June Marie Bennett
Famously known as Shirl, the barmaid from the iconic 1994 film The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, filmed in Broken Hill, June Bennett is now a local and national celebrity. She had no idea what she was in for when she signed up to be an extra in the film.
June Bennett was already a well- known and experienced actor in Broken Hill when she took the role of Shirley in Priscilla. She had a starring role in Hello Dolly! a sell-out for the Broken Hill Repertory Society, under her belt. When the film crew turned up to shoot at the historic Palace Hotel on Argent Street, June became the only extra with a speaking role. What happened next is now screen history.
No one in Broken Hill knew what to expect when the Priscilla film crew came to town, including June. She dug out some old clothes of her husband’s: a white singlet with a shirt over the top and arrived for the audition at the Palace Hotel. The first thing she saw was Guy Pearce in tights standing on top of a piano.
When she was given the part, June expected the wardrobe department to give her something more suitable than her husband’s clothes to wear. She was told that her singlet, without the shirt and with black bra straps showing, was perfect. Shirl’s homophobic character became the star of a bar scene with British actor Terence Stamp, the grande dame of the film’s desert-touring drag queens, along with Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving.
In June’s now-famous scene at the Palace Hotel, the hard-drinking Shirl refuses to serve the drag queens and is humiliated by Terence Stamp’s character, Bernadette. For someone who doesn’t drink, June played a drunk with her signature skill.
When The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert turned 21 in 2015, the Palace Hotel threw a big 21st party: ‘the biggest bash the far west has ever seen’, conceived and coordinated by the hotel’s owner and managing director Esther La Rovere. The party was embraced by the town and marked the beginning of Broken Hill’s now-legendary Broken Heel Festival, which celebrates and acknowledges the colourful and fabulous culture of drag queens, legitimises dressing up, and spotlights the transgender movement locally, nationally and internationally.
After a Lap Of The Main Drag In Drag, a parade along Argent street, drag shows, cocktails, and an ABBA tribute band, on the final night of the first Broken Heel Festival there was an outdoor screening of Priscilla, followed by a Q&A with director Stephan Elliott and June Marie Bennett, a fitting celebration of Broken Hill’s contribution to inclusiveness, diversity and to LGBTQ culture.
In 2012 June Bennett was awarded the Order of Australia for her services to theatre and the community.
Audio transcript available.