BACKGROUND

Born on August 23 1947 in Coventry England, Rowena, an only child, moved to Australia with her parents, Margaret & Tom Wallace, at the age of five. She grew up in Cairns and in 1954 she started attending Cairns Central State Primary School. Rowena was a painfully shy and introverted child who hated dolls and literally used to hide behind her mother's skirts. She played a lot of sport and did a lot of swimming for the school as a child. She had friends but kept to herself a lot, spending her time reading. She says she never related very well to people her own age probably due to the fact she was an only child and grew up more as another adult in the family rather than a child.At the age of 12 the family moved to Brisbane where her mother took her to dancing lessons and later persuaded her to join the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane, thinking it would help her to overcome her shyness & to help bring her out of herself, which it did. She took to it like a duck to water and from that moment on acting became her whole life. Rowena has said that she doesn' t consciously remember thinking about becoming an actress, although she did tell her geography teacher that it didn't matter that she was hopeless at geography because she was going to be an actress. She also recalls a report card that came home from school with the remark that Rowena is a very clever mimic. But she said she doesn't recall making a conscious decision inside herself, it just happened that way.

At sixteen Rowena left school and attended a bussiness college (a request insisted upon by her parents when she decided to become an actress), and joined an advertising agency while still performing in the theatre at night. She then joined television in Brisbane as an entertainer on the variety show called Theatre Royal, and she also hosted the afternoon news and weather and a childrens' show.

At the age of nineteen, Rowena was diagnosed with Scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and this condition has plagued Rowena ever since.

Rowena was working in television in Brisbane when Barry Creyton (from Mavis Bramston fame) talked the producers of a new series into flying Rowena down to audition for the lead role in their show. They agreed and Rowena won the role of Margie Harris in You Cant See Round Corners and moved to Sydney. Rowena found herself on the front page of the newspapers after the controversal park scene aired, and more headlines than anyone imagined.

After completeing Corners, Rowena went on to star as the juvenile lead in the hit comedy stage production with renowned performers John McCallum and Googie Withers. The show, Relatively Speaking, played to packed audiences in Melbourne. Rowena didn't cause quite the scandel she had in Corners, but she wasn't prim Margie Harris either, rather, she played a girl who sleeps with her boyfriend and also has a much older man as her lover, and made her entrance on stage wearing only a towel. While touring in Melbourne with the show, Rowena also guest starred in a Contrabandits episode, and joined the party on the liner Fairstar that was held to launch the new season of the ABC TV's series. Along with Contrabandits, she also guest starred in an episode of Hunter while in Melbourne. Rowena celebrated her 21st birthday during this time and her parents, Margaret and Tom, came down from Brisbane to help her celebrate her birthday... "I can't think why anyone should make a fuss; it's just another birthday isn't it?" Between the completion of the series of Corners and her busy schedule in Melbourne, Ro and the other stars of Corners amde a movie version of their hit show, which went on to premier in January, 1969 and was released by Universal Pictures internationally.

Rowena's next endeavour was in a new series called The Rovers. The Rovers struggled with several problems in early production and started with the name of The Sea Rovers followed by Adventure Ahead and then The Seekers before eventually settling on The Rovers. The show was filmed on location at Brooklyn, on the Hawksbury River, near Sydney and release dates for the show were postponed on three seperate occasions. During one time in the filming of the series most of the cast, both regular and guest, fell prone to injury or illness, everything from Hong Kong flu and broken ribs to Koala bites. Rowena's hands were badly swollen after they became infected following sunburn. "I burn very easily and the weather a couple of weeks ago was quite hot on the Hawksbury. I was out on the schooner for days on end and the backs of my hands got very burnt. I rubbed some cream onto them and the specialist thinks that this may have caused the trouble because my hands started to swell badly " While filming the series most of the cast lived on the Hawksbury because of the distance between the filming location and their homes in Sydney. Rowena was given a room at the back of the office " because they wanted to keep an eye on me." The Rovers was a family show that was often refered to as Skippy at sea and it was shown on television during the prime-time hour of 6:30pm on a Saturday evening.

On Feburary 12, 1970, the movie Squeeze A Flower had it's world premier in Sydney. Rowena had starred in the movie as the female lead opposite international film verteran, Walter Chiari. The premier was the biggest first night ever held in the country. The film was made entirely in Australia with the old monastary being located in Manly, Sydney, and the winery used was McWilliams in the Hunter Valley. During Walter Chiari's time in Australia, the cast traveled around on a Promotional tour by way of a bus, and a small documentary was made. Rowena was still on television appearing in The Rovers series alongside Noel Trevarthen and Ted Hepple and in April of that year the Rovers cast traveled down to Tasmania on a promotional venture to take part in the annual Blue Gum Festival parade. The group visited the many sights in Tasmania including Constitution Dock and the latest night spot, the Ball and Chain Tavern.