Magdalene Mary Therese Szubanski ( zhə-BAN-skee; born 12 April 1961) is an Australian comedian, actor, author, and LGBT rights advocate. She performed in Fast Forward, Kath & Kim as Sharon Strzelecki, and in the films Babe (1995) and Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Happy Feet (2006) and Happy Feet Two (2011). In 2003 and 2004 surveys, she polled as the most recognised and well-liked Australian television personality.
Szubanski has spoken openly about her struggles with intergenerational trauma, anxiety and suicidal ideation in her teens. She became an activist for LGBT rights and, in 2017, advocated for same-sex marriage in Australia. In 2015, Szubanski released her memoir, Reckoning.
Early life and education
Szubanski was born on 12 April 1961, in Liverpool, England and moved to Melbourne, Australia when she was four. Her mother Margaret (née McCarthy) is Scottish-Irish and came from a poor family. Her father, Zbigniew Szubański, came from a well-off Polish family and was an assassin in a counter-intelligence branch of the Polish resistance movement in World War II. She is a cousin of Polish actor Magdalena Zawadzka.
Szubanski attended Siena College, Melbourne. In 1976, as a Year 10 student, she captained a team on the television quiz show It's Academic. Szubanski studied fine arts and philosophy at the University of Melbourne where she attained a Bachelor of Arts.
Television
Szubanski was a writer and performer of sketch comedy. In 1985, while performing in a University of Melbourne revue of Too Cool for Sandals, Szubanski, Michael Veitch, Tom Gleisner and others were talent-spotted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) producers, which led to The D-Generation television sketch comedy show.
Szubanski was one of the creators and performers of the Fast Forward television sketch comedy for the Seven Network, in which she played various characters, including Pixie-Anne Wheatley, Chenille from the Institute de Beauté, Wee Mary MacGregor, Joan Kirner, Michelle Grogan. The character of Lynne Postlethwaite was first performed on the ABC's The D-Generation. It was originally written by John Allsop and Andrew Knight, but from Fast Forward on Szubanski co-wrote the sketches, and created and co-wrote her characters.
In 1995, she and friends Gina Riley and Jane Turner wrote, performed and produced the first all-female Australian sketch comedy television program; Big Girl's Blouse. When Riley and Turner developed sketch-characters they had created into the sitcom Kath & Kim, Szubanski joined them to play Sharon Strzelecki, a character she had previously created. That same year, Szubanski hosted the 37th Australian Film Institute Awards.
In 1999, Szubanski created, wrote, co-produced and played Margaret O'Halloran in the Dogwoman series of TV films, a detective style show based on the idea an expert "dog-whisperer" who, by treating problem dogs, inadvertently stumbles upon and solves human crimes.
In 2009, she appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? where she explored her father's Polish Resistance activities as well as the story of her shell-shocked Irish grandfather and her sculptor ancestor Luigi Isepponi who assisted in making the death mask for William Burke, half of the duo Burke and Hare, notorious grave robbers and serial killers.
From 3 September 2018, Szubanski recurred as Jemima Davies-Smythe on Neighbours. Her character officiated the first same-sex wedding on Australian television.
On 8 April 2019, she appeared as "Guest Announcer" on Chris & Julia's Sunday Night Takeaway's season finale where she participated in a number of roles.
On 9 March 2021, Szubanski was announced as the host of the Nine Network's revival of The Weakest Link. Initially due to premiere on 4 May 2021, it instead premiered on 25 May following a tight production schedule.
Film
Szubanski performed in the 1995 film Babe as Esme Hoggett. She reprised her role in the 1998 sequel, Babe: Pig in the City. She then teamed up again with director/producer George Miller to voice the role of Miss Viola in the animated films Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two.
In 2007, she had a minor role as Mrs Lonsdale, the housemaid in The Golden Compass to Lyra Belacqua.
Musical theatre
In 2007, Szubanski ventured into musical comedy, taking on the role of William Barfee in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of the hit Broadway musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Variety described her performance as "sensationally good". Australian Stage said, "Magda Szubanski as the Eric Cartman-esque William Barfee steals the show."
In 2008, she again participated in some gender-blind casting, taking on the role of pint-sized gangster Big Jule in a major stage production of Guys and Dolls.
In 2010, she appeared in the first Indigenous musical film Bran Nue Dae as Roadhouse Betty alongside Geoffrey Rush, Ernie Dingo, Missy Higgins and Deborah Mailman. The film was directed by Rachel Perkins, daughter of the Aboriginal activist Charlie Perkins.
In 2012, she again teamed with Rush to appear in the Stephen Sondheim musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Art
In 2020, Szubanski was the painted subject of Wendy Sharpe's Archibald Prize entry, a portrait painting competition held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In Sharpe's painting, Comedy and Tragedy, Szubanski is depicted as Sharon Strzelecki, standing amongst flaming buildings during an air raid.
The painting achieved finalist status in the competition; and in an interview with AGNSW, Sharpe commented:
'After an intense conversation with Magda in my Sydney studio, I decided to change my original concept for the portrait and painted her as a despairing version of her comic character/alter ego Sharon. Magda is haunted by her father's traumatic experiences in World War II in the Polish resistance, and by current world events.'
Other projects
In 2004, Szubanski advertised the airline Jetstar. Szubanski became a spokesperson for the dieting company Jenny Craig in November 2008. Szubanski joined Jenny Craig weighing 110 kg and had been diagnosed with sleep apnoea. By July 2009, she had lost 36 kg to weigh 85 kg. She later regained weight, then was dropped as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig. However, subsequent weight loss led to her being re-signed as their spokesperson. She was later again dropped from Jenny Craig. She was also featured in commercials for Telstra in 2014. In 2019, she appeared in an Uber Eats ad in her Sharon Strzelecki character with a "Kim", referencing fellow Kath & Kim character Kim Craig, but who turns out to be Kim Kardashian.
Memoir
In 2015, Szubanski released a memoir, Reckoning, in large part about her father, Zbigniew Szubanski who was a World War 2 Polish Resistance assassin, and dealing with themes of intergenerational trauma, possible genetic inheritance of traumatic memory and Szubanski's struggles with her own sexuality. The book won the TBA and $40,000 Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction and "Book of the Year" and "Biography of the Year" at the Australian Book Industry Awards. Reviewer Peter Craven, in The Australian, said it would "dazzle every kind of reader" and described it as "a riveting, overwhelmingly poignant autobiography by a woman of genius. It is a book about how someone might live with the idea of killing the thing they love. It is a story of love and death and redemption and a daughter's love for her father. It is an extraordinary hymn to the tragic heroism at the heart of ordinary life and the soaring moral scrutiny of womankind. Every library should have it, every school should teach it." Richard Ferguson in The Sydney Morning Herald wrote, "This is documentary writing of the highest order and Szubanski has given life to an incredible war story...Reckoning, this tale of war and suburbia, sexuality and comedy" and referred to Szubanski as an A-grade non-fiction writer.
Actor and friend Geoffrey Rush launched her book and wrote in The Guardian: "I was…