: The "Chief Film Critic whose Reviews are Accepted as the Most Reliable in Australia"". Screening the Past. Retrieved 30 November 2023.