Jane Clifton is the genuine show-business all-rounder. Actress, singer, writer and registered civil celebrant.
A B.A.(1972) graduate from Monash University’s halcyon days of sex and demos and rock ‘n roll, Jane was distracted from a promising career as an English teacher by Melbourne’s burgeoning, alternative theatre and music scene.
The dim lights of Carlton’s La Mama, the Pram Factory, the Flying Trapeze, T.F.Much Ballroom and the Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant beckoned. While the allure of singing in bands with names like Scumbag, Toads and Lipp and the Double Dekker Brothers proved irresistible.
Despite these arty beginnings, Jane has managed to carve out a 5 decade-long, show-business career. Including:
- a string of minor roles in numerous early Australian TV shows from Division 4, Homicide, Ryan, Bluey to Holiday Island,
- fronting the ground-breaking feminists-on-Countdown band STILETTO,
- being part of the smash-hit stage shows MUM’S THE WORD and
- MENOPAUSE – THE MUSICAL
- her top 10 pop singles GIRL ON THE WALL (solo) and TAXI MARY (with Jo Jo Zep).
- penning 3 published crime novels – Half Past Dead (Text 2002), A Hand in the Bush (Text 2005) Flush (Clandestine Press 2013), a memoir –
- The Address Book ( Penguin 2011) and an anthology of poetry A Day At A Time In Rhyme (Littlefox 2019).
- Jane’s solo CD The Marriage of Style (April 2003)
Her 2022 solo show A Day At A Time In Rhyme (based on her poetry anthology of the same name) premiered at La Mama, Carlton and in 2024 undertook a 2-month, 17 date Regional Arts Victoria tour.
Notwithstanding all of the above, Jane will always be best remembered for a role she played 45 years ago: MARGO in Prisoner/Cell-Block H.
Feeling she needed another hobby that didn’t pay, Jane began painting during the COVID lockdowns of 2019, working mostly in acrylic on canvas. Her first exhibition opened at Marios’ Café, Fitzroy on April 9th, 2024. Her 2nd – also at Marios’ – opened on Feb 11th 2025.
Jane currently: continues her long-running, Thursday night singing residency at Claypots Evening Star, Sth Melbourne, is writing her Memoir of a Very Civil Celebrant (while continuing to conduct weddings and funerals), had a guest role in S(0)4 of Fisk, appeared in the 50th anniversary special of ABCTV Countdown and is painting a lot.